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A review by notwellread
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
3.0
3.5 stars
This short book/letter forms a very simple, succinct, and direct takedown of arguments made by Christians and the harm Harris perceives they do to American society, in response to letters he received about his previous book, The End of Faith.
I think this approach makes a good amount of sense, to tackle one particular religion rather than trying to take them all on at once. This also makes it a good reflection of Harris’ attitude that not all religions or philosophies are equally deserving of criticism (he is quite favourable to Jains and Buddhists, for instance, but even here, in his letter to a Christian nation, he can’t resist a few pops at Islam). The approach is highly reminiscent of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, which also focuses on Abrahamic religions but doesn’t tap so much into their social effects, instead focusing on the doubtfulness of the beliefs themselves.
On the other hand, most of the arguments are quite standard, and many reminded me of Hitchens’ modern classic God is not Great, which came out around the same time (2007; Letter came out in 2006) and may reflect some of the conversations being had between Hitchens and Harris and in the ‘religion vs. atheism’ discourse generally at the time. The one argument that is (seemingly) unique, repeatedly made by Harris here and elsewhere, and which has always stood out to me, is the argument that ‘atheists’ should not define themselves as a collective with this term or any other: no one identifies themselves as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist’, Harris says. The self-criticism here is important to understanding how the conflict between religious people and atheists became an ‘us vs. them’ myopia, rather than it being one highly specified and self-selecting group against everyone else.
I have two small criticisms to make: the first is that there are some small statements he makes that, in the simplicity and directness of the text, don’t always express the full nuance or acknowledge other angles of interpretation. For instance, He argues that John says Jesus was crucified the day before Passover, but the Day of Preparation was to prepare for the Sabbath, so the day before the Sabbath every week (i.e. Friday), and John saying it was “the day of Preparation of the Passover” could simply mean it was the Friday of Passover week. I think there are stronger arguments against prophecy in the Bible he could have made (i.e. that Jesus’ story was simply written to conform to all the prophecies of the Old Testament, and there is no way of knowing how much is accurate), and it’s important that criticisms of any religion are made in good faith (if you’ll pardon the pun) and are built upon foundations as solid as possible.
The second criticism is that, although the discussions of the repercussions of Christians’ anti-science views — opposing women’s healthcare, stem cell research, and vaccinations — I don’t think religion’s veracity or usefulness can necessarily be defined by its effect on society. It is an important topic, but if people believe the Bible is the word of God (whatever reason they give for believing this), they are not likely to be swayed by passages or commandments that are difficult to accept (on e.g. homosexuality), and the fact that none of the above scientific areas are so much as mentioned in the Bible suggests to me that the backlash to these areas has more to do with anti-intellectualism and a mistrust of science, and can’t be attributed primarily to religion, although the two often seem to go hand-in-hand.
This short book/letter forms a very simple, succinct, and direct takedown of arguments made by Christians and the harm Harris perceives they do to American society, in response to letters he received about his previous book, The End of Faith.
I think this approach makes a good amount of sense, to tackle one particular religion rather than trying to take them all on at once. This also makes it a good reflection of Harris’ attitude that not all religions or philosophies are equally deserving of criticism (he is quite favourable to Jains and Buddhists, for instance, but even here, in his letter to a Christian nation, he can’t resist a few pops at Islam). The approach is highly reminiscent of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, which also focuses on Abrahamic religions but doesn’t tap so much into their social effects, instead focusing on the doubtfulness of the beliefs themselves.
On the other hand, most of the arguments are quite standard, and many reminded me of Hitchens’ modern classic God is not Great, which came out around the same time (2007; Letter came out in 2006) and may reflect some of the conversations being had between Hitchens and Harris and in the ‘religion vs. atheism’ discourse generally at the time. The one argument that is (seemingly) unique, repeatedly made by Harris here and elsewhere, and which has always stood out to me, is the argument that ‘atheists’ should not define themselves as a collective with this term or any other: no one identifies themselves as a ‘non-astrologer’ or a ‘non-alchemist’, Harris says. The self-criticism here is important to understanding how the conflict between religious people and atheists became an ‘us vs. them’ myopia, rather than it being one highly specified and self-selecting group against everyone else.
I have two small criticisms to make: the first is that there are some small statements he makes that, in the simplicity and directness of the text, don’t always express the full nuance or acknowledge other angles of interpretation. For instance, He argues that John says Jesus was crucified the day before Passover, but the Day of Preparation was to prepare for the Sabbath, so the day before the Sabbath every week (i.e. Friday), and John saying it was “the day of Preparation of the Passover” could simply mean it was the Friday of Passover week. I think there are stronger arguments against prophecy in the Bible he could have made (i.e. that Jesus’ story was simply written to conform to all the prophecies of the Old Testament, and there is no way of knowing how much is accurate), and it’s important that criticisms of any religion are made in good faith (if you’ll pardon the pun) and are built upon foundations as solid as possible.
The second criticism is that, although the discussions of the repercussions of Christians’ anti-science views — opposing women’s healthcare, stem cell research, and vaccinations — I don’t think religion’s veracity or usefulness can necessarily be defined by its effect on society. It is an important topic, but if people believe the Bible is the word of God (whatever reason they give for believing this), they are not likely to be swayed by passages or commandments that are difficult to accept (on e.g. homosexuality), and the fact that none of the above scientific areas are so much as mentioned in the Bible suggests to me that the backlash to these areas has more to do with anti-intellectualism and a mistrust of science, and can’t be attributed primarily to religion, although the two often seem to go hand-in-hand.