Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
Sam Harris
2004
www.samharris.org (also find his new book, Letter to a Christian Nation.)

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Sam Harris courageously breaks the taboo against questioning the validity, and the sanity, of the religious beliefs of others, and states publicly with vigorous writing and compellingly logical arguments what many of us have been forced to conclude privately from observation:
Unwavering faith in the truth of often fantastical and bloodthirsty ancient religious texts
+ technologically sophisticated weaponry
= probable destruction of civilization.

He is not talking only about the Islamic war against the infidel. He is also referring to Christianity and Judaism, and not only to the “extremists” or “fundamentalists” of every faith but also to the moderates and liberals.

This is a brilliant analysis of the many disastrous practical consequences of seeing reality through the lens of belief in religious dogma. He points out why religious belief is irrelevant to a truly ethical and spiritual life, and in many cases precludes it.

From our point of view as unconventional women, the degree to which our individual experience of being in reality is mediated by what others demand that we believe about that reality is the degree to which we remain disconnected from our own deeper selves.