THE END OF FAITH --- RELIGION, TERROR, AND THE FUTURE OF REASON by Sam Harris. W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, 2004
    1) Reason in exile (11-49)

    2) The nature of belief (p50-79)

    3) In the shadow of God (p80-107)

    4) The problem with Islam (108-152)

    5) West of Eden (p153-169)

    6) A science of Good and Evil (p170-203)

    7) Experiments in consciousness (p204-222)

    EPILOGUE (p223-228)

    AFTERWORD 229-238)

    NOTES (p239-302)

    BIBLIOGRAPHY (p303-332)

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (p333)

    INDEX (p335-348)

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    INSERT FROM INTERNET REVIEW OF BOOK (will be properly referenced)

    This book argues for a replacement of formal religions, which are based on ancient texts, such as the Islamic Koran or Christian Holy Bible, or Jewish Talmud, or the Indian Bagavad Gita, with a personal search for spirituality and logical thinking instead of following unproved, "faith-based" beliefs in invisible unscientific revealed supernatural powers.

      "There seems to be a problem with our most cherished American beliefs --- they are leading us, inexorably, to kill other human beings."

    The book opens with a vivid description of an Islamic suicide bomber on a bus where a couple discuss a refrigerator they plan to buy. When the bus is filled with passengers the young bomber smiles and blows himself, the couple and twenty others on to oblivion. When the Islamic parents of the young man hear of his attack they are filled with pride, not only has the man sent the victims to "Hell" but he has reserved a place for himself in "Heaven."

    The book's chilling descriptions of how organized religion has set back secular progress compels a reader to question how history got us to this point. Whether it was the Holy Roman Catholic Church "torturing scholars to the point of madness for merely speculating about the stars" in the Middle Ages and during the European Renaissance to the current debate over research on human embryos, the book argues that the belief in God has held back civilization. The book questions whether if it were not for the repression of scientific research by many religious institutions over the centuries, civilization might have come up with the Internet and other useful inventions many centuries earlier.

    The book lambasts both the conservative right and the liberal extremes, such as the liberal anti-war intellectual Noam Chomsky. After conceding many of Chomsky's points such as our U.S. government's genocide of Native Americans, support of slavery, denial of accepting German Jewish refugees from the holocaust of WW II, the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and the brutal military force against innocent Islamic people in the war against Islamic extremists, he writes:

      "We can concede all of this, and even share Chomsky's acute sense of outrage, while recognizing that Chomsky's analysis of our current situation in the world is a masterpiece of moral blindness. For example, the bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceuticals plant: according to Chomsky, the atrocity of September 11 pales in comparison."

    In response to Chomsky, Harris argues:

      "Did the Clinton administration intend to bring about the deaths of thousands of Sudanese children? No. We are at war, not with terrorism, but Islam. We are at war with precisely the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran, and further elaborated in Islamic literature or the Hadith, which recounts the sayings and actions of the Prophet."

    Finally, the book emphasizes that the humans need to choose their own personal spiritual paths along the many roads of mysticism:

      "Once the selflessness of consciousness has been glimpsed, then spiritual life can be viewed as being a matter of simply freeing your attention more and more so that this recognition can become stabilized. This is where the connection between spirituality and ethics is inescapable."

    The book is an argument for rationality.

    It is a frank discussion of the morality, ethics and the logic influenced directly by the great religions that has brought civilization to its current dangerous situation. Readers must set aside their "religious agendas" and assumptions about their own omnipotence (superiority) or sinfullness (inferiority) so they can benefit from reading this book. For those willing to open their minds, the book challenges them to think about what civilization is about and what the future can be.

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    A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Internet)

      Sam Harris is the author of the new book, Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006. His website is at: www.samharris.org

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