The End of Faith

Author	Sam Harris
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Religion
Genre(s)	Polemic
Publisher	W.W. Norton
Publication date	2004
Media type	Hardcover, Paperback, Audio book
ISBN	ISBN 0-743-26809-1

Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith in what he has described as a period of "collective grief and stupefaction" following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book comprises a wide-ranging criticism of all styles of religious belief. It was first published in August 2004, and the following year was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.^[1] A paperback edition was published in October 2005. In the same month it entered the New York Times Best Seller list at number four, and remained on the list for a total of 33 weeks.^[2] Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Sam Harris Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American author with active interests in philosophy, religion and neuroscience. ... In political geography and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Look up Polemic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... W. W. Norton & Company is an American book publishing company. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Cassette recording of Patrick OBrians The Mauritius Command An audio book is a recording of the contents of a book read aloud. ... ISBN-13 represented as EAN-13 bar code (in this case ISBN 978-3-16-148410-0) The International Standard Book Number, ISBN, is a unique[1] commercial book identifier barcode. ... Sam Harris Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American author with active interests in philosophy, religion and neuroscience. ... A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11—pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... Various Religious symbols, including (first row) Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Bahai, (second row) Islamic, tribal, Taoist, Shinto (third row) Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Jain, (fourth row) Ayyavazhi, Triple Goddess, Maltese cross, pre-Christian Slavonic Religion is the adherence to codified beliefs and rituals that generally involve a faith in a spiritual... Faith has two general implications which can be implied either exclusively or mutually; To Trust: Believing a certain variable will act a specific way despite the potential influence of known or unknown change. ... PEN American Center (PEN), founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. ... The New York Times Best Seller List is a weekly chart in The New York Times newspaper that keeps track of the best-selling books of the week. ...

Synopsis

The End of Faith opens with a literary account of a day in the life of a suicide bomber – his last day. In an introductory chapter, Harris calls for an end to respect and tolerance for the competing belief systems of religion, which he describes as being "all equally uncontaminated by evidence." While focusing on the dangers posed by religious groups now armed with the latest technology, Harris is equally critical of religious moderation, which he describes as "the context in which religious violence can never be adequately opposed." A suicide attack is an attack on a military or civilian target, in which an attacker — either an individual or a group — intends to kill others and knows he or she will most likely die (see suicide). ... For the album, see Weapons of Mass Destruction (album). ...

Harris continues by examining the nature of belief itself, challenging the notion that we can in any sense enjoy freedom of belief – for as he points out, "belief is a fount of action in potentia." Instead he posits that in order to be useful, beliefs must be both logically coherent, and truly representative of the real world. Insofar as religious belief fails to ground itself in empirical evidence, Harris likens religion to a form of mental illness which, he says, "allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy." A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence or consequences that are observable by the senses. ... A mental illness or mental disorder refers to one of many mental health conditions characterized by distress, impaired cognitive functioning, atypical behavior, emotional dysregulation, and/or maladaptive behavior. ...

Harris follows this with a brief survey of Christianity down the ages, taking in the Inquisition and the historic persecution of witches and Jews. He contends that, far from being an aberration, the torture of heretics was simply a logical expression of Christian doctrine – one which, he says, was clearly justified by men such as Saint Augustine. Going still further, Harris sees the Holocaust as essentially drawing its inspiration from traditional Christian anti-Semitism. "Knowingly or not," he says, "the Nazis were agents of religion." Christianity percentage by country, purple is highest, orange is lowest Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Wycliffe Tyndale · Luther · Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch... Inquisition (capitalized I) is broadly used, to refer to things related to judgment of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he... Look up Heresy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... “Augustinus” redirects here. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ... National Socialism redirects here. ...

Possibly the most controversial aspect of The End of Faith is an uncompromising assessment and criticism of Islam, which Harris describes as being a "cult of death." He infers a clear link between Islamic teaching and terrorist atrocities such as 9/11, something which he backs up with five pages of quotations from the Koran. He also presents some Pew Research data, showing that significant percentages of Muslims worldwide would justify suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic. In an attack on what he terms "leftist unreason," Harris criticises Noam Chomsky among others for, in his view, displaying an illogical willingness to lay the entire blame for such attitudes upon U.S. foreign policy. For people named Islam, see Islam (name). ... A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11—pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... The Qur’ān [1] (Arabic: ;, literally the recitation; also sometimes transliterated as Quran, Koran, or Alcoran) is the central religious text of Islam. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... A suicide attack is an attack on a military or civilian target, in which an attacker — either an individual or a group — intends to kill others and knows he or she will most likely die (see suicide). ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) , Ph. ... For a history, see Timeline of United States diplomatic history For the published diplomatic papers, see The Foreign Relations of the United States For Foreign relations under George W. Bush, see Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. ...

