In God We Trust

I would like to recommend Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation.

Swift, well-reasoned, and suasive, this book unearths a series of unfortunate and alarming realities concerning our country's enduring allegiance to God. Whatever your religious persuasion, Letter to a Christian Nation book is guaranteed to enlighten.

Below, you will find several excerpts from Harris's book: compelling facts and figures that, I can only hope, will move you to read this book from cover to cover (a mere 91 pages).

According to a recent Gallup poll, only 12 percent of Americans believe that life on earth has evolved through a natural process, without the interference of a deity. Thirty-one percent believe that evolution has been "guided by God."

The same Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans are actually creationists. This means that despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of life and the greater antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. Those with the power to elect our presidents and congressmen--and many who themselves get elected--believe that dinosaurs lived two by two upon Noah's ark, that light from distant galaxies was created en route to the earth, and that the first members of our species were fashioned out of dirt and divine breath, in a garden with a talking snake, by the hands of an invisible God (x - xi).

Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on earth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality... Conversely, the fifty nations now ranked lowest in terms of the United Nations' human development index are unwaveringly religious (43 - 44).

ABOVE: The percentage of people in European countries who responded "I believe there is a God" in a 2005 Eurobarometer poll. (The two darkest countries are Turkey and Romania. The lightest are the Czech Republic and Estonia.)

In 2005, a survey was conducted in thirty-four countries measuring the percentage of adults who accept evolution. The United States ranked thirty-third, just above Turkey. Meanwhile, the high school students in the United States test below those of every European and Asian nation in their understanding of science and math. These data are unequivocal: we are building a civilization of ignorance (70).

Competing religious doctrines have shattered our world into seperate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continual source of human conflict.

In response to this situation, many sensible people advocate something called religious tolerance. While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its problems. Our fear of provoking rligious hatred has rendered us unwilling to criticize ideas that are increasingly maladaptive and patently ridiculous (80).

GO BUY IT!

Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.