11 responses so far ↓

• 1 the narrator // Sep 23, 2006 at 12:08 am

  this book calls out to me everytime i peruse the religion section at borders, but i have to keep convincing myself that i don’t have time and need to spend what i do have reading books pertinent to my schooling right now.

• 2 Chris Rusch // Sep 23, 2006 at 7:55 am

  In and out Burger would be about as swanky as I can afford right now. That is, after buying plane tickets from Georgia.

• 3 Miko // Sep 23, 2006 at 10:17 am

  I hate this author. Every word he writes makes me react with almost (and sometimes actual) visceral revulsion. But that probably means that he’s saying something that I need to hear.

• 4 John // Sep 23, 2006 at 1:04 pm

  Narrator, we’ll miss your input, but Chris, I hope you’ll join in virtually.

  My standards of swank are pretty low anyway.

  Gooood, your hatred has made you strong, young Miko…

• 5 Jonathan // Sep 23, 2006 at 5:49 pm

  I agree with you Miko — he is excessively and unnecessarily acidic towards people of faith. I was hoping for a less-opinionated, non-insulting, objective and logicial discussion on the subject.

  I’d definately like to join the fray by first and foremost commenting on posts that are found here and on other regular visitor’s websites. Less importantly though, I would also like to take a humble stab at a post on my little weblog too John, I guess I’ll email you the url directly to the post.

• 6 Matt Thurston // Sep 24, 2006 at 12:23 pm

  For the record, I’m on page 80…

  Glad to see there are a couple of Harris-haters weighing in — should make for some provocative discussion.

  Love him or hate him, you have to admit his writing just jumps off the page. To whit:

  The two countries [refering to India and Pakistan] have since fought three official wars, suffered a continuous bloodletting at their shared border, and are now poised to exterminate one another with nuclear weapons simply because they disagree about “facts” that are every bit as fanciful as the names of Santa’s reindeer.

• 7 Miko // Sep 28, 2006 at 10:11 am

  I put down this book for a good week to avoid throwing it. I’ve been reading it with pencil in hand, more because I read more actively that way than in preparation for the book club meeting (I feel so Oprah!). But now that I’ve picked it back up, I have fodder for cheers & jeers.

  In the interest of full disclosure, ever since reading Franken’s Lies, I’ve been deeply suspicious about people with endnotes. On the shallow hand, it means I need to keep two bookmarks; on the slightly more thoughtful hand, it really does make me wonder what made him think that I wouldn’t want to read his extra thoughts. A surprising number of his endnotes are (in contrast to what I would expect from a scholarly piece) almost parenthetical comments. Maybe I should take up the practice of end-noting my blogs…

  Mr. Harris seems to be unique, to me, because he is a fanatical atheist. I would wager that most atheists, and certainly most agnostics, are moderates. Mr. Harris has more in common with my father than either of them, I think, would like to admit. Perhaps this is why it is so difficult for me to read: so much about religion is forced down our proverbial throats without so much as a by-your-leave.

  John & I discussed how to approach commenting about this book: by topic? by chapter? by argument? I said that, since Harris is undoubtedly an intelligent writer, by chapter would mean by argument. Now that I’m more familiar with is work, I wonder if he would object to my nomenclature. Although he appears to be writing to convince people, that is, arguing (in the apologetic & debating sense), he is coming from such a dogmatic place that he’s asserting. He does not, for example, say, ‘We should acknowledge that faith has had its day and is no longer necessary for our survival as a species’ but “We must [acknowledge that...] faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.” (p.48)

• 8 Elise // Oct 10, 2006 at 9:38 am

  I came across the following quote by Thomas Jefferson this weekend while visiting the Jeffereson Memorial in DC:

  “…all men shall be free to profess and by argument maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”

  It immediately reminded me of Harris’s book because he points out that one’s religious belief is something that can often be professed to without any type of scientific of rational logic to back it up. (I don’t have the book with me, so sorry this is just a vague reference to an idea I remember toward the beginning of the book.)

  This idea of maintaining my opinions in matters of religion by argument is appealing and is one of the reasons I frequent MindOnFire and why I was originally interested in “The End of Faith.”

• 9 Reg // Oct 12, 2006 at 4:08 pm

  NPR has a story today about a new book out by Andrew Sullivan, an English-born, gay, Catholic, American Conservative (I’d actually call him a European Conservative, but he votes in the US). The article is worth a read/listen to and the book, too, may be a good balance to Harris. In the interview, he says

  No, [I'm not a fundamentalist,] I’m a person of faith that actually believes that belief is something that you hold when no one is watching. My view about faith is that it’s integral to doubt, as well, and that without doubt you don’t fully have faith. And the kind of religious certainty and absolutism that you see, now, across the world in all the major religions‚ÄîChristianity, but particularly Islam and even in Judaism in the Middle East‚Äîis a terrible poison for our political discourse and, indeed, for world peace. And I wanted to try, in the book, to say, “It’s possible to oppose fundamentalism without opposing faith.”

  Which is certainly a view I’d like to hear him & Harris discuss.

• 10 Watt Mahoun // Oct 12, 2006 at 4:39 pm

  Reg,

  You asked for it, you got it.

  KCRW – The Politics of Culture
  TUE OCT 3, 2006
  The Philosophy of Religion
  Listen to Podcast

  Are the world’s major religions truly incompatible? KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour talks with authors Sam Harris, Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Kirsch about the philosophy of religion in today’s modern world.

  It’s surprising (but not really) how much these two are in agreement. On Sullivan’s own blog he says:

  My correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith. On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

  This may seem like frank acquiescence to the charge that “liberals are soft on terrorism.” It is, and they are. A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world ‚Äî for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise,” – Sam Harris, author of the compelling book, “The End of Faith.”

  I didn’t agree with all of that book, but am very grateful for it. The position Harris holds in this war is roughly mine: as defenders of the West, we can neither let our guard down against the evil we confront nor the abuse of power in our own governments. The test of this long war will be to fight on both fronts simultaneously. Not easy. But it is the calling of our generation.

• 11 Reg // Oct 13, 2006 at 9:25 am

  W00t! thanx for the link, Watt!

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