Sam Harris Talks about the Defence of Religion

[_dartagnan]

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

Some don't, some do. But the same holds true for theists like myself.

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

This goes well beyond respect. I respect plenty of people in the media, but I don't feel obligated to get into a drag out war defending them whenever they are criticized. There is clearly a sense of brotherhood with Harris on this forum, and again it is no different from LDS defending LDS leaders. Harris has become a leader and a spokesperson for atheists today, so there is a desire to rush to the aide of one of their own. It is knee-jerk, requiring little or no thinking, as shown already.

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

Well, you keep saying this but you haven't provided any examples, either here or in PM. What's up with that?

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.

But it has been shown Harris is a sciolist who only pretends to know what he is talking about. His arguments are usually borrowed, but the ones that originate with him are utterly stupid. For instance, his attempt to show that religious people were no more moral than atheists by pointing out how "red"(republcan) states had high crime rates. An astute researcher who really had knowledge and respect for the proper and ethical manner of education, would have pointed out somewhere, at least in a footnote, that even in those states, the blue counties were usually responsible for the most crime within those states. Was Harris aware of this? If he did any kind of personal research, he must have been aware. If so, he intentionally withheld it. If not, well he is still an idiot for presenting it because the argument backfires on him either way.

Why doesn't Sam Harris know that roughly 93% of wars in recorded history have had no correlation whatsoever to religious motive? He simply relays old myth about how dangerous religion is. And he doesn't even know what religion is to begin with.

He has something to offer.

LIKE WHAT??
Where is the innovation? Without that, he has nothing to offer.

I've enjoyed his books and talks I've heard.

Well of course you have silly. I'm sure you get a rush out of it the same way Mormons get a rush from listening to Glen Beck. They got someone who believes what they do, in the media spotlight. More power to him, right?

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.

Well that is a stupid thing to be good at since religion is not inherently irrational, and Sam Harris hasn't even begun to make a case that it is. Most scholars know he is full of bunk. The only people really excited about his books are his choir, which means he really isn't doing much to further atheism or increase its pool.

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.

Point taken, but that was the only issue I was tackling here, before I got gang banged.

No one seems particularly interested in discussing with you. I find I don't even think you are serious in the things you say.

Oh give me a break marg. Who on this forum has had as many diverse, in depth discussions as I have? I've had deep discussions with just about everyone on this forum who is capable of such discussion. People speak up when they think they can refute something I have said. This "I'm not sure you're serious" seems like a silly response. I am serious. Yor comment implies that what I am saying is so obviously stupid. Well, why stop with implication? Just demonstrate it to be so.

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.

OK, I've asked you three times now to present an example and you only reiterate the same nonsense, which is hardly "fact." The only fact here is that you like to keep saying the same thing over again, accusing me of stuff without demonstration, and strangely enough, spending a lot of time responding to me whle ironically claiming you don' find anything worth responding to.

This isn't what Harris said. He said " Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

Um, yeah, essentially what I said. The verb "to believe" corresponds to "beliefs."

Did you read his book Dart? And if so the context in which that line appears?

Yes, I read most of it, including the context of this statement. Context doesn't help Harris. And while Harris has tried spinning his way out of this Freudian slip, he did say that the way he worded it made it extremely easy for people to misunderstand. But there is no other logical way it could be understood. He said what he said that he thinks it might be ethical to kill people for "believing" certain "propositions."

In that context did he suggest that that people should be killed because of their Muslim beliefs, or their Christian beliefs or whatever other religion you wish to use?

Harris still doesn't flat out deny that this is not what he believes. This s his response to the "misunderstanding."

This paragraph appears after a long discussion of the role that belief plays in governing human behavior, and it should be read in that context. Some critics have interpreted the second sentence of this passage to mean that I advocate simply killing religious people for their beliefs. Granted, I made the job of misinterpreting me easier than it might have been, but such a reading remains a frank distortion of my views. Read in context, it should be clear that I am not at all ignoring the link between belief and behavior. The fact that belief determines behavior is what makes certain beliefs so dangerous.

When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri, the answer cannot be, “because they have killed so many people in the past.” These men haven’t, to my knowledge, killed anyone personally. However, they are likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what they and their followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc. As I argued in The End of Faith, a willingness to take preventative action against a dangerous enemy is compatible with being against the death penalty (which I am). Whenever we can capture and imprison jihadists, we should. But in most cases this is impossible.

Harris says that he has been misinterpreted but he doesn't explain how his statement could be interpreted any other way. So the relevant context is, according to Harris, "The fact that belief determines behavior is what makes certain beliefs so dangerous."

So? How does this make his statement imply something altogether different? I actually doevtails nicely with it. Belief determines behavior therefore it might be ethical to kill people for "believing" dangerous propositions. That goes together just perfect. There is no qualification in there.

If what Harris says is true in the above "explanation," then his point would have already been made without the comment about ethical killing. There was no reason for him to take it to that level. And again, it is interesting that Harris never does flat out deny that this is his view.

Moreover, it becomes clear in his explanation about that Harris exhibits a tremendous amount of ignorance about the war in Afghanistan. We were at war with a group of militants who attacked us, the same as we would respond to any foreign attacks. The United States made no military policy that said it would target those with specific beliefs. It targeted Al Qeida camps because they were in military training, not because they were in religious training. Harris just reinvents the war to suit his agenda. I mean this idiot really believes we declared war on Islam.

