Sam Harris Talks about the Defence of Religion

[_dartagnan]

1) Please enumerate your points you'd like to discuss. I'm not sure what is exactly that you're contesting.

I've enumerated several points from Harris' ridiculous arguments that have gone ignored on this forum. But in this particular thread, I simply wanted to challenge Schmo to support his claim that Harris is one of teh greatest thinkers. I think we all know that this kind of statement only shows what kind of deprived exposure Schmo has really had to great thinkers.

2) As for me, I don't think Sam Harris is "one of the Greatest Thinkers of Our Time". I just hink he's clever and intelligent.

Ok. Why? As far as I can tell, he's an atheist who hates religion and can attract an audience, and that appears to be enough to warrant the love and devotion of other atheists here.

3) EA has yet to explain itself reference Sam Harris' immorality.

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But his criticism of Harris went beyond morality. The rest of his criticism has gone ignored. But if you need an example from me, then look no further than my sig.

[_Some Schmo]

Your ability to make recourse to the free online dictionary impresses the hell out of me.

I have no doubt that something so simple would impress the hell out of you. It's all part of you being a dumbass.

I think we all know that this kind of statement only shows what kind of deprived exposure Schmo has really had to great thinkers.

Yes, I probably shouldn't have spent so much time reading your rubbish. That would have been a good start, huh?

This thread has taken an interesting turn. dart still can't defend the charge that he's a moron. Ever since he humorously announced he thought guys like Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris were idiots, guys who are far and away his intellectual superiors, he's failed to prove his case. And nobody else has even attempted to defend dart's "intelligence" which just shows that nobody can defend it. Clearly, dart's a moron. If we only had one small piece of evidence that dart wasn't a moron, it might help, but alas, nobody is forthcoming with such evidence.

dart's just pissed off because people don't believe in his god, and anything he can find on the net that supports his god view is worth regurgitating, no matter how easily refuted it is. So he's bouncing around, completely frustrated, trying to have fun at my expense, because he knows I'm right about everything I've ever said (especially about him) in this forum.

[_dartagnan]

Schmo: "I'm right about everything I've ever said"

ROFL!!! Classic Schmo.

dart's just pissed off because people don't believe in his god

Nobody believes such stupidity, including you. You're just doing what you always do, and that is to detract from your own stupid comments. But hey, Sam Harris would be proud.

anything he can find on the net that supports his god view is worth regurgitating, no matter how easily refuted it is

Actually, most everything I have presented on the subject has gone unrefuted because idiots like you don't have the intellectual fortitude to formulate your own counter-argument. You have to rely on people like Harris to provide them for you.

So he's bouncing around, completely frustrated

Yeah, I'm "bouncing around" in total "frustration" aren't I? Dumbass.

You made a stupid remark and I am holding you to it, and it pisses you off. Even moreso because EA expresed his own criticism of your loved one.

, trying to have fun at my expense, because he knows I'm right about everything I've ever said (especially about him) in this forum.

You're notorious for never adding anything to any discussion. You're the sideshow clown who gets attention by pretending he's entertaining himself. We all know this. All you ever do is spout attacks against anyone who dares express belief in something you don't believe in, and offer ignorant and unwarranted praise to bigots who share your own sentiments. You never get into the midde of any discussion with anyone because you know you could never hold your own. It usually takes the second or third post before you embarrass yourself. But in this case, it was your first.

Now you're howling at the moon, refusing to own up to your stupidity and refusing to defend your statement with factual data. So much for accepting things with no evidence. You can't present any because you have none. But don't let me destroy your faith via reason. LOL.

[_Some Schmo]

...the usual dart public masturbation...

This whole post is yet another example of everything I've been saying. We all get it, ya dimwit. You don't have to prove it over... and over... and over...

But, we know you will, so go ahead, stroke yourself again.

I'm still waiting for you to prove you're not a moron. Once again, you've proved I'm right.

[_EAllusion]

I'm pretty sure CC linked some damning material from Sam Harris. Regardless, my problems stem from his justifications for the use of violence and torture in the "war on terror" discussed almost exclusively in the context of Islam. He has soft-pedaled versions of what he's said on his own website, so:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text ... troversy2/

(It's worth looking up the names he references when he talks about new age views. Um, yeah.)

Since it is brief, here's his principle argument in favor of torture policies, which he does plainly favor beyond that "ticking time bomb" scenario retreat:

Most readers will undoubtedly feel at this point that torture is evil and that we are wise not to practice it. Even if we can’t quite muster a retort to the ticking bomb case, most of us take refuge in the fact that the paradigmatic case will almost never arise. It seems, however, that this position is impossible to square with our willingness to wage modern war in the first place.

In modern warfare, “collateral damage”—the maiming and killing innocent noncombatants—is unavoidable. And it will remain unavoidable for the foreseeable future. Collateral damage would be a problem even if our bombs were far “smarter” than they are now. It would also be a problem even if we resolved to fight only defensive wars. There is no escaping the fact that whenever we drop bombs, we drop them with the knowledge that some number of children will be blinded, disemboweled, paralyzed, orphaned, and killed by them.

