Sam Harris Talks about the Defence of Religion

[_Brackite]

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.

Well Stated, Dart!.

<>

[_Tarski]

You don't know what you're talking about. You just took a page out of Dawkins (page 33 I believe).

I don't even own the book and I haven't read it.

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 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. 

Reasoning power? Where is the quote?

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.

Einstein was asked by Rabbi H. S. Goldstein if he believed in God. Einstein answered by telegram: "I believe in Spinoza's God"
Einstein even wrote a poem about Spinoza and claim he was the most inferential thinker for him. (http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/histor ... inoza.html)
So how is it a lie?

But I don't care. Einstein got his science right but many personal ethical things wrong.

Bill Maher also said he wasn't an atheist. Some people don't like the sound of it. I think I have tried to avoid it also. But listen to the details of what they think and you come away with something that most believers would not recognize as theism. Dig deeper.
Einstein said it was a mystery that the universe is intelligable (but is it?). Intelligently designed and "intelligable" and "law-like" are not the same.

Now, how are gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces anything like the supernatural? We can measure them and present public evidence for them.

[_EAllusion]

Sam Harris, the atheist this thread is about, is opposed to calling himself an atheist.

[_antishock8]

10 myths and truths about Atheism

By Sam Harris

December 24, 2006
The Los Angeles Times

SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.

Atheists are often imagined to be intolerant, immoral, depressed, blind to the beauty of nature and dogmatically closed to evidence of the supernatural.

Even John Locke, one of the great patriarchs of the Enlightenment, believed that atheism was “not at all to be tolerated” because, he said, “promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human societies, can have no hold upon an atheist.”

That was more than 300 years ago. But in the United States today, little seems to have changed. A remarkable 87% of the population claims “never to doubt” the existence of God; fewer than 10% identify themselves as atheists — and their reputation appears to be deteriorating.

Given that we know that atheists are often among the most intelligent and scientifically literate people in any society, it seems important to deflate the myths that prevent them from playing a larger role in our national discourse.

1) Atheists believe that life is meaningless.

On the contrary, religious people often worry that life is meaningless and imagine that it can only be redeemed by the promise of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Atheists tend to be quite sure that life is precious. Life is imbued with meaning by being really and fully lived. Our relationships with those we love are meaningful now; they need not last forever to be made so. Atheists tend to find this fear of meaninglessness … well … meaningless.

2) Atheism is responsible for the greatest crimes in human history.

People of faith often claim that the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were the inevitable product of unbelief. The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions. Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.

3) Atheism is dogmatic.

Jews, Christians and Muslims claim that their scriptures are so prescient of humanity’s needs that they could only have been written under the direction of an omniscient deity. An atheist is simply a person who has considered this claim, read the books and found the claim to be ridiculous. One doesn’t have to take anything on faith, or be otherwise dogmatic, to reject unjustified religious beliefs. As the historian Stephen Henry Roberts (1901-71) once said: “I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

4) Atheists think everything in the universe arose by chance.

No one knows why the universe came into being. In fact, it is not entirely clear that we can coherently speak about the “beginning” or “creation” of the universe at all, as these ideas invoke the concept of time, and here we are talking about the origin of space-time itself.

The notion that atheists believe that everything was created by chance is also regularly thrown up as a criticism of Darwinian evolution. As Richard Dawkins explains in his marvelous book, “The God Delusion,” this represents an utter misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. Although we don’t know precisely how the Earth’s early chemistry begat biology, we know that the diversity and complexity we see in the living world is not a product of mere chance. Evolution is a combination of chance mutation and natural selection. Darwin arrived at the phrase “natural selection” by analogy to the “artificial selection” performed by breeders of livestock. In both cases, selection exerts a highly non-random effect on the development of any species.

5) Atheism has no connection to science.

Although it is possible to be a scientist and still believe in God — as some scientists seem to manage it — there is no question that an engagement with scientific thinking tends to erode, rather than support, religious faith. Taking the U.S. population as an example: Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not. This suggests that there are few modes of thinking less congenial to religious faith than science is.

6) Atheists are arrogant.

When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.

7) Atheists are closed to spiritual experience.

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

8) Atheists believe that there is nothing beyond human life and human understanding.

