Sam Harris: Letter to a Christian Nation

I finished reading Sam Harris' book Letter to a Christian Nation. While there was nothing jarring about his writing, because my views are similar to his views on Christianity, one more understand that this literally is a letter to the Christian Nation. When reading this book, you need to place yourself in a Christian mentality. Once you do that, you will understand how controversial the book is. Of course, the book is titled Letter to a Christian Nation, therefore if you are not Christian you need not worry about its contents, but if you are of any religion, this book concerns you as well.

The book reads as a response to all the hate mail from Christians fuming about his previous book End of Faith. Letter to a Christian Nation, is not at all a hard read. I personally zipped through the book in about three hours. It was almost like reading a 90 minute play, except the characters in the book were the religious and the spectators were you and I who are religion-free.

There may be those who will argue that Harris focuses on the negativity of some scripture doctrine, but think about it this way; if doctrine has negativity in it's writing and it's set in stone, then why are you following it in the first place? If the Bible is holy, then why is God a pretentious ass in the Old Testament and Jesus supports slavery and symbolic cannibalism of his body in the New Testament? Let me understand this, you as a Christian will pull on a dumb-show at mass every Sunday to eat the body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation. Does this practice not seem a little odd even for a blessing from a god? If you can keep your flesh eating symbol, then I am going to keep my First-person Shooting and Free-Roaming video games. The Christian bigot Jack Thompson, believes that video games are simulators creating killing machines. Well, let me be the first to say that Christians practice and simulate the act of cannibalism. Symbol or not, the act of presenting one's flesh and blood as a gift flashes images of crimson puddles, bruised flesh, bone and sinew. Seems more of a hellish dinner nightmare than a privilege to dine with the Son of God. Are you sure it was your God and not your Devil?

Harris not only attacks the scriptures, but he also attacks the fundamentalists who believe in Intelligent Design (ID). I am still reading The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and I can see why the book was a paradigm shifter. While you can still argue over Darwin's Theory, there have been great advancements since The Origin of Species. DNA, Deoxyribonucleic Acid, the building blocks of life; medical advancements in vaccines; Unlocking the gnome, etc. All these discoveries and developments have all been lead by the notion of Darwin's findings. I specifically want talk about DNA, because this is important. Discovering the building blocks that make you and me -well, you and me -should have been the break in the religious fabric. Yet, looking back, the discovery was in its infancy. But, because of advancements in that field, scientist were able to do something Darwin couldn't prove: All living species are connected. How can the Religious Reich explain why we share DNA similarities with aquatic mammals to the small rodents? [link] Fundamentalists will say that the data means nothing within their doctrine. Why should it? It's impossible to feed a closed fish tank. Liberals and moderates will explain the mystery of god and the world and how these discoveries were put there by Him for us to tinker with as long as we don't go too far. Similar genetic markers between humans and other mammals isn't even news, these claims have been made even before I was born, but I am baffled that DNA never changed the minds of the religious. There obviously needs to be some sort of frontier that needs to be set and I believe we only have to look to the stars.

I'm going to end my comments here about Harris' book. Let me digress and ask you this: Who will bring us upward towards the stars and live within another domain? If your response is God.... then God help you. The answer is science. Humanity has had a slow progression in space exploration to Mars, because of constrictions. When I say constrictions, I talk about the public opinion, the government and the religious. Yes, this is more bashing towards the religious, because it is fundamentally their doing that we as a species haven't advanced further after our moon missions. NASA is an American institution in the wrong place or should I say shrouded in a majority population of devout Christians. These majority Christians won't support science, unless they're threatened with a deadly disease. What reason do they have to support space exploration and support leaving the planet their God gave to them as His gift? I think Stephen Hawking was right in saying that if humanity doesn't ascend into the stars we will most definitely falter as a species. While Earth has been a wonderful home, we must expand. God will not bring us to Mars, nor will he create livable habitats on its surface. Science and engineering will do the planning and construction. We all need to realize that Humanity was not placed in this universe on a silver plate by a invisible being, nor were we spoon fed doctrine by Him as well. We all need to realize that it is in our power to better ourselves and science has shown that the impossible is possible. If we all lived by doctrine, especially our scientists, then our world would stay flat without any advancements to improve our way of living. Let's tell the Christians the live like the Amish, because that is fundamentally what they want the world to regress into. There are those who often say, "Look around you and tell me that god didn't make those." I say, "While it is debatable, He didn't make those things. If it wasn't for science you wouldn't know its history or how it worked. It's as if God gave you a gift without any instructions."
I often look at this photograph [currently my wallpaper] and marvel at its beauty. This is a picture taken from the Mars Rover in 2005 of the Martian sunset. Mars' crimson sky graying into a blue haze towards the suns almost makes you wish you were there. This image alone enhances my perception of our solar system and universe. What seemed like science fiction becomes science fact. When we colonize Mars, let's see how the religious port their doctrine to those born on the Martian surface.