When referring to Muslim violence against America, he asserted on O'Reilly that religious belief, "it and nothing else explains the kind of violence we seem Muslims practicing." Can he really be this stupid? Osama bin Ladin and his supporters make it perfectly clear why they hate and attack America, and it has more to do with the fact that they do not want America's presence in the Middle East. They consider it an act of war and they are willing to fight by whatever means they can, even if that means suicide bombing. But is suicide bombing unique to Muslims? Harris is ignorant because he said only religious belief could account for these attacks, and yet he ignores the fact that this has been practiced by the Tamil Tigers in Sir Lanka, who do so not for religious cause.

Robert Pape is the world's leading expert on the subject, a sociologist who has studied this extensively. He concluded:

"Beneath the religious rhetoric with which [such terror] is perpetrated, it occurs largely in the service of secular aims. Suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation rather than a product of Islamic fundamentalism. ... Though it speaks of Americans as infidels, al-Qaida is less concerned with converting us to Islam than removing us from Arab and Muslim lands." (http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/w ... 45036.html)

But according to Harris, religion is the only explanation! And he basis this on ... what? He has no scientifc studies to determine causation. He only has his hatred of religion and a blind bigotry.

Harris is not interested in being educated. He is not interested in facts. He is not interested in listening to what these bombers actually say and what reasons they give for their actions. Instead, he is only interested in exploiting the war for his atheist agenda.

[_Tarski]

Why doesn't Sam Harris know that roughly 93% of wars in recorded history have had no correlation whatsoever to religious motive?

I am going to have to ask how you determined that.

Most scholars know he is full of bunk.

...and how did you determine that? By "scholars" do you me theologians and Bible experts?
Do you conveniently exlude those with whom you disagree such as Dennett (who is a scholar and whom you seem to dismiss with a flick of the wirst). I suspect that your unconscious method of determining who is a real scholar is to apply a litmus test "what do they say about religion?".

He is not interested in listening to what these bombers actually say and what reasons they give for their actions.

Actually, one of his big points is that we should believe terrorists when they expess their motives in religious terms.

I think you said that Harris does not even understand what religion is. Well, that's interesting. Tell us what it really is and please do so in a way that makes it clear that Harris didn't know what you are now revealing to us. What is religion?

[_marg]

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

Well, you keep saying this but you haven't provided any examples, either here or in PM. What's up with that?

Yes I did Dart, you misrepresented Harris when it came to you accusing him of wanting to 'kill people for their beliefs'.

OK, I've asked you three times now to present an example and you only reiterate the same nonsense, which is hardly "fact." The only fact here is that you like to keep saying the same thing over again, accusing me of stuff without demonstration, and strangely enough, spending a lot of time responding to me whle ironically claiming you don' find anything worth responding to.

This isn't what Harris said. He said " Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

Um, yeah, essentially what I said. The verb "to believe" corresponds to "beliefs."

Dart, what about if the people in power in any regime thought like the 9-11 suicide plane hijackers which is rooted in religious beliefs. Would it be ethical to kill them if that was the only option available to stop them before they carry out the murder of others?

[_dartagnan]

I am going to have to ask how you determined that.

Through something unfamiliar to Sam Harris. It is called research. In 2005 nine historians published the exhaustive 1,500 page, Encyclopedia of Wars. Therein, it lists 123 wars that could be categorized as "religious" to some degree, half of which were initiated by Islamic forces. That's a lot right? Well, unfortunately for atheist mythmakers, that accounts for only 6.98% of the total wars documented in the Encyclopedia. I know you can do the math here. It means that 93% of wars had nothing to do with religion.

...and how did you determine that? By "scholars" do you me theologians and Bible experts?

Hell any expert. Sociologists, anthropologists, and yes, religion experts, they do not support his ridiculous conclusions. Harris is an expert in nothing. But I know he has a handful of atheists from different science departments who support him simply because he is an atheist.

Do you conveniently exlude those with whom you disagree such as Dennett (who is a scholar and whom you seem to dismiss with a flick of the wirst).

Hogwash. I engaged Dennett's ridiculous arguments on numerous occassions. He is a functionalist. But the fact that you have to point to Dennett is like John Gee pointing to Dan Peterson and Brian Hauglid for scholarly support.

I suspect that your unconscious method of determining who is a real scholar is to apply a litmus test "what do they say about religion?".

You suspect wrongly. When I say scholars do not agree, I am speaking in general terms. Yes, everyone knows he has the New Atheists on his side.

Actually, one of his big points is that we should believe terrorists when they expess their motives in religious terms.

But they do not express relgious motives so much as they express political motives. They want Americn and its influence out of the Middle-East. The same is true in Palestine. You don't see Muslims from Egpty rushing the borders of Israel with bomb belts do you? That is the common denominator here, but only Palestinians are blowing themselves up. Why? They are a people without a land, and they are desperate to get the attention of the world to support their cause. Do they console themselves with religion? Of course they do. But religion isn't the reason.

I think you said that Harris does not even understand what religion is. Well, that's interesting. Tell us what it really is and please do so in a way that makes it clear that Harris didn't know what you are now revealing to us. What is religion?