Atheists are free to admit the limits of human understanding in a way that religious people are not. It is obvious that we do not fully understand the universe; but it is even more obvious that neither the Bible nor the Koran reflects our best understanding of it. We do not know whether there is complex life elsewhere in the cosmos, but there might be. If there is, such beings could have developed an understanding of nature’s laws that vastly exceeds our own. Atheists can freely entertain such possibilities. They also can admit that if brilliant extraterrestrials exist, the contents of the Bible and the Koran will be even less impressive to them than they are to human atheists.

From the atheist point of view, the world’s religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn’t have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.

9) Atheists ignore the fact that religion is extremely beneficial to society.

Those who emphasize the good effects of religion never seem to realize that such effects fail to demonstrate the truth of any religious doctrine. This is why we have terms such as “wishful thinking” and “self-deception.” There is a profound distinction between a consoling delusion and the truth.

In any case, the good effects of religion can surely be disputed. In most cases, it seems that religion gives people bad reasons to behave well, when good reasons are actually available. Ask yourself, which is more moral, helping the poor out of concern for their suffering, or doing so because you think the creator of the universe wants you to do it, will reward you for doing it or will punish you for not doing it?

10) Atheism provides no basis for morality.

If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.

We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.

[_marg]

Armageddon is generally accepted by most religios people, sure. But believing something will happen and wanting it to happen in your own lifetime are two different things. Why wold anyone try to make something happen they believe to be a matter of God's will? I've heard scientists predict that eventually the earth will be obliterated by an asteroid. It is just an inevitable fact because these things are hurling through space all the time and it is just a matter of time before one crosses or path. But that doesn't mean they want it to happen. Relgious people understand Armageddon to be an inevitable event but most recognize that it is something entirely out of their hands. It will be something initiated by corrupt governments and finished by God himself. How will God finish it? By making himself manifest in the sky. How is believing this somehow proof that these people are a danger to society? So there is no accepted understanding that involves Christians taking up arms and marching the streets to start it themselves. That simply isn't how their "apocalyptic thinking" goes. The only thing even close to a theocracy could only happen after Armageddon has ended, when it is expected that the messiah will rule over the earth, in which case you have nothing to be afraid of.

You are missing the point of what the problem is. It is the credulousness of people to believe in irrational religious ideas, to blindly obey religious authority be it people or sacred text, which potentially can cause actions or behaviors detrimental overall.

[_Brackite]

[_Gadianton]

Einstein and I agree that the universe contains laws that were written by a supreme reasoning power, an intellectual force.

Where does Einstein say that? He gets this close:

"I'm not an atheist...We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books..."

Einstein did not say that the laws of the universe were written by someone.

He also says in a letter,

"You may call me agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist."

Most critical though is this. Einstein was an unflinching, dyed-in-the-wool determinist. But unlike deists who believe God determines a rational physical and moral universe, Einstein believed human actions were determined by physical/psychological laws only.

"I know that philosophically a murderer is not responsible for his crime, but I prefere not to take tea with him."

He did not believe man was "designed" as a rational creature along with morality or other rational social institutions or for any kind of purpose.

When that is understood loud and clear, it's difficult to see why he'd literally think there was a stick behind a queue ball yet no game of pool going on.


Quotes from Einstein - Walter Isaacson Page 392-393

[_dartagnan]

That was awesome antishock! who would have thought that the best evidence for Harris' stupidity, would be a post including nothing but Harris commentary?

That's genius man, pure genius!

Gad,

Where does Einstein say that? He gets this close:

"I'm not an atheist...We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books..."

Einstein did not say that the laws of the universe were written by someone.

Yes he did. Here is the context:

My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infintely superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God...Everyone who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.

I am not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist (note: Spinoza was a pantheist). We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of those books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being towards God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.

The analogy he chose here makes it perfectly clear he believes a superior intelligence was responsible for writing the laws of the universe, same as those library books were also written. Now you ask where he referred to a "superior reasoning power," and I just presented it. Here is another referring to a superior mind:

"Certain it is that a conviction, akin to religious feeling, of the rationality or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a higher order... This firm belief, a belief bound up with deep feeling, in a superior mind that reveals itself in the world of experience, represents my conception of God...The religious inclination lies in the dim consciousness that dwells in humans that all nature, including the humans in it, is in no way an accidental game, but a work of lawfulness that there is a fundamental cause of all existence."