The only way to rule out collateral damage would be to refuse to fight wars under any circumstances. As a foreign policy, this would leave us with something like the absolute pacifism of Gandhi. While pacifism in this form can constitute a direct confrontation with injustice (and requires considerable bravery), it is only applicable to a limited range of human conflicts. Where it is not applicable, it is seems flagrantly immoral. We would do well to reflect on Gandhi’s remedy for the Holocaust: he believed that the Jews should have committed mass suicide, because this “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” We might wonder what a world full of pacifists would have done once it had grown “aroused”—commit suicide as well? There seems no question that if all the good people in the world adopted Gandhi’s ethics, the thugs would inherit the earth.

So we can now ask, if we are willing to act in a way that guarantees the misery and death of some considerable number of innocent children, why spare the rod with known terrorists? I find it genuinely bizarre that while the torture of Osama bin Laden himself could be expected to provoke convulsions of conscience among our leaders, the perfectly foreseeable (and therefore accepted) slaughter of children does not. What is the difference between pursuing a course of action where we run the risk of inadvertently subjecting some innocent men to torture, and pursuing one in which we will inadvertently kill far greater numbers of innocent men, women, and children?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harri ... _8993.html

[_antishock8]

1) SH is clearly an intelligent man, and in fact, very clever. He has sold a lot of books, done of lot of speaking engagements, gathered a following, and has made a lot of money doing it. That's clever. That's intelligent. Stupid people generally don't have the skills and composure to do something like that unless they own a pair of tits.

2) Your sig line says:

"Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them”. - Sam Harris

This is taken from pages 52 & 53 from Same Harris' book, "The End of Faith". I love Google.

Here's the quote in context:

The link between belief and behaviour raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas. (The End of Faith, p52-53.)

I find it a little more than ironic that you, a confessed disliker of Muslims (me, too), would use a quote in which SH is using Islamic ideology as a focal point of your sig line. It is, in fact, very ethical to kill some because to NOT kill them will eventually lead to greater suffering for everyone involved. A good example is the Guantanamo catch and release program. 60+ prisoners that have been released from Guantanamo went right back to the battlefield and have, in fact, killed more people. We're guilty for having loosed them back into the world. They should have been executed for the greater good. Instead we've aided and abetted the misery they continue to unleash.

Anyway. It's unfortunate you're a deliberate deceiver. That bothers me. I like you, but I find your moral compass to be f**ked up at times. That being said, do you have any other examples of SH's "immorality" you would like to offer? Oh, and if you do offer something, please let me know what it is, exactly, that defines morality for you.

[_antishock8]

I find it genuinely bizarre that while the torture of Osama bin Laden himself could be expected to provoke convulsions of conscience among our leaders, the perfectly foreseeable (and therefore accepted) slaughter of children does not. What is the difference between pursuing a course of action where we run the risk of inadvertently subjecting some innocent men to torture, and pursuing one in which we will inadvertently kill far greater numbers of innocent men, women, and children?

I love this line of reasoning. We know, without a doubt, as a nation, when we engage in combat, that scores of innocents will be killed and injured... Some horribly so. And YET, we do it. We do it because to NOT do it means, generally, something far worse will occur. History has taught us this lesson repeatedly. However, we accept the death and injury of innocents as a sad reality, BUT torturing someone... Well, that's just unacceptable! Torturing a handful of enemy types arouses righteous indignation while killing scores of children and civilians produces a shrug of the shoulders.

So weird.

So, EA. Did you just use this as an example of his "immorality"? Was that your intent? Because if it was, I think you missed the point. The point was the clear dichotomy of reasoning we employ when making moral decisions as a nation... Which don't really make any sense once examined.

[_marg]

I'm pretty sure CC linked some damning material from Sam Harris. Regardless, my problems stem from his justifications for the use of violence and torture in the "war on terror" discussed almost exclusively in the context of Islam. He has soft-pedaled versions of what he's said on his own website, so:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text ... troversy2/

(It's worth looking up the names he references when he talks about new age views. Um, yeah.)

Since it is brief, here's his principle argument in favor of torture policies, which he does plainly favor beyond that "ticking time bomb" scenario retreat:

I have no idea what you are talking about. I've read his book, and the llink you supplied (thank you by the way) I had seen it before but that was some time ago. I don't find anything the least bit damning in what he has to say. His words by critics were taken out of context, you may look at further commentary from him as soft-pedaling, I look upon it as elaborating further and giving the context.

As far as criticism of "new age woo" again I have no idea what you criticism is. I read his explanation and nothing seems the least bit irrational.

I could spend more time on this to illustrate what he has to say, but I get the sense Dart argues for the practice of arguing. More often than not he argue against strawmen arguments which leads me to believe he himself doesn't believe what he says. And my sense of you E.A. is that you have a tendancy along with your admired buddy, Gad, to argue against an atheistic position or atheists. Gad has admitted to having a dislike, I'm not sure what your reasoning is, but you do a dis-service to those who attempt to argue for the rational against those who employ the irrational.

