I would like to share a few quotations from the book I just listened to and loved, Letter to a Christan Nation. The author Sam Harris wrote a book called The End of Faith. Needless to say many religiosos were P. O.'d and they let him know it in no uncertain terms, including death threats. This book is his answer to them.
"That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past, does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization."
"If you think that christianity is the most direct and undefiled expression of love and compassion the world has ever seen, you do not know much about the world's other religions."
"Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the bible in a single sentence : "Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture or kill any creature or living being." Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as it's central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured and killed people in the name of god for centuries on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the bible. It is impossible to behave this way by adheareing to the principles of Jainism. How then can you argue that the Bible provides the clearest statement of morality the world has ever seen?"
"Consider for instance, the Human Papllioma Virus. HPV is now the most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States. The virus infects over half the American population and causes nearly 5000 women to die each year from cervical cancer. The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, estimates that more than 200,000 die world wide. We now have a vaccine for HPV that appears to be both safe and effective. The vaccine produced 100% immunity in the 6000 people that received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence. Even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year."
"The problem is that Christians like yourself are not principally concerned about teen pregnancy and the spread of diseases, that is, you are not worried about the suffering caused by sex, you are worried about sex... Reginald Finger, an evangelical member of CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices recently announced that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine, thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year, because such a vaccine would encourage pre-marital sex by making it less risky. This is one of many points on which your religious beliefs become genuinely lethal."
and I couldn't leave this one out -
"Of course, The church's position on abortion takes no more notice of the details of biology than it does of the reality of human suffering. It has been estimated that 50% of all human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion. Usually without a woman even realizing that she was pregnant. In fact, 20% of all realized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgement. If god exists, he is the most prolific abortionist of all."
