Letter to a Christian Nation

Sam Harris

Random House Digital, Inc., Jan 8, 2008 - Religion - 120 pages

From the new afterword by the author:

Humanity has had a long fascination with blood sacrifice. In fact, it has been by no means uncommon for a child to be born into this world only to be patiently and lovingly reared by religious maniacs, who believe that the best way to keep the sun on its course or to ensure a rich harvest is to lead him by tender hand into a field or to a mountaintop and bury, butcher, or burn him alive as offering to an invisible God. The notion that Jesus Christ died for our sins and that his death constitutes a successful propitiation of a “loving” God is a direct and undisguised inheritance of the superstitious bloodletting that has plagued bewildered people throughout history. . .

What people are saying

Review: Letter to a Christian Nation

User Review  - Kevin Summers - Goodreads

Harris seems to dislike traditional Islam more than traditional Christianity. That was a pleasant surprise, as your garden-variety "new atheist" typically seems too scared and/or too PC to attack Islam. [No sarcasm intended, by the way.]

Review: Letter to a Christian Nation

User Review  - Jon Cheek - Goodreads

For as much as Harris speaks of the importance of evidence as a ground for belief, he chooses an odd method for attacking Christianity. Because of the brevity of the book, he makes virtually no ...

Contents

• Section 1: 3
• Section 2: 93
• Section 3: 115
• Section 4: 117

About the author

Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times best seller, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, which won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. He is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. Mr. Harris is now completing a doctorate in neuroscience, studying the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). His work has been discussed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Economist, and New Scientist, among many other journals, and he has made television appearances on The O'Reilly Factor, Scarborough Country, Faith Under Fire, and Book TV.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Letter to a Christian Nation; Vintage Books
• Author: Sam Harris
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc., 2008
• ISBN: 0307278778, 9780307278777
• Length: 120 pages
• Subjects: Religion / Agnosticism; Religion / Atheism; Religion / Christian Life / Social Issues; Religion / Religion, Politics & State