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    Letter to a Christian Nation
    Letter to a Christian Nation
    Letter to a Christian Nation
    Audiobook1 hour

    Letter to a Christian Nation

    Written by Sam Harris

    Narrated by Jordan Bridges

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Immediate New York Times Best Seller . . .
    The Challenge to Religious Dogma that has Sparked a National Debate!

    "Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years," writes Sam Harris. "Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government actually believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency."

    In response to his award-winning bestseller The End of Faith, Sam Harris received thousands of letters from Christians excoriating him for not believing in God. Letter to A Christian Nation is his courageous and controversial reply. Using rational argument, Harris offers a measured refutation of the beliefs that form the core of fundamentalist Christianity. Addressing current topics ranging from intelligent design and stem-cell research to the connections between religion and violence, Letter to a Christian Nation boldly challenges the influence that faith has on public life in our nation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateDec 5, 2006
    ISBN9780743567060
    Letter to a Christian Nation
    Author

    Sam Harris

    Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, and Lying.  The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction and his work has been published in more than 20 languages. He has written for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Economist, the Times (London), the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, the Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

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    Reviews for Letter to a Christian Nation

    4/5

    1,303 ratings86 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Absolutely the best book for someone in doubt of their Christian faith. It was also a refreshing reread for someone who lost that faith long ago.
    • 5/5
      Deep respect and appreciation for this thoughtful set of assertions. Clear-eyed, intelligent and fearless.
    • 5/5
      This is something I wish all my Christian friends and family would take the time out for and listen to/read.
    • 5/5
      Expressed my sentiment on the matter... ?. Enjoyed the book. Well said.. Or is it written? ?
    • 4/5
      This is my favorite Sam Harris offering so far, recommended.
    • 5/5
      This letter points out the infantile yet dangerous state the USA is in. If almost half the population believes that the world will be destroyed and recreated. Then what’s their incentive to protect the planet that humans rely on for survival. It seems like the religion that I use to be a part of is a death cult.
    • 1/5
      Atrocious. Sam Harriss literally just took the Bible and distorted it. He paints the picture that Christians are evil, ignorant and stupid. He also glorifies the image of the atheist, even saying that atheism should not even be coined as a term. This is because he said ordinary, intellectual people who have a brain do not believe in an imaginary God, and making them come off as the outcast is an absurd notion.

      Be very careful if you are a Christian reading this book! Do not take it to heart, and stay true to the word of God. This is no reason for you to turn from your faith, but to strengthen it.
    • 5/5
      Bringing religion out of the shadows. Well written. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      A very pointed overview of the weak and illogical tenets of Christianity and majority of organized religions in general.
    • 3/5
      Not interesting, Sam had some insights that I didn’t think of
    • 5/5
      Extraordinarily lucid analysis of the ways in which religious belief and indoctrination separate us and keep us from our true potential to be fully unified as human beings.
    • 5/5
      Eye opening and clear apologetic for a more modern / scientific world view.
    • 1/5
      I am an atheist, so I agree with most of what Mr. Harris argues in this short, little tome. The problem is just that: I already agree. To whom did Harris write this "letter"? After all, by their very nature, the fundamentalist-minded Christians of America certainly won't be persuaded (if they even read it). But, the arguments are too clichéd to be of any use to serious academics. All I can guess is that this book is another in that ever-growing list of self-congratulatory screeds published under the "New Atheism" movement, or whatever it's being called. That is to say, it was most likely published to piss off the zealots and reinforce some smug sense of I-don't-know-what among the atheists.

