Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Why Religion Must End: Interview with Sam Harris

Dear Grant,

I firmly agree that the true definition of being a "Christian" is someone
who "follows Christ" in the sense of following his example of love and
sacrifice. Defined that way, I personally know many who profess to be
Christian who are the furthest from Christ, and I also know many who are
nominally Buddhist who are true Christians. As Mr. Harris reminds us, one
can be a Christian in the truest sense of the word without having to
accept irrational notions about him (and without having to adopt his more
sour moods), things which can lead to extremism. I think if Christ were
alive today and saw what has been and is being done in his name, he would
slap us all on our collective faces and chastise us for the way we've
warped the heart of his message to advance our selfish interests. Does he
need to die again to save us? May the true spirit of Christ reside in us
all.

Best wishes,

HF

Saying a moderate Christian supports the extremist by participating in Christianity is like saying that someone who loves animals is supporting the actions of ecoterrorists by loving animals.

HF,

"3. Next, the nature of their arguments become anti-science: well, the more
you try to prove something, the more you can't; you can't trust
researchers because they make the data say anything they want it to say;
modern science has not yet caught up to FS; FS simply works, and we should
stop wasting our time and energy trying to convince you, because you are
an energy vampire enslaved to science and all you want to do is
antagonize, not learn."

When I was a little kid, I was watching a magician perform a trick at a party. I had a vantage point slightly different from the rest of the crowd, and from where I stood I could see the mechanics involved in the trick.

When I pointed to the magician and revealed the nature of the trick, I became a very unpopular person.

As Walter Kaufmann wrote in his translation of Martin Buber's I and Thou:

"Mundus vult decipi -- the world wants to be deceived. The truth is too complex and frightening; the taste for the truth is an acquired taste that few acquire.

Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi; but there is a hierarchy of deceptions.

Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat.

On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish.

Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community."

I believe that LSC as well as other companies in this business are vendors of palpable lies. Their customers are connoisseurs of the products of self-deception, and they take the criticism of their acquired tastes very seriously.

Dear babyada,

You wrote amusingly, "Saying a moderate Christian supports the extremist
by participating in Christianity is like saying that someone who loves
animals is supporting the actions of ecoterrorists by loving animals."

While I appreciate the humor in that analogy, I would like to humbly point
out that loving animals does not require one to accept something which
appears irrational out of blind faith. Many tenants in organized religion
are exactly that, and Mr. Harris' point is, why do we need them if they
don't serve us well anymore?

Humbly,

HF

Dear babayada,

"Mundus vult decipi" ...

Thank you for so eloquently summarizing the situation. I'm glad we are
able to use this forum to better understand and interact with our fellow
human beings. We all have our failings, and hopefully, we will be able to
learn from each other in the spirit of mutual benefit and growth.

All the best in your own journey, and please continue to share, as I, for
one, appreciate your level-headedness.

HF

I think that in the argument there is a fallacy that belief in something requiring blind faith necessarily supports or enables violent behavior. I would figure that as a scientist you would be particularly sensitive to flawed arguments involving cause and effect.

John supports Christianity.
A Christian committed murder.
Therefore, John supports murder.

The buzzer should go off, there.

You can support blind faith in one idea and not in another if you have criteria other than "blind faith is a-ok!" involved. For instance, a Christian does not support a Muslim by default simply because their belief systems share faith as a value.

For the record, though, I do believe that it is better to make hamburger out of the sacred cows. Catholics should be allowed to use condoms, for heaven's sake. I agree that a serious update should be made to a lot of dogma.

But the philosophy that one should obey even though it is irrational is not the same as the philosophy that one should obey even though it is unethical. Do you get my meaning?

My mother is a devout Catholic, and she believes a lot of stuff I consider nonsense, but I respect her beliefs. I am able to do this because she behaves in a fashion that is in accordance to her personal ethics. In many cases, you will see normal people operating under the principle: personal ethics first, religious dictate second. Even though they may give lip-service to the value of faith, obedience, and servitude.

I do not think that religion makes people crazy in a lot of these instances. Rather, various religions contain material and patterns that fit in very nicely with the crazy thinking of insane people.

Perhaps we should blame the notion of God for supporting crazy people who kill others because the voice of God told them to do it? Without the concept of God, that crazy person could not label the entity behind the injunction as the end-all be-all who must be obeyed.