Well, there are many accepted definitions, but Harris' problem is that he only knows of one, and incorrect one, and sees it from an intellectual perspective (it means you prefer blind faith to reason and evidence), and refuses to see it from a sociological perspective (religons are social constructs that don't necessarily require theistic or supernatural belief). His argument is similar to Dawkins, in that it rests on a straw man. These guys reinvent religion to suit their own straw man needs. Seriously, one would think that if science and atheism were such compelling alternatives, then these guys wouldn't need to lie so much about religion. Just tell us how to replace religion with science. They can't because science and religion cover two entirely different areas, and provide two entirely different types of knowledge. You can't replace religion with science anymore than you can replace science with religion. This is what Stephen Jay Gould understood well enough. Religous people are not inherently irrational and anti-reason as these guys keep asserting. From a sociological perspective, the New Atheists are very much a religion using materialism/darwinism as their dogma and the professors as their high priests. They use the academy as their church, and seek to convert as many naïve students as they can. They also try to wield their influence in the political arena to make government policy. I tried making this point more than a year ago, and then it was said atheists do not organize themselves like religious people do, so it can't really be said that atheism unites people together. And then I provided a list of dozens of atheist organizations in America, and then everyone shut up. Yes, atheism can and has been the source for unity and religious devotion. Atheism has been the source of massacre just as any other belief. The 18th century Jacobins and their "cult of reason" were arguably the first atheistic society in practice. It drove out relgion from its presence, slaughtering tens of thousands in the process.

Yes I did Dart, you misrepresented Harris when it came to you accusing him of wanting to 'kill people for their beliefs'.

And that isn't a straw man. I simply let Harris' own words speak for themselves. Context doesn't help him. There is no other reasonable way to interpret his words and he never denies that this s what he meant. But in any event, you said this (straw men) was something I did all the time with Harris. Well, have any other examples? Because I know I have made very specific arguments against his positions in the past, none of which are straw men and none of which have been adequately defended here.

Dart, what about if the people in power in any regime thought like the 9-11 suicide plane hijackers which is rooted in religious beliefs

What Harris hasn't been able to do is demonstrate causation. That is his achilles heel. He just makes these ridiculous arguments based on correlation and insists causation is granted. Now I just presented evidence from the world's authority on the matter and he disagrees profoundly with Harris, which is not too uncommon. Harris and the New Atheists spot on matters they know nothing about, and the experts in those fields of study refute them.

Would it be ethical to kill them if that was the only option available to stop them before they carry out the murder of others?

Who? The people on the plane? Sure, but then how would anyone really know that was their plan? What intelligence would you rely on before killing someone? The same intelligence that said Iraq had WMDs? What Minority Report worldview are we dealing with here, where absolute certainty abot someone's beliefs is so easily accessible? Why even entertain the idea of killing them for believing something like this when it is impossible to know for certain what their intent is? What Harris said was nothing short of irresponsible. I mean even if we had video tape of them talking about the plan to commit terror, they'd be caught before they got on the plane, and arrested, not killed. So in what scenario is it even worth discussing, killing someone because they believe they would be rewarded n heaven for killing someone else?

Again, Harris is so oblivious it is scary. He actually thinks America bombed areas in Afghanistan because it wanted to kill the breeding ground of terrorist beliefs. What idiocy. American forces treated them like it would any other foreign attacker. This was standard military planning. Find out where they are, find out where they train, find out where they keep their weapons, and blow it up. We were not trying to kill as many religious people as possible.

[_Tarski]

Dartangnan--They can't because science and religion cover two entirely different areas, and provide two entirely different types of knowledge.

What kind of knowledge is it that religion gives us? Moral? Do we need the supernatural for that? No thanks! I've read the Bible a number of times-it's largely barbaric.

Moral insight, a sense of the sacred, oneness, love, seeking an ultimate reality, the numinous, the mysterium tremendum, etc. All of this makes sense to me or is at least something i can experience. But, I have gotten over the strong but useless intuition that these things point to something magical or immaterial inside me that is more than the activity of my embodied and socially situated brain. (What would it be?)
Why can't whatever matter is be worthy of awe? Why do you need to posit the extra "stuff", the ghosts, the invisible beings, the devils, etc? Maybe you just have a bad attitude toward what we already know is real--biology, the quantum, space, time. Matter and energy are already subtle.

Maybe you just don't want to give up the word "God"? I on the other hand think it is too loaded with male Biblical expectations to be useful. Both Spinoza and Einstein tried to retain the word for occasional use and now we have EV's and fundamentalists thinking Einstein was on their side.


......
By the way, you did not even begin to successfully address Dennett. To label Dennett a funtionalist and then stare us down with that "nuff said" look does nothing-nothing at all. You have never given me enough to even respond to--its like air.
So what if Dennett is a kind of functionalist? He has called himself a semiotic materialist-but whatever. I suppose the "materialist" part will get all the press and the semiotic part will get no notice from you. When you can explain to me how Dennett deals with the brain as a syntactic engine as opposed to a semantic engine then we can talk.

I can tell you haven't actually read his books in earnest--don't even try to tell me otherwise.

What can you offer that actually explains something? Ghosts? Qualia? Unexplained and under-articulated concepts/words like "mind" "soul" etc??
What?

His standing in philosophy is much higher than you think but that is beside the point. That what he says is not at first intuitive says nothing about its truth.
We can all agree that humans have the intuition that we are more than functioning material bodies (and in some ways we are) --but what next? Is that it? We have ghosts in us? What? Appealing to that intuition is no way to settle anything.
Take us to the next step where there is a moment of understanding finally. Show me how the denial of our material biological foundations buys understanding or explanatory power.

Your attitude toward mind reminds me of my brothers reaction when I explained to him how a television worked (we were kids). He just knew there had to be more in there than what I was telling him--I just had to be leaving something magical out!



Now back to religion.
Please tell me what is the proper reaction to each of these roughly true items:

1) The major religions what to dominate society--even so do the minor ones like the Mormons. They want to eliminate infidels in one way or another and usher in a theocratic era.

