Atheist Sam Harris at Aspen Ideas Festival (Vanity)

LifeEthics Blog ^ | 7-18-07 | Beverly Nuckols

[hocndoc]

Sam Harris, author of the books, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason and Letter to a Christian Nation, was given a forum at the Aspen Ideas Festival. I'm not sure how I ended up finding the video, "Believing the Unbelievable: The Clash Between Faith and Reason in the Modern World," but I believe I was referred by one of the Science Blog forums. I can't remember which one, and, as far as I can tell, only one of these blogs is owned by a believer.

Which is probably how I got lost. There's a bit of a row, right now, concerning the derision of believers by "Pharyngula." (Which is surprising, since that seems to be his purpose in blogging.) I was once again struck by the idea that science and religion are incompatible, chased some links, and ended up watching a video from the Festival.

Mr. Harris spent his time at the Festival blurring the edges between “Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” with a little Hinduism and Buddha thrown in to strengthen his point. There doesn’t seem to be any difference in his viewpoint, although he does grudgingly admit to a questioner that “moderate” Christians and Jews have been influenced by the belief in human rights and equality by secular, outside influences, while Muslims have remained isolated and so have not “evolved.”

Beyond the fallacy of treating all religions as one, Mr. Harris denies that atheism is a religion, using his second favorite technique, mockery and one liners designed to encourage his listeners to laugh with him. He mocks the Second Commandment: “Is this as good as it gets? . . . How about, ‘don’t deep fry all of your food?’” and mocks the idea that agnostics are a separate from believers and atheists by saying, “I haven’t met too many agnostics about Zeus.”

The biggest logical fallacy in which Harris engages is his statement that religions change from without, due to secular ideas about human rights. In fact, the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that we are all created in the image of God.

While Christians have cited the fact that very young children naturally display concern for others and seem to understand the concepts of justice and beauty as proof of God, Mr. Harris believes that this actually disproves the “usefulness” of religion. While he admits that 70% of (I presume, U.S.) college graduates believe in the Biblical God, he strongly commends “peer review” in science.

His major point seems to be that “much of the Bible and Koran is life-destroying gibberish.” He dismisses the rest. While he insists that believers who promote their religions or teach their children to follow them are enabling religious fanatics who kill in the name of religion, shouldn’t Harris, who has been called an "Atheist Evangelist" take responsibility for enabling those who kill and enslave to suppress religion, as in China? Or the Western academic powers that be that harass, deny recommendations, employment and funding to those who fall out of favor, such as Richard Sternberg (see the review at Sternberg's site and at National Public Radio)?

[hocndoc]

The Aspen Ideas Festival is worth a visit, as are the Science Blogs. The anti-religion assumption never ceases to surprise me.

[darkangel82]

That’s why free speech is good, so idiots like Harris can show us all what they are: idiots.

[hocndoc]

I'm sure that free speech is some sort of evolutionary adaptation (not).

Wesley Smith quoted Leon Kass last week:

How comforting to learn that morality is rooted in the fact that, thanks to our ability to see other persons' perspectives, no intelligent social agent has any grounds for privileging his own interests over theirs. How wonderful to learn that this cosmopolitan moral truth is supported by the discovery that we all share human DNA. Do the descendants of Darwin know nothing of competition and the survival of the fittest? Does their naturalistic morality really teach that it is immoral to "privilege" feeding my own children first? Or does not morality begin, rather, with the need to control nature, precisely in opposition to the excesses of naturally given self-love and love of one's own and (starting with toilet training) the unruliness of natural desires that embarrass rational self-command? Even leaving aside greed, cruelty, and natural lust, what about amour-propre--that natural form of comparative self-love found only among human animals and, famously, among scientists--that insists on recognition from and superiority to one's fellows?

(grin)

[fkabuckeyesrule]

Is this the atheist that actually graduated from Moody Bible College?

[hocndoc]

I don’t think so. Here’s a bit of biography:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501998.html

[oyez]

Idiots like Harris have found that they can actually get rich as missionaries for atheism.

These guys focus on any negative thing they can find about religion, but they can't answer where we would be with out it. I'm sure that we would have killed ourself off about 600 years ago.

[darkangel82]

Harris is obviously not very secure in himself. I’ve never made any secret of my non-belief on here, but I don’t feel the need to put down anyone’s faith, either.

[hocndoc]

I’m afraid there’s no money to be made in tolerance.

[darkangel82]

Afraid not. And yet they claim to be the “tolerant” ones...

[hocndoc]

There’s little or no tolerance at Science blogs for any religion. And they don’t like Conservatives, either.
http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2007/04/e_coli_conservatives_e_coli_li.php

[VOA]

“Is this the atheist that actually graduated from Moody Bible College?”

I shall venture to guess that you are asking about Bart D. Ehrman of
Univ. of North Carolina.
IIRC, he now terms himself an agnostic.

Here’s a link to his website (funny, Moody is missing, but in fairness
the website is under construction)
and to a Wikipedia profile.

http://bartdehrman.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman

I’ve read his “Misquoting Jesus...” book. He raises good points about
problems with piecing together the Bible from all the old manuscripts.
But, IMHO, he’s being sort of a nit-picker in order to bolster his
new-found agnosticism.

[VOA]

Mr. Harris...(big snip)...
does grudgingly admit to a questioner that “moderate” Christians and
Jews have been influenced by the belief in human rights and equality
by secular, outside influences, while Muslims have remained isolated
and so have not “evolved.”

Just like comedians who long to play substantial dramatic roles...
atheistic materialists often seem slip into their dream role of
professor of moral philosophy and comparative religions.
(And...gasp! Make value judgements about religions)

OK, that's not an ad hominem on Harris.
I do often appreciate the fair and often well-reasoned critique
of religious thought/practice by atheists and agnostics.

[hocndoc]

A vanity ping

[MHGinTN]

PING)))))) Fun read

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[Lexinom]

As trite as it sounds, “The fools saith in his heart, there is no God.” There was not point reading past the title of his book, “The end of faith...” since everyone, including this poor soul, needs faith for what they believe. Even science rests on faith at its root, and can make no sense without faith in the axioms (not themselves subject to observation) that support it.