End of Faith

Last month, I saw Christopher Hitchens. While talking with the atheists at my table, I was told Sam Harris' book "The End of Faith" was the most damning book to come from the new atheists. Of course, my local library (being a endless font of heretics and apostates) had a copy for me...

There is a lot to cover, and I have just started, so I will break the review up over several posts...

Harris starts with a rather bizarre proposition - on page 13 he says:

"criticizing a person's faith is currently taboo in every corner of our culture"

Um, hello, McFly? You just sold a New York Times bestseller criticizing every faith! I regularly criticize people's faith (whether it be in nothing or themselves). I have yet to be stoned or tarred and feathered. I don't even get that many nasty looks :) People are usually very open to talking about faith.

Harris reveals much of his assumptions in a statement on page 22:

"If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become more useful, rather than less." [emphasis in original]

Two points here, one is an evolutionary assumption: everything is changing and getting better all the time. I think I've said enough about that...

The second is that I partially agree with him. Christian doctrine is more useful today - since it is most being ignored! Of course, it is doctrine which has been around for two thousand years...