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All in the name of God
by IAN O’DOHERTY
When Sam Harris first appeared out of the blue with his wonderful first book, The End Of Faith, it seemed that Richard Dawkins finally had someone else who could shoulder the burden of being remorselessly attacked by religious attack dogs in the mainstream media.
Now, his follow-up to the The End Of Faith, Letter To A Christian Nation - an open letter to an increasingly belligerently religious America - he responds to some of the criticism which greeted his first book.
Letter contends that: “The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism… such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible.”
And, while that’s exactly the kind of bald-faced statement which so enrages Christians, Harris and Dawkins both share a wonderfully refreshing refusal to parse their language into more saccharine statements.
As Harris points out, religious zealots, thanks to the patronage of the Bush administration, have taken over key positions in Federal science programmes, and the line between practical science and religious mania is now being blurred to a lethal degree.
In fact, the author contends that rather than being simply misguided, religion and its adherents is frequently wicked, as the decision to withhold the vaccine for the HPV virus from young women (in case they have sex) proves.
In the meantime, tens of thousands of women die in America every year from cervical cancer - a disease directly linked to HPV and one which could be virtually eradicated with one injection.
There are countless similar examples in a book which is guaranteed to enrage all but the most delusional theist.
Christian paranoia and victimhood are also targeted: as he points out, if someone were to proudly tell you that he still worships the Greek Gods of Olympus and believes that Zeus is the creator of the universe, you would look on that person with pity and disdain.
So why do we continue to treat people who believe in an equally absurd myth with kid gloves and deference?
The only problem with the book is that the very people who would benefit most from its insights - Christians - are unlikely to open its pages.
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