2) Religiously oriented world leaders expect the world to end shortly and believe God is on their side in the final battle.

[_EAllusion]

It means that 93% of wars had nothing to do with religion.

Nothing you quoted argued that. It's quite easy to imagine some criteria by which we classify a war as "religious" where wars that have something to do with religion fail to qualify.

[_marg]

Yes I did Dart, you misrepresented Harris when it came to you accusing him of wanting to 'kill people for their beliefs'.

And that isn't a straw man. I simply let Harris' own words speak for themselves. Context doesn't help him. There is no other reasonable way to interpret his words and he never denies that this s what he meant. But in any event, you said this (straw men) was something I did all the time with Harris. Well, have any other examples? Because I know I have made very specific arguments against his positions in the past, none of which are straw men and none of which have been adequately defended here.

I can go back and look for other strawmen, however Iwould like to address one at a time, and come to some agreement. Besides you also said you just needed one. by the way, when I say you use strawmen arguments it includes in this thread your attacks or arguments against atheists, and/or atheism.

The reason I asked the following question is because that is essentially the scenario or context that Harris used the sentence you have misrepresented. "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them".
So I asked you:

Dart, what about if the people in power in any regime thought like the 9-11 suicide plane hijackers which is rooted in religious beliefs

And you replied:

"What Harris hasn't been able to do is demonstrate causation. That is his achilles heel. He just makes these ridiculous arguments based on correlation and insists causation is granted."

Granted Kevin that people do irrational things not based on religious belief but in the case of the Muslim hijackers..it could be argued that the root of the problem stems from a combination of religious devotion, religious dogma as well as historically problems in the Middle East between Muslim, Jews and Christians which also are rooted in religion.

Just because people can commit irrational acts based on non religious beliefs does not mean irrational aspects of religion which may have negative consequences due to resultant behaviors, should therefore be accepted or not criticized.

[_dartagnan]

Nothing you quoted argued that. It's quite easy to imagine some criteria by which we classify a war as "religious" where wars that have something to do with religion fail to qualify.

So the Encyclopedia categorized religious wars using the wrong criteria? Who should decide what counts as a religiously motivated war? Oh, I know. How about some atheist biologists, an atheist journalists, and an atheist philosopher. Oh, and another guy who is just an atheist but is really cool because he talks while he's sleeping and looks like Ben Stiller. Yeah, that seems like the best way to get to the truth of the matter. These guys wouldn't hold anything from us.

Seriously though, atheists who argue confidently, proudly, arrogantly, ignorantly, using no scholarshp to back them whatsoeer, that religion is the number one cause of war and violence. What is there to argue for this? If you guys want to keep maintaining this falsehood about war and religion, then you need to start producing some sources for once and don't complain when I do. This all started because YOU GUYS made a claim about religion and violence.

What kind of knowledge is it that religion gives us?

The kind that you won't accept as a strict materialist. Theistic religion provides individual knowledge, and it is on a personal level. It isn't something that can be tested and verified through experiments. You're letting your blind and baseless devotion to materialism transform you into something of a bigot if you cannot accept at least the possibility that others recieve knowledge in ways that you do not.

Moral? Do we need the supernatural for that? No thanks! I've read the Bible a number of times-it's largely barbaric.

You don't understand what the Bible is. This is a matter of ignorance. I'm not a Christian or a Jew, but I've read more scholarly literature on the Bible than I'd like to remember. Nobody in their right minds understands the Bible in the way you prefer to. I'm guessing you've read none of this scholarshp, or maybe yo hold it all in contempt, operating under the falsehood that its just a bunch of religious people doing the work. One overwhelming certainty is that people who consider this ancient text scripture generally do not understand it in the manner in which you and Harris insist is the only way to read it.

David Attenborough in a BBC presentation on Evolution, stated ignorantly that before Darwin, everyone took the Bible literally. WTF? It is really sad to see such intelligent people like yourselves engage in such ignorant rantings. I mean where do you come up with this crap? A literal understanding of Genesis was rejected by St. Augustine, one of the most influencial Church fathers. Keith Ward argued rather persuasively that Christians only began to take the Bible literally at the advent of science, when Christians desired to use science to prove biblical claims. Before then it was mostly taken metaphorically.

Moral insight, a sense of the sacred, oneness, love, seeking an ultimate reality, the numinous, the mysterium tremendum, etc. All of this makes sense to me or is at least something i can experience.

Whenever you take LSD, right?

But, I have gotten over the strong but useless intuition that these things point to something magical or immaterial inside me that is more than the activity of my embodied and socially situated brain. (What would it be?)

How about YOU. I mean a huge hunk of unconscious matter could eventually, given enough time, evolve into a conscious entity right? I mean that's essentially what current science and Big Bang cosmology tells us. To me that sounds about as rationale as flesh crackers and talking snakes. The mystery is already there, you just pretend it doesn't exist because brainacs like you hate the idea that there exists truths beyond your reach.

Why can't whatever matter is be worthy of awe?

It is. But there is no purpose to matter in and of itself. There is nothing to explain why it is, why it is as it is, why mysterious forces exist to hold it together, and why this universe appears to be designed for the creation of life.

Why do you need to posit the extra "stuff", the ghosts, the invisible beings, the devils, etc?

