New Book From Sam Harris: Lying

So I just heard about this book yesterday and it comes out on September 19th! I think it’s going to be a short follow up book like Letter to a Christian Nation was for The End of Faith. Here’s the blurb from his website:

In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. He focuses on “white” lies—those lies we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfort—for these are the lies that most often tempt us. And they tend to be the only lies that good people tell while imagining that they are being good in the process.

Find it online or at a book store near you. If you aren’t familiar with Sam Harris, look him up. His first book, The End of Faith landed him a spot as one four horsemen of the “new atheists” because it was that intense. In his own words in the afterword (from memory) “If there exists a book that takes a harder swing at religion, I am not aware of it.” 

He also has an unusual and interesting view on the philosophy of religion. He spent like a decade in India meditating like a mystic and his main point that sets him apart from traditional atheism is that he admits that there are indeed amazing facts to be known about our minds that are only available through introspection and meditation-like exercises. The problem, he asserts, is when people make unjustified assumptions from these experiences. For example, feeling a sense of rapture, or the general feeling of getting a winning lottery ticket from the universe, it does not follow that Jesus was born of a virgin.

That last paragraph sounds like a great topic for another post, so I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on it. Check out Sam Harris and his new book, Lying!