A friend was kind enough to give me a copy of The Moral Landscape (TML) by Sam Harris for Christmas (apparently she noticed that I was intrigued with an interview by Jon Stewart of Sam on The Daily Show). Well, the cover of this book mentions that Sam also wrote The End of Faith (TEF) so I picked up a copy of that and read it first (reading TEF first makes sense). I suspect I may also have a thing or two to say once I've read TML.

Before going any further, I'd like to say that I think The End of Faith is inappropriately titled; properly, it should read "The End of Religion" (more concise and indicative of its contents). Though I'm speculating, it's likely the publisher didn't think it was a good idea to piss off every religious crack-pot before they've even had a chance to crack its cover. (As it is, it seems to have garnered its share of objectors - both from the religious faithful as well as atheists.)

Quote from TEF (p 63):
"[...] Pascal's wager, Kierkegaard's leap of faith and other epistemological ponzi schemes won't do."

I absolutely love Sam's method of writing. He tends to somewhat convoluted sentence structures that I find challenging. I suspect he writes this way just to ensure you're paying attention (I am continually re-reading portions to ensure I understand what he's saying - which only serves to reinforce what he's saying - again, I'm sure, intentionally). Please note though, that I say convoluted, not obfuscating or obscure; I find Sam's style very concise.

Essentially Sam says that religion is the last, significant bastion of unreasonableness in our lives. Our society, culture, and political environments are constructed in a way to disallow questioning of religious tenets. If we are to survive, we must end this policy and hold to task anyone that purports to unfounded beliefs. Sam puts this in stronger terms (p 48): "We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it."

Interesting that the remainder of TEF is essentially in support of the above; it even gets a little tedious about both the Christian and Muslim butchering of the human condition.

From what I've gleaned - though I do not intend to put words into his mouth - Sam seems to conclude that we'd be far better off gazing at our own navels than God's. I agree.

[update 18 January 2011] I'm trying to get caught up with my PVR recordings and finally got to watch The Colbert Report for 6 Jan. This episode seems apropos to this article.

[update 7 April 2011] Unfortunately, the link to The Colbert Report episode as noted above for 6 Jan 2011 is no longer available.

[update 10 Jan 2015] I indicated I'd follow up with something about Sam's The Moral Landscape. Well, 4 years later, and I still haven't finished it. ...and am unlikely to; TML is about the mechanics of how belief systems are developed. Interesting in its own right, - and certainly supports TEF - but gets a tad tedious for my taste.