THE END OF FAITH by Sam Harris

"Sam Harris is one of the leading proponents of what has been dubbed the 'New Atheist Movement', in good company with the likes of Richard Dawkins, Penn Teller, Lawrence Krauss and the late Christopher Hitchens--not even a movement, per say, but rather a like-minded bunch of non-believers who just happen to feel the same about religion, whether it be through their intellectual reason, their scientific backgrounds, or quite often both. Like his atheist friends he has written and spoken extensively on the topic, to much acclaim from people like myself--once too afraid to 'come out' about our atheism..." "おもにキリスト教、イスラム教、ユダヤ教について、信仰（宗教的信念）と紛争等の社会問題との関わりを斬新な切り口で分析。多くの宗教（特にイスラム教）が排他的で本質的に危険であり、妄信的信仰が人々を残虐な行為に導く力と大量殺人兵器の存在により文明は存亡の危機に瀕している、と指摘。信仰について非合理性が黙認され、宗教について合理的な批判、議論を行うことさえタブーとされる現状打破の必要性を訴える。更に既存の宗教を超えた、理性、精神、倫理の探求による世界観確立の可能性を仮説として提示、その必要性を主張する。具体策はないものの、自由な議論を基礎とした全世界規模での文明社会構築の理想を提示、脳や精神に関する科学の進歩がそれを後押しすることを示唆し、人の幸せ、苦悩を基点とした普遍的倫理観の確立、東洋の無我の概念の普及による排他的価値観からの独立の可能性を議論。著者が様々な領域の考え方をうまく纏めた枠組みは斬新で明快。各論（捕虜にたいする拷問の正当化、Gandhiら平和主義者への倫理批判など）については賛否両論あるかと思われる。また残念なのは文章は難解で構成も纏まりがなく完成度が低いこと。ベストセラーになったので結果オーライなのであろうが編集者は何をしていたのか。。。中東での宗教紛争の理解の足しになればと思い読んだ本だが、米国人の28％しか進化論を信じておらず、72％もが天使の存在を信じている現状、宗教による社会断絶の深刻さに危機感を抱かずにはいられない。米国の一部知識人の先進的視点として参考になった一冊である。2004年初版のベストセラーであるが、まだ(2006年8月)日本語に翻訳されていないのは内容の過激さゆえか..."

기독교인이 설명하는 이슬람교, 이슬람인이 쓴 기독교, 서구권이 보는 동양 종교 등 나름 이런저런 종교와 관련된 책들을 읽어왔다.  어떤 종교가 더 좋은가를 알기 위함이 아니라 인간의 삶에서 차지하는 종교에 대한 의미론적, 지식적 차원에서 읽었다. 이 책은 종교에 대한 믿음 차체를 부정하는 내용을 회의론적 또는 부정적 관점에서 다루고 있는데 읽을만한 가치가 있다. 아쉬운 점은 읽다 보면 특정 종교에 대한 편견을 보이는 점이 있고 이 책이 쓰인 시기를 고려했을 때 요즘 시대에 좀 맞지 않는 주장들이 있는 거 같다. 

- A BELIEF is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything else in a person's life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world.....

-... many of us are motivated not by what we know but by what we are content merely to imagine. Many are still eager to sacrifice happiness, compassion, and justice in this world, for a fantasy of a world to come. These and other degradations await us along the well-worn path of piety. Whatever our religious differences may mean for the next life, they have only one terminus in this one - a future of ignorance and slaughter....

-... theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.

- ... from the terrible ethical consequences that follow from this style of otherworldliness...... the afterlife and much indeed about the limits of the human imagination.

- Will Durant ; 'Intolerance is the natural concomitant of strong faith ; tolerance grows only when faith loses certainty ; certainty is murderous.'

- The danger of religious........ we are , even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature......

- Without death, the influence of faith-based religion would be unthinkable. Clearly, the fact of death is ontolerable to us, and faith is little more than the shadow cast by our hope for a better life beyond the grave.

-... Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of STAR WARS or Window 98...... no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.

- Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God........ that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life - destroying gibberish.......