I have been reading END OF FAITH by Sam Harris during the past week.

[KlatooBNikto]

The subtitle of the book is Religion, Terror and the future of reason.

The book may be an antidote for the OD'ing on religious fervor on DU the past few days.Its basic premise is that religious faith is irrational and we have to find a way to replace it if only because such a faith in an age of mega weapons poses a threat to the existence of mankind itself. In previous eras, the limited capability of human beings to inflict death meant that religious wars could be localized and the casualties could be limited.That is no longer the case.And religion provides a strong motive force for those who have a grievance against another group to inflict enormous casualties and draw totally innocent populations into the fray.

Some excerpts: "Our technical advances in the art of war have finally rendered our religious differences-and hence our religious beliefs-antithetical to our survival.We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our fellow human beings believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom or in the literal truth of the Book of Revelation or any of the fantastical notions that have lurked in the minds of the faithful for millennia-- because they are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.There is no doubt that these developments mark the terminal phase of our credulity.Words like "God" and "Allah" must go the way of "Apollo" and "Baal" or they will unmake our world".

The book also goes on to contrast the fantasy that religion peddles as Paradise when the real universe is fantastic enough if we let our imagination and thinking follow natural phenomena with the aid of science."If one didn't know better,one would think that man,in his fear of losing all that he loves,had created heaven, along with its gatekeepr God, in his own image".

Great, thoughtprovoking reading.Highly recommended.