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I don't think I've ever felt so strongly in agreement and disagreement with two halves of a single book in my life. The first half of the book, dealing strictly with issues of faith, I just nodded my head in time with Harris's all out assault on the Western religious traditions like a chi at a Metallica concert. I suspect, however, that anyone that is not approaching his book with near atheistic conviction already will find his arguments a very bitter pill to swallow. Certainly his sarcastic tone and contempt for Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, while amusing to the unbeliever, does not exactly invite the faithful to examine their beliefs. Similarly, I suspect that Anne Coulter's book, Godless, will convert as many liberal atheists to her cause. Despite that, the arguments in the first half of the book, to me, seem truly compelling and original. There is one, however, that I was forced to re-examine after reading the rest of the book.

The chapter on Islam is where I felt Harris took a left turn at Albuquerque. In it, he claims that Islam is the one religion that is beyond all hope of moderation. With Harris's demand that claims of this sort be based on reason and not wild speculation, I was hoping for more proof than an extensive list of hideous Islamic laws. The previous chapter, after all, had just finished summarising centuries of Christian atrocities committed on the basis of similarly hideous Biblical laws. Deuteronomy, for example, demands that my dutiful Christian parents put their atheist son (i.e. me) 'to the sword'. I'm glad that vast sections of 'the Good Book' are dismissed by my parents (and most of the Western world) as the unthinkable, demented rubbish that it is. Why does Harris deny that a similar dismissal is possible in the Islamic world? It is certainly the claim that moderate Islam is impossible that leads Harris down the philosophical abyss for the rest of the book.

From here Harris juxtaposes the deaths of innocent people caused by suicide bombers (the deliberate targeting of civilians for political or religious reasons) with those caused by the high tech arsenal of the Western military machine (the indiscriminate carnage caused by high impact weapons for political or religious reasons) -- so called 'collateral damage'. He claims as almost self-evident the argument that intention is measure of ethical warfare. If the price of war was the lives of my own family I think I'd need more evidence of this 'truth' than the great intentions of Western military powers.

Lesley Stahl on decade long U.S. sanctions against Iraq leading up to the 2003 invastion: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it. (60 Minutes (5/12/96))

I wonder if the people of Iraq who, since the US led invastion of 2003, are now mourning the loss of 655 000 of their dead relatives feel as strongly as Harris about the Neo-Conservative project of the muscular expansion of liberal democracy. It is curious that a man who goes to such lengths questioning the motives of organised religion demands so little evidence of his government's good intentions. Perhaps that is because there is simply so much evidence available to the contrary. To dismiss Noam Chomsky and Ahrundhati Roy out of hand for the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Samuel Huntington is intellectually dishonest.

The crux of his argument is a thought experiment in which a hypothetically 'perfect weapon' is put into the hands of a Judeo-Christian democracy and into the hands of a so-called Muslim 'terrorist' organisation. The former, Harris argues, will undoubtedly do the right thing and kill only military targets while the latter, in their thirst for blood, will continue targeting and killing civilians with glee. How Harris is able to read the minds of either party is beyond me, but the tale of the tape in a recent Middle-Eastern skirmish tells a different story. During the month long clash last summer between Israel and the Lebanese Islamic militia, Hezbollah (a 'terrorist' organisation according to most Western countries), despite the latter having vastly inferior weaponry, according to the BBC, "more than 1,100 people - mostly civilians - were killed in Lebanon during the war. More than 150 Israelis - mainly soldiers - were killed." So much for 'Smart' bombs. In fact, thanks to American made cluster bombs (about the stupidest weapon you can use), southern Lebanon has been carpeted with enough unexploded munitions to make it a virtual minefield for years. So much for Harris's hypothetical perfect weapon that would always be the choice of Western democracies.

More to come...