Because it's there! We know it is there. That extra "stuff" like the forces that keep the parts of atoms from colliding into one another, the weird force called gravity which seems to exist for no reason other than it is necessary for life to exist. That's mysterious stuff if you ask me, and materialism doesn't even begin to explain it. Just because we apply names to them (strong/weak nuclear forces) doesn't mean we have successfully demystified them.

Maybe you just have a bad attitude toward what we already know is real--biology, the quantum, space, time. Matter and energy are already subtle.

I have no problem accepting any of that, so no "attitude" is needed. But it is clear you have a bad attitude towards anyone who claims to know something you can't verify in a lab. that's pretty irrational. It drives you nuts that people have religious experiences that you can't verify for yourself. So you do the bigot thing and call them all deluded just becase some obviously are and because you managed to "get over" what you call intuitions. Do you think you don't accept things on faith? We all do. Most people who believe in evolution, like myself, accept it on faith. While scientists have claimed to have solidified this theory this through various experiments, none of us were there to see them or understand them , so we just read their books along with their conclusions and take it for granted that they are right. And I'm sure they are, but I'm not quite as sure about that as I am that a supreme intelligence exists.

Maybe you just don't want to give up the word "God"?

Actually I have repeatedly tried to avoid the word, calling God a he/she/it because there is no reason to ascribe anthropomorphic qualities to it.

Both Spinoza and Einstein tried to retain the word for occasional use and now we have EV's and fundamentalists thinking Einstein was on their side.

You don't know what you're talking about. You just took a page out of Dawkins (page 33 I believe). The fact is Einstein is far more important to atheists than he ever was to theists. Dawkins references some examples of Christians suggesting he was a theist from many decades ago, and yet we have Dawkins flat out lying to the world quite recently, when he asserted that Einstein was an atheist. Einstein adamantly denied being an atheist, so where is the outrage about Dawkins' lie? It was one of teh first things he argued in his book, and he was dead wrong. Now this must be really important to you guys if you're willing to lie about it. Einstein and I agree that the universe contains laws that were written by a supreme reasoning power, an intellectual force. That's about all we can say, but we know from science that these laws were written by a law giver. And recent scholarship has put to rest the silly atheistic claim that Einstein was just a pantheist like Spinoza.

By the way, you did not even begin to successfully address Dennett.

Dennett is fringe, "Dawkins' lapdog," and a moron. The guy was manhandled by D'Souza in a debate on his own turf. You have not come to grips with the stupidity of his computer analogy. He proposes to "explain" consciousness by dismissing it.

To label Dennett a funtionalist and then stare us down with that "nuff said" look does nothing-nothing at all. You have never given me enough to even respond to--its like air.

I was yawning, not staring when I typed that.

What can you offer that actually explains something? Ghosts? Qualia? Unexplained and under-articulated concepts/words like "mind" "soul" etc??
What?

I never came here to preac because I don't belong to a church. I came here to point out stupd arguments from atheist bigots. This s how you respond to my arguments? You ignore everything I said. Are you upset because you were one of those duped to believe religion was the source of most wars? You think you're going to suddenly divert attenton from that with this onslaught of straw questions as if you're going to put me on the defensive?

His standing in philosophy is much higher than you think but that is beside the point. That what he says is not at first intuitive says nothing about its truth.

You just go take your fringe guy and have a coke and a smile, OK? Dennett is a moron. I've seen him in action. Unless he's looking down his nose confidently at a bunch of impressionable students during a lecture, cracking bigotted jokes and appearing all knowing, he is a mumbling buffoon debating someone who doesn't take it for granted that he is the Santa Claus of science.

We can all agree that humans have the intuition that we are more than functioning material bodies (and in some ways we are) --but what next? Is that it? We have ghosts in us? What?

Obviously we have something that cannot be explained by functionalism or materialism. So what do we do now, pretend it doesn't exist? No thanks. My knowledge isn't strapped down like that. My paradigm isn't limited to materialistic sensibilities an atheistic professors on drugs. You refuse to accept religion on it sown terms. Science has hit a brick wall with consciousness, and this is something neruoscientists are beginning to admit. We'e mapped the brain, we see what's going on, and nothing makes sense in light of human awareness/consciousness.

If we are really just computers as Dennett proposes, then this suggests that any set matrix of firing neurons in one brain will produce the exact thoughts/images/dreams given the same matrix in another brain. That's what we know of computers. Any sequence of 1's and 0's wll produce the same thing in any computer. But there is no logical or rational basis for thinking this is true for humn brains once we realize what actually goes on in the brain. On the materialistic level, all we can conclude really is a ton of firing neurons that light up on a monitor when scanned.

While you're tripping on acid, tell me how is it that I can imagine a yellow flower in my head? There isn't a flower in my head. But I can see one. And at will I can imagine it changing color, taking shape, etc. It doesn't have to be based on memory because it is a kind of flower that doesn't exist. Why do have the power to create? And even if you could explain it by tossing it to evolution, then answer what evolutionary purpose does this serve? Computers cannot do this. Computers are not aware that they exist. Computers only do what they are programmed to do and in this sense and only in this sense, are we like computers. We were programmed as well, which is evidence for a programmer, but we are also given free will.

The atheist "philosopher" can come up with any kind of bogus manure he wants, and it will be appealing to others who are sick and tired of trying to figure out consciousness, but the fact is he is agenda driven and has been refuted time and time again by others like David Chalmers. I mean the fact that every single one of these guys produce arguments that seem to always have some kind of relevance to the queston of God, should raise red flags. This is all they care about. Not promoting science, but killing religion. They let their agenda drive their research and their conclusions, and as a gullible follower, you just eat it up uncritically because it coincides well with your own presuppositions.