      Skip this fluff and read something with substance. Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", Jacoby's "Freethinkers", Plato's "Euthyphro", or Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian" are good places to start.
    • 3/5
      Harris' writing is engaging and cogent, but he primarily attacks the straw man of American Evangelical Protestantism--an easy target but a mere sliver of global Christianity. His mockery of Old Testament laws ignores the low moral state of the post-exilic Israelites, for whom the harsher, lesser, "prison rules" law of Moses may have been expedient in the eyes of an omniscient being with specific designs for that people. Harris' re-hashings of the old "Problem of Pain" arguments, while emotionally evocative, lack philosophical merit IMO. I find his criticisms of the anti-science lobby and of six-day-creationists very convincing and spot on. However, he is too quick to belittle the reasons people come to faith in a God (e.g. "feelings of wrapture"), while ignoring the much more profound and difficult-to-explain-away encounters with God that thousands like myself have had. A good read, but one that Atheists will be too quick to agree with wholesale, and one which many believers will feel is written to "those other Christians."
    • 4/5
      I agree with most of what was said in this book but the author offers no real answers. His best solution is to "throw the baby out with the bath water".
    • 5/5
      Sam Harris is fantastic in his ability to construct convincing arguments. Well written, thought provoking, mind expanding, but unfortunately it is unlikely it will actually change the minds of devoted religious believers, because ignorance has a tendency to prevail, despite of all these facts.
    • 1/5
      The author’s opinionated views on some of the topics
    • 5/5
      Harris's answer to the letters and e-mails he received from outraged Christians following publication of his first book, The End of Faith. This volume is short and can be read quickly - I read it in a single evening. One thing that elevates this book above some of the others is that he rarely cites any verse from the Bible without giving the reference to where it can be found. A good gift for that relative who keeps insisting that we are a Christian nation, and that Christianity is the religion of love.
    • 4/5
      This audiobook presents a powerful set of arguments against Christianity, indeed against all religions that answer to a postulated creator of all things, commonly called God. The style is polemic, drawing on the violence recorded in the Old Testament and written a thousand years before the birth of the founder of Christianity, Jesus. The author Sam Harris is asserting Christian beliefs are false not from the standpoint of another religion, but from the standpoint of scientific materialism - no better or worse than Marxism-Leninism that saw religion as the opium of the people. I am now more inclined to listen again to his debate with Jordan Peterson who apparently has a much deeper understanding of Christianity than the apparently superficial view of Sam Harris.
    • 5/5
      This is a review of the Kindle ebook version. It is 901 locations long.This is a very short book. It is a criticism of all major religions, both liberal and conservative. In a nutshell, he argues that the idea of 'god' is inherently irrational, and completely unnecessary to live a moral life. He backs it up with some very compelling arguments. I've never been comfortable with religion, and I'm more convinced than ever that the atheists have it right. Will this book sway any true believers? I doubt it. But if you have any doubts, you owe it to yourself to read this book.
    • 1/5
      "I don't like God therefore He doesn't exist."
      "Religion has done a lot of bad things therefore God doesn't exist."

      This is the summary of the book

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      In a perfect world, Letter would be required reading in ALL publicly funded schools in the US… oh, and schools in the US should be sufficiently funded (back to pre-Reagan Administration standards). We’re running out of time…

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      a very good insightful book I loved how he wrote fairly objectively and was careful while expressing his opinion
    • 1/5
      Poorly constructed arguments and sheer lack of research to back up what amount to a bunch of stabs to various religions, not only Christianity. This would have been better written by an investigative journalist. This provided amusement value only on the basis of the hollow arguments, misquoting of the Bible to back up claims and short sentences. What would have made this better is making a point and backing it up with several credible references to build to a conclusion.

      Listen to this if you have an hour or two to spare whilst driving; find something else to listen to if you want to be enlightened.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great book for America. Direct and enlightening for certain. Please read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Written from a viewpoint of logic.
      I liked it and found the book enjoyable.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great arguments against theologians, believers and god himself (if he/she/it exists)! A must read/listen in times like these! I hope he writes a book like this for „Muslim nation!“ I salute Sam Harris‘ bravery, a true gentleman, a complete human being!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Poorly written, lightweight critique of religious belief. As a Christian I found nothing in this letter to even approach a level of scholarship or depth of thought which comes anywhere close to being convincing. Even more troublesome is the outright intellectual dishonesty that permeates this book. For example, conflating of all religious beliefs into a common pool while consistently nuancing all non-religious beliefs, failing to note any of the well-respected arguments opposing the author's beliefs, and the failure to accurately depict believers views in many areas. The author also uses many straw man arguments and fails to note the myriad catastrophic failures of atheistic beliefs.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Must read for anyone interested in analyzing reasoned facts versus uncontested opinions.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      I wish people wouldn't believe this twisted scripture. If you are going to make an argument against Christianity, then do a better job using the entire scripture instead of the pieces that fit your agenda.

      1 person found this helpful