Incidentally, I picked up a magazine at the airport tonight, browsed through it, I think it was Scientific American or Science something... anyway, there was an article on Einstein and it cited him as saying, "for most people miracles are evidence for God, but for me it is the absence of miracles that is evidence of God." That's an odd statement for an "atheist" to make.

This is from an April 2007 article in TIME Magazine.

One particular evening in 1929, the year he turned 50, captures Einstein's middle-age deistic faith. He and his wife were at a dinner party in Berlin when a guest expressed a belief in astrology. Einstein ridiculed the notion as pure superstition. Another guest stepped in and similarly disparaged religion. Belief in God, he insisted, was likewise a superstition.

At this point the host tried to silence him by invoking the fact that even Einstein harbored religious beliefs. "It isn't possible!" the skeptical guest said, turning to Einstein to ask if he was, in fact, religious. "Yes, you can call it that," Einstein replied calmly. "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."

To what extent are you influenced by Christianity? "As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

You accept the historical existence of Jesus? "Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."...

But throughout his life, Einstein was consistent in rejecting the charge that he was an atheist. "There are people who say there is no God," he told a friend. "But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views." And unlike Sigmund Freud or Bertrand Russell or George Bernard Shaw, Einstein never felt the urge to denigrate those who believed in God; instead, he tended to denigrate atheists. "What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos," he explained.

In fact, Einstein tended to be more critical of debunkers, who seemed to lack humility or a sense of awe, than of the faithful. "The fanatical atheists," he wrote in a letter, "are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'-- cannot hear the music of the spheres."...

"Science can be created only by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding," he said. "This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion." The talk got front-page news coverage, and his pithy conclusion became famous. "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

He also said:

The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.

And Dawkins recently said Einstein was an atheist, and he refuses to retract such an obviously erroneous statement. I tried calling him out for it on his web forum and was subsequently banned. The fact that I am still trying to pound home the obvious to so many atheists here, after many months of having presented it the first time, is proof positive that I'm not dealing with reasonable minds.

I mean he said point blank, "I am not an atheist."

Dawkins said point blank: "Einstein was an atheist."

What other "evidence" do you frickin need?

Nobody here is willing to admit Dawkns was wrong. Instead, I keep getting all kinds of truncated cut and paste jobs from atheist websites that are trying to save Dawkins from himself.

Related to this, in another thread I said I don't believe in hell, and Tarski says I'm just deluding myself. I guess he knows my beliefs better than I do, the same way Dawkins knows Einsteins beliefs better than Einstein. Is it any wonder atheists have a reputation for arrogance?

[_Gadianton]

I mean he said point blank, "I am not an atheist."

Dawkins said point blank: "Einstein was an atheist."

What other "evidence" do you frickin need?

According to my book, he was very opposed to atheists like Dawkins in general,

"There are people who say there is no god...but what makes me really angry is when they quote me for support of such views."

Dawkins isn't one for nuance, and I can imagine him thinking Einstein was an atheist for all intents and purposes.

Well, Einstein also said he could be called agnostic.

And he says, "what separates me from the so-called atheists is the feeling of utter humility toward the secrets of the harmony of the cosmos."

That isn't much to make a difference out of.

His biographer here, seems to think it's very difficult to pin down a one sentence position on God, and to do so comes across as just proof-texting.

I don't think the context you provided makes his position any more clear.

and again, consider that if he did believe in "God" as the author of the laws of the universe in a non-subtle obvious way, the same way you do, he's in a very weird and unique position, so unique that it would almost make him seem foolish --- God, the supreme intelligence of the universe literally authored all the physical laws, but morality etc. is just a convenient fiction.

Does anyone else hold that position?

[_Some Schmo]

That was awesome antishock! who would have thought that the best evidence for Harris' stupidity, would be a post including nothing but Harris commentary?

Keep saying it. Maybe one day, you'll even believe it. Remember, acquiring a testimony of the unbelievable comes with the bearing of it... over... and over... and over...

Actually, you seem stupid enough to believe it right now.