Harris, it should be noted, does know that there are moderate and temperate believers, but he understands them in such a way that they do not hold their faiths wholeheartedly. “Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern world....[T]he moderate’s retreat from scriptural literalism...draws its inspiration not from scripture but from cultural developments that have rendered many of God’s utterances difficult to accept as written.” That there are people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Dutch Protestant evangelist Corrie Ten Boom, who have a deep and orthodox faith, untouched by the spirit of modern skepticism, and yet combine it with love and respect for people of other faiths, must be a mystery for Harris. But there are scores of millions of such believers. Furthermore, Harris is not a friend of moderate religion. His objection, of all things, is that it is too tolerant. Moderates are not sufficiently willing to criticize the beliefs of others. In other words, believers cannot win. If moderate, they’re too tolerant; otherwise they’re too divisive.

Sadly, at important points Harris’ book suffers from the ignorance of the faiths he is attacking. He repeatedly, for example, excoriates Christians for the belief that all who do not accept their faith will go to hell. But in fact only a minority of Christians do believe this. It is rejected by the Catholic Church and Orthodox Christianity and also by many Protestants. One cause of the extreme tone of Harris’ book, I believe, is that he chafes under the reign of political correctness, and the book’s reception might indicate that the strictures of political correctness are now loosening. If so, I think it is welcome. Our age seems to have lost the ability to speak vigorously, but with civility, on many sensitive matters. Harris’ book has helped renew the vigor of our discourse about religion, but unfortunately not its civility.