Sam Harris Letter To A Christian Nation Analysis

Sam Harris and a Reason Not to Believe Sam Harris describes an atheist as “a person who believes that the murder of a single little girl-- even once in a million years-- casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God” (Harris 52). In his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris presses his worldview over the dominating worldview of Christianity. Harris does so in a concise, factual manner, but he fails to completely leave out emotion. Harris is convincing, but in the end he is restating arguments stated previously in a more personal way. He thinks that society is in a state of emergency rooting from people in power believing in different origins than himself. He ties origins, morality, and politics together to prove his points. Simply put, Harris attacks Christianity, specifically Evangelicals, …show more content…
Harris argues that Christians do not look at the Bible in a wholistic way, but rather “[p]eople have been cherry-picking the Bible for millennia to justify their every impulse, moral and otherwise” (Harris 18). This issue specifically made me uncomfortable as I did not have an instant response to back up Christianity; frankly, it terrified me. Second, the topic of morality caught me. Harris argues Christians’ obsession of morality dominates the actual issue of human suffering. “At this very moment, millions of sentient people are suffering unimaginable physical and mental afflictions, in circumstances where the compassion of God is nowhere to be seen, and the compassion of human beings is often hobbled by preposterous ideas about sin and salvation” (Harris 37). This issue lies in ethics; STDs and stem cell research stand in the center of this issue. Is it morally right to give vaccinations and thereby encourage premarital sex in order to prevent the suffering or death that results from STDs? Is it morally right to prevent the use 150 cells, more than 100,000 less cells than in a fly, to bring