My 4 star review of
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris :-
Spoiler:
The End of Faith is the type of book of which I can say that I am always grateful that it exists. Most philosophy books are obtuse and inaccessible to the layman. I have always had nothing but admiration and gratitude to people who make precious ideas, and structures of thought available. Even this type of public service is rare. In the form of YouTube videos, info about socialism and capitalism is rare. The best kind of prevaricate. That is why I had been very glad that Sam Harris has used his intellect for the benefit of neuroscience, as opposed to say, derivatives.
Sam Harris is a very articulate person. If he has not written a politically charged book about religion recently, it is because he chooses to express his views through podcasts. And I can attest that Harris has no lack of material. Everything that he talks about could be placed in a book. The guy is very intelligent. When you look at the standards of public discourse, and religious speeches, Harris can blow your mind with ideas that seem irrefutable.
The ideas in The End of Faith are limpid. What I found inaccessible previously, I now find fascinating. And what I found accessible on the first read, I now find interesting, but without the sparkle that usually animates Harris' soundbites. Harris has become a person who can make his living by writing. You got to respect that, given that what he has written has been salient. He is not very visible though. A conman like Lex Fridman boasts 20 times the number of subscribers than Harris.
It is very difficult to gain the type of info that you want, that you know will fill some craving in your mind. I am not talking about eschatology and evangelicalism. I am talking about a subject so rare that you cannot order buttloads of books of them. Twitter is like hillbilly land these days, though I cannot claim to be an expert on such levels of time wasting, as I only recently got an account.
Harris is a cool customer. He provides ideas that will either challenge or change you. Hitchens said that what you can accept without evidence, you can also dismiss without evidence. The sometimes simple levers that underpin the human brain, when that brain has been conditioned to accept faith on blind faith, is fascinating to witness. All because of Harris and the rare service that he provided.
The question of Eastern philosophy should not have interested Harris, as that makes him less interesting in my opinion. Meditation is a luxury that has no crucial scientific benefits, though that is a matter of rigour. If meditation can help you combat alcoholism, depression, megalomania, I'm all for it. Should it be part of such a book? I don't think so. It blunts the subject matter, though I have never heard of anyone else complaining that aspect of Harris' disposition.
This book will always be precious to me. It was released before The God Delusion and is the better of the two. I am so interested in what the world is going to be in the upcoming years. I know I am living in a world where science is progressing so fast, yet the hobbled effigy of religion is always trying to hobble science and pay it back for its irrelevancy. This is the problem... we cannot get at the info we want, what we really need.
We have been hindered by a mechanism of camouflage. The vital piece of knowledge that can do things like making your life easy in terms of productivity, help you keep your calm, help you vote in a way that is highly beneficial to you, all of this is exposed. In the end I would say that The End of Faith is a gift of reason. It is a dollop of rationality that is encapsulated in a breath of fresh air. What Harris had been dreading in the opening paragraphs has not happened. There has not been nuclear winter. The situation seems defused. But bad things keep happening in the world. Let me end by saying that The End of Faith is entertaining?? It was a delight to partake of its contents. I would rather reread it than watch the next Batman movie, e.g. Throughout the years so many formerly prized things have become boring to me. Football matches, porn, movies, Shakespeare to an extent, all have become boring. But I can always cheer myself up with the perusal of this timeless book.