Appealing to that intuition is no way to settle anything.

And neither is calling it mere intuition and dismissing it on that basis.

Take us to the next step where there is a moment of understanding finally. Show me how the denial of our material biological foundations buys understanding or explanatory power.

Yeah, as soon as you show me how replacing religion with science is a viable alternative.

Your attitude toward mind reminds me of my brothers reaction when I explained to him how a television worked (we were kids). He just knew there had to be more in there than what I was telling him--I just had to be leaving something magical out!

Seriously, are you on drugs again? You just asked me like a dozen questions while answering them yourself, as if those would have been my answers, and then proceeded to tear them down. Is this how you always act, or only when you've been shown to be a blind follower of Harris and the gang?

1) The major religions what to dominate society--even so do the minor ones like the Mormons. They want to eliminate infidels in one way or another and usher in a theocratic era.

I thought you didn't believe in myth? Have you really devolved to such an irrational alarmist? There is no desire to create a theocracy. Get a brain already, Jesus.

2) Religiously oriented world leaders expect the world to end shortly and believe God is on their side in the final battle.

Again, you can't possibly be serious. Who are these "religiously oriented world leaders"? And how do they expect the world to end? I thought you said you read the Bible.

OK, crap. Guess who's going to work on four hours sleep tomorrow.

[_dartagnan]

Granted Kevin that people do irrational things not based on religious belief but in the case of the Muslim hijackers..it could be argued that the root of the problem stems from a combination of religious devotion, religious dogma as well as historically problems in the Middle East between Muslim, Jews and Christians which also are rooted in religion.

This flies in teh face of logic and history. Consider teh fact that during the 80's Osama bin Ladin aimed his forces at another enemy, the U.S.S.R.

Why?

Was it because they were infidels and God commanded them to kiil non-Muslims? No, it was because they were encroaching on his territory and Muslims are downright paranoid of imperialism. The interesting thing is we sold them Stinger missles which enabled them to defeat the Russian forces. But we were only doing this for our own interests, and as soon as Al Queida saw America as the threat to its part of the world, it focused its cross hairs on us. Again, this is about politics, not religion. If it were simply religion, then why aren't they attacking thoughout Eastern europe, despite a strong Christian/Jewish presence? Those would be easy targets, and they'd be able to rack up plenty of infidel kills, earning rewards in heaven or whatever. Instead they attack the most powerful nations on the planet because those are the ones that threaten them.

Now any religious person about to de is going to believe some kind of doctrine about the afterlife, but this wasn't the main reason why they attacked on 9-11. Yes, there are scriptues in the Koran that could easily provide fuel to that kind of ideological flame. But that doesn't establish causation.

Just because people can commit irrational acts based on non religious beliefs does not mean irrational aspects of religion which may have negative consequences due to resultant behaviors, should therefore be accepted or not criticized.

All irrational behavior should be open to criticism and criticized equally, but Harris is not an equal opportunity bigot. He doesn't make distinctions and discuss crimes commited by atheists, except to excuse them and rationalize how it iw realy religon's fault, somehow; because his full frontal attack is on religion, so he exagerrates anything that appears to have some kind of religious premise and then distorts the reality to make people afraid of it. And to some extent it has worked, as there have been people on this forum who have followed his lead in saying religion is inherently dangerous.

I mean let's assume the Muslim world had no religion at all. Would their political grievances be gone too? Who is to say they wouldn't still adopt the means of the Tamil Tigers to get their acheive their political goals? The Marxist tigers didn't need religion to commit suicide bombings in their fight over land, so why would atheistic Afghans be any different? The only difference is that they wouldn't believe they have 72 virgins wating for them, but the violence would still be committed for the same reasons they are commited everywhere there is oppression or depression.

Crap. Now its really late.

[_Tarski]

Nothing you quoted argued that. It's quite easy to imagine some criteria by which we classify a war as "religious" where wars that have something to do with religion fail to qualify.

So the Encyclopedia categorized religious wars using the wrong criteria? Who should decide what counts as a religiously motivated war? Oh, I know. How about some atheist biologists, an atheist journalists, and an atheist philosopher. Oh, and another guy who is just an atheist but is really cool because he talks while he's sleeping and looks like Ben Stiller. Yeah, that seems like the best way to get to the truth of the matter. These guys wouldn't hold anything from us.

Seriously though, atheists who argue confidently, proudly, arrogantly, ignorantly, using no scholarshp to back them whatsoeer, that religion is the number one cause of war and violence. What is there to argue for this? If you guys want to keep maintaining this falsehood about war and religion, then you need to start producing some sources for once and don't complain when I do. This all started because YOU GUYS made a claim about religion and violence.

What kind of knowledge is it that religion gives us?

The kind that you won't accept as a strict materialist. Theistic religion provides individual knowledge, and it is on a personal level. It isn't something that can be tested and verified through experiments. You're letting your blind and baseless devotion to materialism transform you into something of a bigot if you cannot accept at least the possibility that others recieve knowledge in ways that you do not.

Moral? Do we need the supernatural for that? No thanks! I've read the Bible a number of times-it's largely barbaric.

You don't understand what the Bible is. This is a matter of ignorance. I'm not a Christian or a Jew, but I've read more scholarly literature on the Bible than I'd like to remember. Nobody in their right minds understands the Bible in the way you prefer to. I'm guessing you've read none of this scholarshp, or maybe yo hold it all in contempt, operating under the falsehood that its just a bunch of religious people doing the work. One overwhelming certainty is that people who consider this ancient text scripture generally do not understand it in the manner in which you and Harris insist is the only way to read it.

