Harris is just one more in the line of cardboard cut-out polemicists against religion. Reads like a pot-boiler: banalities abound, but luckily it ends no sooner than it should.What Harris, Dawkins et al don't quite seem to realize is that religion as a balm is a concomitant of the liberal capitalist order, one that they are signed up to unreservedly. There is little that is intrinsically 'rational' about this mode of living: it is destructive, chaotic, and indifferent to individuals. As Blake, if memory serves, said: 'The proper subject of man, is man'. In other words, we are social beings, and to that extent will not be satisfied with purely 'scientific' answers, since scientific answers are not, demonstrably, the most rational option for humans to take, since the crucial stuff, as Buber pointed out, is between man and man, i.e., not between man and ideology, man and scientific method, or even, to that extent, man and dogma - yet 'religion' as a countervailing force will keep popping up just so long as the capitalist club is beating heads.We need as a species to get beyond these unhelpful dichotomies, which have us in thrall to an enervating round of 'yes/no', 'stand up/sit down', walk/don't walk' pseudo-problems. I for one would like to put Dawkins and Rowan Williams in a space capsule and jettison the pair of them, along with all their respective kin. let them gnaw at each other, and wear themselves out with endless bickering. We are not obliged in the 21st century to repeat the discussions of the 19th. ( )

This book, as its author, preaches to the choir. Christians wont read it, and those that do wont get it. The positive reviews this gets are likely from those who already agree with Sam Harris.
I did not find it to be smart. At all. It features the philosophical points I worked through when I was twelve. It also includes a lack of understanding of history and human nature.
It was also poorly argued.
Two personal notes;
a)I laughed when The Iliad and The Odyssey were nominated as religious texts. That is an excusable mistake, but not from anyone who is college educated.
b)His pedestrian use of the word myth and its variations upset me to no end. Again, this guy is college educated. ( )

Whenever I read these kinds of books or articles, I’m never quite sure what exactly it is I am looking for, but I always end up not getting it. Where Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great relentlessly mocked the absurdity of religious belief, Letter to a Christian Nation is an in-your-face repudiation of religious views, particularly that of christians. Rather than mockery, Harris wields disgust, anger and indignation. Ultimately it’s not a way to "cure" faith. Rather it’s another attempt to both bolster the spirits of atheists as well as put believers on notice that a less tolerant strand of atheism may be ascendant.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

Criticism of intolerant and deluded Christians from an equally intolerant and deluded atheist. There are some points where I agree with Harris. It's hard to view Christianity as a positive force when the most vocal among them are preaching against condoms in Africa or opposing HPV and HIV vaccines. But I don't think this can be extrapolated to all Christians, and I really disagree with some of his conclusions about the Bible. He's fighting crazy wingnuts by being a crazy wingnut, and at the same time berating non-wingnuts for not taking sides. This, in my opinion, makes him fairly indistinguishable from the people he is criticizing. ( )

In Letter to a Christian Nation , San Harris debunks the myth that America is a Christian nation, and that we, as Americans, are becoming our own worst enemy in regards to religion and religious tolerance. The book includes some implications for the country if we don't change. ( )