JOHNATHAN PEARCE ON SAM HARRIS: “It is interesting that those who criticise religion on the grounds of reason and logic can, as in the case of Harris, make such basic errors on subjects such as trade, notions of self-ownership, justice and the like. It is as if they are craving a secular god to fill a gap left by the traditional one. I must say I was quite shocked at the incoherence of some of Harris’s comments and his failure to examine and demonstrate his premises, such as when he talks about ‘fairness’ without asking what he might mean by that.”

I suggest some additional reading.

Or, if you’re short on time, this Memorandum From The Devil. “I am something of a connoisseur of these attempts by scholarly humans to find and describe some meaning in their personal and species existence, and when nonironic divine address comes out of Langdell Hall these days, attention must be paid.”

Oh, okay, one more irresistible passage: “But having opted for ‘mankind is the good,’ you just couldn’t stand it. It is not hard to see why. For if human nature were to be the good, then there was nothing for you or anyone else to do to change it in any way. Indeed, even as a matter of scientific curiosity, there wouldn’t be much call to find out what human nature was, for whatever it turned out to be would be what it ought to be. Now that is a loathsome idea. Under its reign, a man like you, rightly appalled at the world, would, have no role at all. That was too dreadful a possibility.”