Baby Jesus Made Me Cry

"In addition to demanding that we fulfill every 'jot' and 'tittle' of Old Testament law [Matthew 5:18], Jesus seems to have suggested, in John 15:6, further refinements to the practice of killing heretics and unbelievers: 'If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.' Whether we want to interpret Jesus metaphorically is, of course, our business. The problem with scripture, however, is that many of its possible interpretations (including most of the literal ones) can be used to justify atrocities in defense of the faith."

-Sam Harris, The End of Faith

The End of Faith

"I hope to show that the very ideal of religious tolerance - born of the notion that every human being should be free to believe whatever he wants about God - is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss." -Sam Harris, from The End of Faith

I just started this book, and I can already tell I'm going to be cheering this guy on from beginning to end. He made an interesting point that if someone today applied for a job and wrote that her main qualification that she has vast knowledge and skill in alchemy, not only would she get laughed at, she would probably be labeled as insane and possibly dangerous for being so out of touch with reality. Harris hopes for a future where saying one has faith has similar repercussions; it is not having faith in moderation and tolerating faith in all forms that is the ideal, but moving past faith altogether.

But let's see where he leads us, and what he proposes as a guiding force for society (science?).