Natalie Angier reviews The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris:
It’s not often that I see my florid strain of atheism expressed in any document this side of the Seine, but ”The End of Faith” articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated, almost personally understood. Sam Harris presents major religious systems like Judaism, Christianity and Islam as forms of socially sanctioned lunacy, their fundamental tenets and rituals irrational, archaic and, important when it comes to matters of humanity’s long-term survival, mutually incompatible. A doctoral candidate in neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles, Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say in contemporary America: ”We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common, we call them ‘religious’; otherwise, they are likely to be called ‘mad,’ ‘psychotic’ or ‘delusional.’ ” To cite but one example: ”Jesus Christ — who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens — can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?” The danger of religious faith, he continues, ”is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy.”
More here from the New York Times.