If you really warranted some decent criticism of Harris supported with quotes, I'd be interested but I think your attempt in this thread has been meagre at best.

]

[_dartagnan]

I find it a little more than ironic that you, a confessed disliker of Muslims (me, too), would use a quote in which SH is using Islamic ideology as a focal point of your sig line. It is, in fact, very ethical to kill some because to NOT kill them will eventually lead to greater suffering for everyone involved. A good example is the Guantanamo catch and release program. 60+ prisoners that have been released from Guantanamo went right back to the battlefield and have, in fact, killed more people. We're guilty for having loosed them back into the world. They should have been executed for the greater good. Instead we've aided and abetted the misery they continue to unleash.

Anyway. It's unfortunate you're a deliberate deceiver. That bothers me. I like you, but I find your moral compass to be f**ked up at times. That being said, do you have any other examples of SH's "immorality" you would like to offer? Oh, and if you do offer something, please let me know what it is, exactly, that defines morality for you.

WTF?

Explain to us how it logically follows that I should support Harris' comment that people should be killed according to their beliefs. I don't give a flip what religion he is "focusing" on in this citation, nothing was taken out of context and there is no "deliberate deception." The damn sig feature doesn't allow more than 120 characters, which is why I didn't quote more. But it doesn't matter because the context chnges nothing. Do you believe Muslims should be killed because of their beliefs? If so, then it is no surprise you find nothing immoral in Sam Harris.

It doesn't take a genius to see where Harris is headed with this. He believes it is ethical to simply kill people because of their beliefs. The only reason he isn't doing it is because it is against the law. But he would like to see those laws changed, and if that ever happens, welcome back Stalinism. Stalin considered religion a threat to society as well.

Well, who gets to decide which beliefs warrant preemptive strikes upon the adherents? If you say those beliefs that are "dangerous" to society, then you have to deal with Harris' continuous claims that all religion is dangerous to society. Harris does not like to distinguish and deal with degress, because he is a "black and white" thinker, a trademark for most bigots.

So once we get on that slippery slope of killing some religious people because of their beliefs, then the natural follow up to Harris' logic, we might as well finish them all off. Ths s why he is performing all sorts of mentl backflips, pseudoscientific studies, and flt out deceiving, for the sole purpose of convining his gullible followers that religion in general is a threat to society. He is an idiot who doesn't even know the consequences of his own idiotic belief system. And Bill Maher is another one who said the government should actually regulate religion!

Where is the uproar? Why are tenured professors making a mockery of the eucharist and then advertising this stuff on the web? Who is actually getting sick kicks out of this? They get away with this stuff because nowadays bashing religion is the cool thing to do. It is considered "hip" to be a nonbeliever. Just listen to Daniel Dennett and you can see what kind of audience he is trying to impress. Gullible kids. Its cool to have professor who cracks jokes at religious people, right? Yeah!

But this new atheism is just a fad that will eventually die like bell-bottom jeans.

[_marg]

Well, this thread has taken an interesting turn. Blind devotion to Harris is apparently so profound, some atheists here are willing to turn on one of their own as if he were a turncoat, for daring to criticize one of the New Atheists.

Or what it shows Dart is that non-theists have no particular associated dogmas.

Respect...don't not entail "blind devotion".

The funny thing about this is that none of the Harris fans are willing to point out what makes Harris so special. Nobody has dealt with the criticisms provided by scholars.

I haven't seen any criticisms worth much comment on. You basically write strawmen arguments which aren't worth bothering with.

Nobody has been able to point to a single innovative contributon Harris has provided.

I don't respect him for innovation, I respect him because he presents rational arguments against the irrational of religion and does so in my opinion well.

The bigotry is not unique. His anti-religion arguments are nothing new. He just threw himself into the "New Atheist" limelight and the gullible, preferring more than less, just took it for granted he was worthy to be there.

He has something to offer. I've enjoyed his books and talks I've heard.

So what makes Harris "one of the greatest thinkers" today, as Schmo humorously asserted?

Perhaps he is one of the better presenters and book writers on this issue of the irrationality of religion. Of what I've seen so far, I think he is.

Nobody can name a single thing. You're all at a loss for words. You just like the fact that he can get his voice heard in periodicals, and that he shares the same ignorance and bigotry as has been expressed here.

While Schmo said Harris is one of the greatest thinkers of our time that does not mean every other non-theist says the same thing. Some may think that, some don't.

Instead of attacking EA for sharing an educated opinion, you guys could at least share with us some clue as to why you're desperate to defend Harris. Not that we don't already know, but it would at least relieve you of the overt hypocrisy. EA has to detail why he is critical, but you don't have to even provide even a single basis for insisting EA is wrong.

EA has presented a very weak argument for any of the criticisms he's made against Harris. I think more that Harris being defended on this thread, what has happened is , what and how you've argued has been criticized.

No one seems particularly interested in discussing with you. I find I don't even think you are serious in the things you say. The fact that you distort, misrepresent what others say, that you time and again resort to strawmen arguments indicates you aren't being serious as far as the issues go, at least that's my perception.