The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris Esma Senman Course: Honors Seminar in the Social Sciences III Professor: Neil Kressel Student: Esma Senman Essay: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris
Assignment: The assignment involved writing two book reviews of books selected from a list of several dozen works offering social scientific or philosophical perspectives on contemporary religion. The goal of the seminar as a whole was to examine a selected social phenomenon
from a variety of social scientific perspectives; this semester the seminar focused on religion and religious conflict. Esma reviewed, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris.
The End of Faith describes the detrimental role of religion in our society today. Sam Harris argues that religion is counterproductive to the advancement of our societies due to both moderate and extreme followers of dogmatic religions. Fundamentalists and extremists are the cause of terror, violence, or intolerance in the name of religion. However, moderate religious people make up the population that is allowing religion to survive in a world that is growing more secular. Throughout the book, Harris describes how rationality in this secular world can no longer make excuses for the survival of religion.
and the power it yields extremely seriously, and one should, for “every belief is a fount of action in potentia” (Harris, 2004, p. 44). I agree that a person’s “personal” beliefs dictate their actions so that beliefs are no longer personal. Another reason to be critical of these religions is that many claim to communicate the will of God, which has led to violence. Aside from being harmful to people, these religions often contradict modern scientific findings and evidence which is more obviously counterproductive to the progression of our society. He argues that people’s beliefs have geopolitical consequences, such as the formation of the state of Israel, proving that dogmatic beliefs still have power outside of one’s head or home.
Harris’s overall problems with dogmatic religions include allowing for a belief system that requires no evidence, which is harmful to society as beliefs affect actions, which affect other people. Harris takes belief 19
