Sam Harris

Incendiary "unbeliever" Sam Harris has become a pundit du jour in these times of high religiosity, popping up on TV and radio talk shows from "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Colbert Report" to tonight's appearance on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." His latest tirade against the god-fearing -- "Letter to a Christian Nation" -- has shot up bestseller lists, enhancing his already considerable reputation as an iconoclast spokesman for today's weary godless.

Free Will Sam Harris Free Press: 85 pp., $9.99 paper Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton Pantheon: 320 pp., $26.95 Once upon a time I took a degree in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. One of my tutors was Don Cupitt, a philosopher and radical theologian who challenged the doctrine that Jesus was God incarnate; Cupitt, though a priest himself, questioned the entire theistic notion of God. If God isn't God, one might think, then what's the point of him?

Sam Harris has come a long way since "Star Search." One of the big winners in the early years of Ed McMahon's TV meat market, he sleepwalked through several Motown recordings, then briefly surfaced as a television sitcom writer. In the last year or so, Harris finally seems to have found the right vehicle for his cherubic good looks and rubbery tenor voice: a well-planned and potentially impressive cabaret act that has drawn favorable notices in New York and San Francisco.

Re "Rabbi, atheist debate with passion, humor," Dec. 29 The American Jewish University should be commended for sponsoring the debate between author Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe. The debate was very interesting and informative. In a truly democratic society, differences of opinion about religion and science should be openly debated in a respectful public forum. This is greatly needed in today's tense world filled with religious conflicts and intolerance. Harris' bestselling books are an indication that there is popular public interest in these issues.

Say hello to Sam Harris, song-and-dance man. "I'd had enough of just singing ballads in everything I did," says the singer, who came to fame in 1984 for his ultra-emotional, prize-winning crooning on TV's "Star Search." Friday night, Harris was scheduled to open at the Pasadena Playhouse's Balcony Theatre in "Different Hats: An Evening of Song and Dance," a 90-minute program he describes as "a real show-biz show--with its share of blues and ballads."

It was a typical Saturday morning in the life of Sam Harris. Ten people clothed in various states of weekend casual--cutoffs, sweats, old T-shirts--listened to him as they clustered around a coffee table piled with bagels and muffins in a Culver City condo. But there was nothing laid-back about Harris, who sat off to the side, near a telephone.

Free Will Sam Harris Free Press: 85 pp., $9.99 paper Religion for Atheists Alain de Botton Pantheon: 320 pp., $26.95 Once upon a time I took a degree in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. One of my tutors was Don Cupitt, a philosopher and radical theologian who challenged the doctrine that Jesus was God incarnate; Cupitt, though a priest himself, questioned the entire theistic notion of God. If God isn't God, one might think, then what's the point of him?

"Sam": Volcanic talent erupts throughout this intimate solo effort from Sam Harris, whose phenomenal voice is capable of moving from soulful whisper to clarion wail on a hairpin turn. The deliciously self-aware Harris adds biting, up-to-the minute commentary to such numbers as Randy Newman's "Political Science." And his acting chops likewise reverberate, in such acts as an uproarious eyewitness account of the Minelli-Guest nuptials.

The owner of a Woodland Hills telemarketing company was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison Monday for fleecing stock investors out of nearly $1.4 million. Employees of Assured International Inc., owned by Sam Harris, told victims, most of them retirees, that the firm was about to go public and that they would double their money when it did. But prosecutors said the planned public offering was bogus.

"SAM I AM." Sam Harris. Motown. This album could be subtitled "Sam Gets Serious," as Harris tackles several songs about the need to be saved--either from himself or from the challenging and iffy situations of life. Despite his love for campy chest-beating, Harris is remarkably controlled. Sharing vocals with Janis Ian on "The Rescue," he doesn't put all his emotional cards on the table--or fling them in your face, for that matter.

The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the bestseller list, a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers. Christopher Hitchens' book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" has sold briskly since it was published last month, and his debates with clergy are drawing crowds at every stop.

Re "God's dupes," Opinion, March 15 I read with interest Sam Harris' article on Rep. Pete Stark's (D-Fremont) coming out as a nontheist. I am one of a possible minority of believers who wouldn't mind a nontheist as a president if his or her qualifications were stellar. I would actually prefer that to someone manipulating belief for political purposes. But Harris lost me when he claimed that "Dominionist Christians who openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death" were "the truest of true believers."

Re "10 myths -- and 10 truths -- about atheism," Current, Dec. 24 Sam Harris' 10 amendments of alleged myths about atheism are provocative, but his comments lack intellectual rigor. He deplores religion's supposed hostility to science and allies science to his own views. But there is nothing less scientific than Harris' gross generalizations about both religion and atheism. Christians are not homogeneous in beliefs and attitudes, nor are other religious groups. Harris' comments about atheists' views are equally tenuous.

WHAT a problem religious faith poses for learned men of empirical mind. How it baffles, angers, frightens them, prompts them to domesticate it or uproot it, leaf and bough. In a trio of new books, three scientists -- an English evolutionary theorist, a bestselling philosopher-turned-neuroscientist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist -- take Christianity to task. Their works comprise a new testament for atheists, in which science is the only acceptable gospel.

Incendiary "unbeliever" Sam Harris has become a pundit du jour in these times of high religiosity, popping up on TV and radio talk shows from "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Colbert Report" to tonight's appearance on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." His latest tirade against the god-fearing -- "Letter to a Christian Nation" -- has shot up bestseller lists, enhancing his already considerable reputation as an iconoclast spokesman for today's weary godless.

Re "It's real, it's scary, it's a cult of death," Opinion, Sept. 18 Sam Harris articulated some painful truths that many are loath to acknowledge. There are millions of people in the world who honestly believe that God will reward them with paradise for acts of cold-blooded murder undertaken in the name of religion. And there are millions of others who, in the pursuit of inclusiveness and political correctness, refuse to accept that the problem is rooted in the religion itself. GERARD LAFOND San Pedro Harris' definition of "liberal" is bonkers.

Re "Rabbi, atheist debate with passion, humor," Dec. 29 The American Jewish University should be commended for sponsoring the debate between author Sam Harris and Rabbi David Wolpe. The debate was very interesting and informative. In a truly democratic society, differences of opinion about religion and science should be openly debated in a respectful public forum. This is greatly needed in today's tense world filled with religious conflicts and intolerance. Harris' bestselling books are an indication that there is popular public interest in these issues.

Re "It's real, it's scary, it's a cult of death," Opinion, Sept. 18 Sam Harris articulated some painful truths that many are loath to acknowledge. There are millions of people in the world who honestly believe that God will reward them with paradise for acts of cold-blooded murder undertaken in the name of religion. And there are millions of others who, in the pursuit of inclusiveness and political correctness, refuse to accept that the problem is rooted in the religion itself. GERARD LAFOND San Pedro Harris' definition of "liberal" is bonkers.

"Sam": Volcanic talent erupts throughout this intimate solo effort from Sam Harris, whose phenomenal voice is capable of moving from soulful whisper to clarion wail on a hairpin turn. The deliciously self-aware Harris adds biting, up-to-the minute commentary to such numbers as Randy Newman's "Political Science." And his acting chops likewise reverberate, in such acts as an uproarious eyewitness account of the Minelli-Guest nuptials.

The owner of a Woodland Hills telemarketing company was sentenced to five years and 10 months in federal prison Monday for fleecing stock investors out of nearly $1.4 million. Employees of Assured International Inc., owned by Sam Harris, told victims, most of them retirees, that the firm was about to go public and that they would double their money when it did. But prosecutors said the planned public offering was bogus.