The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

An extremely important book for rational thinkers.

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The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Harris
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Product Description:

An impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith.
This important and timely book delivers a startling analysis of the clash of faith and reason in today's world. Harris offers a vivid historical tour of mankind's willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are used to justify harmful behavior and sometimes heinous crimes. He asserts that in the shadow of weapons of mass destruction, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that we cannot afford moderate lip service to religion?-an accommodation that only blinds us to the real perils of fundamentalism. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris also draws on new evidence from neuroscience and insights from philosophy to explore spirituality as a biological, brain-based need. He calls on us to invoke that need in taking a secular humanistic approach to solving the problems of this world.



Editorial Reviews


Natalie Angier, The New York Times Book Review
An important book, on a topic that...should not be shielded from the crucible of human reason.

The Economist
Will strike a chord with anyone who has ever pondered the irrationality of religious faith and its cruel, murderous consequences.

The San Francisco Chronicle
[Harris] writes with such verve and frequent insight that even skeptical readers will find it hard to put down.

Joseph C. Hough, Jr., President, Union Theological Seminary, New York
Here is a ringing challenge to all Americans.

Peter Singer, author of The President of Good and Evil
At last we have a book that...links Islamic terrorism with the irrationality of all religious faith.

Alan Dershowitz, author of America on Trial
Harris's tour de force demonstrates how faith...threatens our very existence... A must read for all rational people.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this sometimes simplistic and misguided book, Harris calls for the end of religious faith in the modern world. Not only does such faith lack a rational base, he argues, but even the urge for religious toleration allows a too-easy acceptance of the motives of religious fundamentalists. Religious faith, according to Harris, requires its adherents to cling irrationally to mythic stories of ideal paradisiacal worlds (heaven and hell) that provide alternatives to their own everyday worlds. Moreover, innumerable acts of violence, he argues, can be attributed to a religious faith that clings uncritically to one set of dogmas or another. Very simply, religion is a form of terrorism for Harris. Predictably, he argues that a rational and scientific view?-one that relies on the power of empirical evidence to support knowledge and understanding?-should replace religious faith. We no longer need gods to make laws for us when we can sensibly make them for ourselves. But Harris overstates his case by misunderstanding religious faith, as when he makes the audaciously naïve statement that "mysticism is a rational enterprise; religion is not." As William James ably demonstrated, mysticism is far from a rational enterprise, while religion might often require rationality in order to function properly. On balance, Harris's book generalizes so much about both religion and reason that it is ineffectual.

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