David Attenborough in a BBC presentation on Evolution, stated ignorantly that before Darwin, everyone took the Bible literally. WTF? It is really sad to see such intelligent people like yourselves engage in such ignorant rantings. I mean where do you come up with this crap? A literal understanding of Genesis was rejected by St. Augustine, one of the most influencial Church fathers. Keith Ward argued rather persuasively that Christians only began to take the Bible literally at the advent of science, when Christians desired to use science to prove biblical claims. Before then it was mostly taken metaphorically.

Moral insight, a sense of the sacred, oneness, love, seeking an ultimate reality, the numinous, the mysterium tremendum, etc. All of this makes sense to me or is at least something i can experience.

Whenever you take LSD, right?

But, I have gotten over the strong but useless intuition that these things point to something magical or immaterial inside me that is more than the activity of my embodied and socially situated brain. (What would it be?)

How about YOU. I mean a huge hunk of unconscious matter could eventually, given enough time, evolve into a conscious entity right? I mean that's essentially what current science and Big Bang cosmology tells us. To me that sounds about as rationale as flesh crackers and talking snakes. The mystery is already there, you just pretend it doesn't exist because brainacs like you hate the idea that there exists truths beyond your reach.

Why can't whatever matter is be worthy of awe?

It is. But there is no purpose to matter in and of itself. There is nothing to explain why it is, why it is as it is, why mysterious forces exist to hold it together, and why this universe appears to be designed for the creation of life.

Why do you need to posit the extra "stuff", the ghosts, the invisible beings, the devils, etc?

Because it's there! We know it is there. That extra "stuff" like the forces that keep the parts of atoms from colliding into one another, the weird force called gravity which seems to exist for no reason other than it is necessary for life to exist. That's mysterious stuff if you ask me, and materialism doesn't even begin to explain it. Just because we apply names to them (strong/weak nuclear forces) doesn't mean we have successfully demystified them.

Maybe you just have a bad attitude toward what we already know is real--biology, the quantum, space, time. Matter and energy are already subtle.

I have no problem accepting any of that, so no "attitude" is needed. But it is clear you have a bad attitude towards anyone who claims to know something you can't verify in a lab. that's pretty irrational. It drives you nuts that people have religious experiences that you can't verify for yourself. So you do the bigot thing and call them all deluded just becase some obviously are and because you managed to "get over" what you call intuitions. Do you think you don't accept things on faith? We all do. Most people who believe in evolution, like myself, accept it on faith. While scientists have claimed to have solidified this theory this through various experiments, none of us were there to see them or understand them , so we just read their books along with their conclusions and take it for granted that they are right. And I'm sure they are, but I'm not quite as sure about that as I am that a supreme intelligence exists.

Maybe you just don't want to give up the word "God"?

Actually I have repeatedly tried to avoid the word, calling God a he/she/it because there is no reason to ascribe anthropomorphic qualities to it.

Both Spinoza and Einstein tried to retain the word for occasional use and now we have EV's and fundamentalists thinking Einstein was on their side.

You don't know what you're talking about. You just took a page out of Dawkins (page 33 I believe). The fact is Einstein is far more important to atheists than he ever was to theists. Dawkins references some examples of Christians suggesting he was a theist from many decades ago, and yet we have Dawkins flat out lying to the world quite recently, when he asserted that Einstein was an atheist. Einstein adamantly denied being an atheist, so where is the outrage about Dawkins' lie? It was one of the first things he argued in his book, and he was dead wrong. Now this must be really important to you guys if you're willing to lie about it. Einstein and I agree that the universe contains laws that were written by a supreme reasoning power, an intellectual force. That's about all we can say, but we know from science that these laws were written by a law giver. And recent scholarship has put to rest the silly atheistic claim that Einstein was just a pantheist like Spinoza.

By the way, you did not even begin to successfully address Dennett.

Dennett is fringe, "Dawkins' lapdog," and a moron. The guy was manhandled by D'Souza in a debate on his own turf. You have not come to grips with the stupidity of his computer analogy. He proposes to "explain" consciousness by dismissing it.

To label Dennett a funtionalist and then stare us down with that "nuff said" look does nothing-nothing at all. You have never given me enough to even respond to--its like air.

I was yawning, not staring when I typed that.

What can you offer that actually explains something? Ghosts? Qualia? Unexplained and under-articulated concepts/words like "mind" "soul" etc??
What?

I never came here to preac because I don't belong to a church. I came here to point out stupd arguments from atheist bigots. This s how you respond to my arguments? You ignore everything I said. Are you upset because you were one of those duped to believe religion was the source of most wars? You think you're going to suddenly divert attenton from that with this onslaught of straw questions as if you're going to put me on the defensive?

His standing in philosophy is much higher than you think but that is beside the point. That what he says is not at first intuitive says nothing about its truth.

You just go take your fringe guy and have a coke and a smile, OK? Dennett is a moron. I've seen him in action. Unless he's looking down his nose confidently at a bunch of impressionable students during a lecture, cracking bigotted jokes and appearing all knowing, he is a mumbling buffoon debating someone who doesn't take it for granted that he is the Santa Claus of science.

We can all agree that humans have the intuition that we are more than functioning material bodies (and in some ways we are) --but what next? Is that it? We have ghosts in us? What?

