Making a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world, Sam Harris offers a vivid historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs—even when these beliefs inspire the worst human atrocities. While warning against the encroachment of organized religion into world politics, Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism, and in this winner of the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction, he delivers a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic.