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.

This important and timely book 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, we can no longer tolerate views that pit one true god against another. Most controversially, he argues that 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.

Review
“While one might dispute some of the claims and arguments presented by Harris, the need for a wakeup call to religious liberals is right on the mark.”

Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books “The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, ”and“ Lying. The End of Faith” won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing has been published in over fifteen languages. Dr. Harris and his work have been discussed in “The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time”, and many other publications. His writing has appeared in “The New York Times”, “Los Angeles Times”, “The Times” (London), “The”“Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Annals of Neurology”, and elsewhere. Dr. Harris is cofoun