The End of Faith

By: Sam Harris

Narrated by: Brian Emerson

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Here is an impassioned plea for reason in a world divided by faith. This important and timely work 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, the world can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that the 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.

©2007 Sam Harris (P)2004 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

great overall but a bit of an apologist for..

great overall but a bit of an apologist for....the tyranny of the Israeli government against the palestinians. this was a major blind spot in this book, aside from that it's mostly quite brilliant.

Transcripted dialogue of learning religion... WTF?

This book is the confession of all of our thoughts on religion, except he researched and analyzed every thought, while most of, if we were brave, asked our parents for their biased opinion on the "facts" of life. Harris dissected every belief, benefit, and fear related to religion. He determines what the world would be like without religion and how we get there. This book is for everyone sick of contradicting themselves and ready to accept that religion is doing more harm than good. We are good people that need to make THIS world a better place, not seperate, kill, or judge others as we wait for Heaven. It's a call to action to question everything and change power to more rational people. A must read! I thought I knew about these truths, but not to this extent, excited to have the Vail lifted and see the detriment of religion everywhere! Let's get family planning practices out there, science will be taught, girls will have rights, things that make sense must happen. Let's diappoint all our parents by growing up to be rational beings that don't succumb to pressure when they demand you babtise your kids, but instead teach them communication tactics and the value of forgiveness in developing friends. The old ways will eventually die and we'll all realize we could have done more for the whole world, not just our family.

utterly perfect

All that Harris is saying, I have thought my entire life and tried to convey unto others.

Every sentence is a gem. A must-read for all ethical humans.

It's a superbly lucid account of why even moderate religiocity is dangerous - it susoehds reason. And that leads to a normalization of such suspense of reason in societies and polities writ large (and then comes suspense of reason in Nazi Germany, Maoist China, Stalin's Russia).
This is a sharp observation.

Another sharp observation is that religion contributed zero added-value to human morality - humans were more moral than the god of Abrahamic religions at the time the scriptures were "revealed".
The god of Abraham is unworthy of being called a human being or our neighbor. He is a criminal worthy of a life in prison by standards or all times (read the Old Testament).

The only angels that exist are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, love. Our devils are ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith (because it suspends reason), which is devil's masterpiece.

There's no need to perpetuate this backwardness: No myths need be embraced to love our neighbors, to understand that our happiness is inextricable of their own, that we gain from equal opportunities of all humans to flourish. We can awe at the grandeur/immensity of evolution and laws of nature already now, without retorting to obscene leaps of faiths.

The author urges us to stand up and speak up. It's not about a blind embrace of atheism as a dogma. The problem is the religious and political / cultural dogma itself. Any dogma. No society suffered because it became too reasonable. Certainty without evidence is a recipe for disaster. Think of bizarre cultural taboos, divine origin of immoral scriptures, resulting diminished status of women, and then we get actual believers in all the tenets of the dogma - middle-class engineers flying planes into buildings or supreme court justices undermining the foundations of liberal societies.
Outright delusion is elevated in the discourse of multiculturalism. And yet what is best in us - reason, intellectual honesty - remains concealed for fear of giving offence to holders of faiths (while these take it as a virtue to annihilate the multiculturally-minded neighbors).

The post-religion pathway is simple: Honest answers to all questions, genuine inquiry, criticism, extended (to all sentient beings, not just humans) moral identity.

Where we have reasons to believe, there's no need of faith. Where we have no reasons to believe, there comes faith and with it, we lose connection to the world, to morality, and with it, to one another. Holding strong convictions without evidence should finally have no place in our society if it's to be moral, not a single such individual shall be in the halls of power as they are today.

The only thing to respect in a person's faith can be their drive to better lives of their brethren in this world. But there's no such creeds in religions.

Nothing is more sacred for atheists than the facts and openness to new evidence. Happiness of worldly life with no harm to others, the harm being that you wouldn't want to deliver to yourself, this is the ultimate measure of moral achievement. This will lead to reduction of all kinds of suffering (political, physical, economic).

What a breath of fresh moral air. What an esteemed goal to pursue, what a better world to envision and to emerge out of such a pathway.
Kudos to the bravery of the author. A must-read. And a must-implement for all.

Potent writings for reason and logic over dogma and blind faith

Good read, I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to understand more of the world through their own eyes.

my first book by Sam Harris

This book was very well thought out and conveyed almost perfectly. It's clear Sam has done his research and holds no quarter when it comes to explaining the absurdity of religion and the future it will have upon all of us. It's explained respectfully, and shows the reader that even though it's taboo to question a person's religion, that an examination needs to be and should be done by all thinking people.

great read for today's problems

wish sam actually narrated it. though was easy to tell his writing style . great listen. couldn't stop

Must read for all people

Even if you disagree with everything Sam says you owe it to the world to arm your self with this information if just to rebut it. Many people of faith take this in strides and agree; assuming their not pushing their beliefs on others.

Enjoy.

Bad reader

The reader sounded like a preacher turned news anchor. His over inflectioned reading was painful to listen to for the duration and made focusing quite difficult. I’d suggest going old school and reading the book. Other than that the quality of the content is unmatched in its value. Buy the book and read it.

Great read, if you can handle honesty.

If you can handle political incorrectness, then this book is for you. This book delves deep into what divides or world.