However, Harris makes an equally strong critique of the role of the Christian right in contemporary America, in influencing such areas as sex and drugs policy, stem-cell research, and AIDS prevention in the developing world. In what he sees as a steady drift towards theocracy, Harris strongly criticises leading figures from both the legislature and the judiciary, for what he perceives as an unashamed failure to separate church and state in their various domains. "Not only do we still eat the offal of the ancient world," he says, "we are positively smug about it." Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The term Christian Right is used... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For the general concept, see Prohibitionism. ... Mouse embryonic stem cells with fluorescent marker. ... Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a collection of symptoms and infections resulting from the specific damage to the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). ... For the Jamaican reggae band, see Third World (band). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... A legislature is a type of representative deliberative assembly with the power to adopt laws. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      In law, the judiciary or judicial is the system of courts which administer justice in the name of the sovereign or state, a mechanism for the resolution of disputes. ... Constantines Conversion, depicting the conversion of Emperor Constantine the Great to Christianity, by Peter Paul Rubens. ...

Next, Harris goes on to outline what he terms a "science of good and evil" – a rational approach to ethics, which he claims must necessarily be predicated upon questions of human happiness and suffering. He talks about the need to sustain "moral communities," a venture in which he feels that the separate religious moral identities of the saved and the damned can play no part. But Harris is critical of the stance of moral relativism, and also of what he calls "the false choice of pacifism." In a controversial passage, he even goes so far as to argue in favour of the use of judicial torture under certain conditions. Ethics (via Latin from the Ancient Greek moral philosophy, from the adjective of Ä“thos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ... In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. ... Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage. ... Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he...

Finally, Harris turns to spirituality where he takes his inspiration from the practices of Eastern religion, arguing that as far as Western spirituality is concerned, "we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs." He discusses the nature of consciousness, and how our sense of "self" can be made to vanish by employing the techniques of meditation. To support his claims, Harris quotes from Eastern mystics such as Padmasambhava, but he does not admit any supernatural element into his argument – "mysticism is a rational enterprise," he says, "religion is not." Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. ... Eastern religion refers to religions that are mostly either Indian or Chinese in origin: The Dharma faiths of Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism; and the Chinese religious philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... A large statue in Bangalore depicting Shiva meditating Meditation describes a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. ... Guru Rinpoche - Padmasambhava statue - near Kullu, India Padmasambhava (also Padmakara or Padma Raja) (Ch: 蓮華生上師, Pinyin: Lian Hua Sheng Shang Shi; Tib: Pema Jungne, Wylie: padma byung gnas), in Sanskrit meaning lotus-born, is said to have brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet in the 8th century. ... Look up Supernatural in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Criticism

Some of the strongest criticism of The End of Faith has come from an unexpected quarter – the humanist press. In a review for Free Inquiry, the editor Tom Flynn alleged that Harris had allowed his argument to become clouded by his personal politics and his use of spiritual language.^[3] Harris later described Flynn's review as "mixed, misleading, and ultimately exasperating."^[4] Another review by David Boulton for New Humanist, also stopped short of a ringing endorsement, describing the book as containing "startling oversimplifications, exaggerations and elisions."^[5] Humanism[1] is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities—particularly rationality. ... Free Inquiry is a bi-monthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary, published by the Council for Secular Humanism. ... New Humanist is the leading journal of atheism, secularism and freethought in the UK. It has been published for 120 years, starting out as Wattss Literary Guide in November 1885. ...

Writing for The Independent, Johann Hari was largely encouraging but also expressed considerable reservations about Harris's political leanings, and revealed how he "began to choke" while reading the final chapter on spirituality.^[6] Other broadly positive reviews have come from Natalie Angier,^[7] Daniel Blue,^[8] and Stephanie Merritt.^[9] Richard Dawkins has also endorsed the book.^[10] The Independent is a British compact newspaper published by Tony OReillys Independent News & Media. ... Johann Hari (born January 21, 1979) is a British journalist and writer. ... Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. ... Natalie Angier is a science writer for the New York Times. ... Stephanie Merritt (born 1974 in Surrey) is a critic and feature writer for various publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, Zembla and Die Welt. ... Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941) is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. ...

Critical reviews from Christians have included those by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. for The Christian Post,^[11] and Matthew Simpson for Christianity Today.^[12] The paperback edition of The End of Faith, published in 2005, contained a new afterword in which Harris responded to some of the more popular criticisms he has received since publication. Harris's 2006 book, Letter to a Christian Nation, was written as a full response to feedback he received following the publication of The End of Faith. Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      A Christian () is a person who... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Christian Post is a pan-denominational, Evangelical-leaning Christian newspaper based in Washington, D.C.. It is an operating division of The Christian Post Company - a multimedia firm whose principal member productions include digital publications ( www. ... Christianity Today is an Evangelical Christian periodical based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ... Letter to a Christian Nation is a non-fiction book by Sam Harris, written in response to feedback he received following the publication of his first book The End of Faith. ...

References

External links

• Official website