Obviously we have something that cannot be explained by functionalism or materialism. So what do we do now, pretend it doesn't exist? No thanks. My knowledge isn't strapped down like that. My paradigm isn't limited to materialistic sensibilities an atheistic professors on drugs. You refuse to accept religion on it sown terms. Science has hit a brick wall with consciousness, and this is something neruoscientists are beginning to admit. We'e mapped the brain, we see what's going on, and nothing makes sense in light of human awareness/consciousness.

If we are really just computers as Dennett proposes, then this suggests that any set matrix of firing neurons in one brain will produce the exact thoughts/images/dreams given the same matrix in another brain. That's what we know of computers. Any sequence of 1's and 0's wll produce the same thing in any computer. But there is no logical or rational basis for thinking this is true for humn brains once we realize what actually goes on in the brain. On the materialistic level, all we can conclude really is a ton of firing neurons that light up on a monitor when scanned.

While you're tripping on acid, tell me how is it that I can imagine a yellow flower in my head? There isn't a flower in my head. But I can see one. And at will I can imagine it changing color, taking shape, etc. It doesn't have to be based on memory because it is a kind of flower that doesn't exist. Why do have the power to create? And even if you could explain it by tossing it to evolution, then answer what evolutionary purpose does this serve? Computers cannot do this. Computers are not aware that they exist. Computers only do what they are programmed to do and in this sense and only in this sense, are we like computers. We were programmed as well, which is evidence for a programmer, but we are also given free will.

The atheist "philosopher" can come up with any kind of bogus manure he wants, and it will be appealing to others who are sick and tired of trying to figure out consciousness, but the fact is he is agenda driven and has been refuted time and time again by others like David Chalmers. I mean the fact that every single one of these guys produce arguments that seem to always have some kind of relevance to the queston of God, should raise red flags. This is all they care about. Not promoting science, but killing religion. They let their agenda drive their research and their conclusions, and as a gullible follower, you just eat it up uncritically because it coincides well with your own presuppositions.

Appealing to that intuition is no way to settle anything.

And neither is calling it mere intuition and dismissing it on that basis.

Take us to the next step where there is a moment of understanding finally. Show me how the denial of our material biological foundations buys understanding or explanatory power.

Yeah, as soon as you show me how replacing religion with science is a viable alternative.

Your attitude toward mind reminds me of my brothers reaction when I explained to him how a television worked (we were kids). He just knew there had to be more in there than what I was telling him--I just had to be leaving something magical out!

Seriously, are you on drugs again? You just asked me like a dozen questions while answering them yourself, as if those would have been my answers, and then proceeded to tear them down. Is this how you always act, or only when you've been shown to be a blind follower of Harris and the gang?

1) The major religions what to dominate society--even so do the minor ones like the Mormons. They want to eliminate infidels in one way or another and usher in a theocratic era.

I thought you didn't believe in myth? Have you really devolved to such an irrational alarmist? There is no desire to create a theocracy. Get a brain already, Jesus.

2) Religiously oriented world leaders expect the world to end shortly and believe God is on their side in the final battle.

Again, you can't possibly be serious. Who are these "religiously oriented world leaders"? And how do they expect the world to end? I thought you said you read the Bible.

OK, crap. Guess who's going to work on four hours sleep tomorrow.

OK, you really are full of it. Almost everything you said if off the mark. So much so that there seems little chance of having a reasonable discussion. Where would I start?

Get a brain indeed! LOL
Wake the hell up! No apocalyptic thinking among Christian or Islamic world leaders? You are in serious denial.

Maybe you should come back when you can tell me what this thing is that religion reveals to us. What exactly do you know by this spiritual means that I don't know and can't know without believing? Your bluffing and seemingly dishonest. I say you have nothing. Your whole game is to basically shout and insult. But there is nothing positive, nothing to really get ahold of to even argue about. Either that or you just offer denails of the what is out in the open like the apocolyptic beliefs of countless Christians, Muslims (and Mormons) including guys like Sen. Mark Pryor or Mahmoud Akmadinijad.

Dominionism is a thing I made up?

Look. Lets take one thing--just one thing at a time. We can start with this: What is this mysterious thing that religion reveals that I cannot know of otherwise.
However, if you again resort to insults such as "Get a brain already" I will end the discussion for the simple reason that if you think I have any problem with intelligence then you will have thereby proven yourself clueless. There is also no reason to put up with accusations of my being on drugs.
I have been in too many reasonable debates, written to many scholarly papers, and engaged too many reasonable people to be bullied into thinking that I have to put up with that crap. Don't kid yourself that this modus operandi is intimidating people into "running away". Its more like you just go over the top and people realize the futility of it. Shouting someone down is not the same as winning a debate (of course I expect denials of this point--but don't bother)

It might also help if you for once lay your freaking cards on the table and tell us your beliefs clearly concernig the nature and reality of God, the reality of angels, the truthfulness or literalness of Bible stories etc.
Its not too much to ask is it. Where are you coming from?



By the way, I find your thinking about mentailty (the imagining a flower thing) to be quite muddled. Are you really mystified by the ability of the brain to manipulate and create visual content? Is it a mystery that the brain does not represent its own activity to itself as being neurocompuational? How could it? Given that it couldn't, how would you expect it to seem? What kind of self reports would you expect if the brain were computational? Would it be mysteriously unable to say the things like you say? Would it be in principle blocked from making reports of imagery of the sort that you insist on?

So the point of debate is narrowed for now to this
"What exactly is this mysterious thing that religion reveals that I cannot know of without religion"
Is it within your rhetorical power to make this clear at all (to anyone here)?


,
,
,