But, of course, this idea is ridiculous. It is not the concept of God that causes crazy people to believe God is commanding them to kill. It is not the concept that one should obey without question that causes these crazy people to kill. I think that there is much more to it than that.

Dear babayada,

I think the argument which Mr. Harris is making goes something like this:

Religions are based on irrational tenants.
Irrational tenants can foster extremism.
Religions can foster extremism.

Very true, both logically and historically!

What Mr. Harris boldly proposes:

Religions are based on irrational tenants.
Irrational tenants no longer serve us well.
Religions no longer serve us well.

(... so why hang on to them?)

Logically, true. Ideologically, true.

But, practically, it's quite clear that we have far, far to go before we
can collectively base our lives and actions on a completely rational basis
without seeking those things which (irrational) religion offers us.

We are capable of being ethical without being religious, but sadly, many
who are religious are also very unethical and use the very same irrational
devotion which religion requires to exist to further their destructive
purposes.

The moral conversation which our race is engaged in will proceed both
rationally and irrationally, but I think what Mr. Harris is trying to say
is that until we are bold enough to let go of our need to support
institutions based upon irrational notions, we will be unable to solve one
aspect of the problem of extremism and its destructive consequences.

Oh, and clearly, even if there were no more religions, there will still be
other expressions of extremism, for example, the ecoterrorism which you
alluded to earlier, or the freedom fighters of a particular group of
people wanting political independence, etc. Mr. Harris is not offering
the panacea for all of human destructiveness, but simply identifying one
source which, in principle anyway, can be replaced with something less
prone to manipulation by those with evil intent. I, for one, think he has
a good point.

Best,

HF

You say we have a long way to go before we base our lives on a completely rational basis.

While I am for being more reasonable about a number of issues, I don't think we will ever be completely rational. You only need to look at the human brain to see why this will never happen (so long as we remain something that can be called human).

We aren't completely rational creatures. We never will be. We are hard-wired for religious and other kinds of non-rational thought. These traits are there because they have helped the human race survive over time. While they are not all conducive to reason, they have been conducive to our survival thus far.

I don't know if a species that lived on a completely rational basis would be fit to survive. And I don't think a life lived by a human based on a completely rational basis would be worth living. I enjoy the nonsense in my life. You could argue that a completely rational life would take these factors into account and yada yada yada, but the kind of brain that would have reason tyrannize (even as a benevolent tyranny) like this would not be a brain apt to produce and enjoy various brands of nonsense in the first place.

Mr. Harris, I think, is asking humans to not be so human.

I would enjoy the product of a project designed to update religions and ethics, and I think it would be helpful, but the grand goal (like in the French Revolution) to have reason reign supreme is romantic nonsense. The Church of Reason is a farcical thing.

Dear babayada,

The other example one could offer which demonstrates how humans are not
yet ready to abandon all religious beliefs is the failed communist
experiments. Both the Soviet and Chinese communist ideologies embraced
atheism and for a time banished all organized religion, resulting in
spiritual vacuums among its people. They merely drove religion
underground. Today, of course, religions are allowed in
reformed-communist states, and they cater to a significant portion of the
populous. But those in Europe seem to be ahead of the U.S. in being able
to be non-religious and still live very fulfilling lives, since a
comparably larger proportion of the people there is atheistic.

No, I don't think religion is "hard-wired" into humans. I think religion
served an important purpose during a stage in the development of human
civilization, a stage when we were not yet mature enough to reason out
things carefully and really probe what is the true nature of things. It
was once part of religious belief that when God (the gods) was angry, He
(It, They) threw lightning bolts in righteous indignation. Today, we know
better how lightening originates. The fact that we once collectively
held the non-rational belief about lightening does not mean we can not
collectively let it go and adopt its more rational explanation today.

One by one, as humans adopted a rational view of the world, the need to
invoke non-rational notions to explain it fell by the way-side. Sure,
someone can continue to hold on to non-rational beliefs today, but do they
really serve her the best? Likewise, as we understand more and more about
human nature and behavior, we will be able to provide satisfying, rational
explanations and tools by which humans can function in the world without
needing to resort to the non-rational idioms provided by ancient
religions. Granted, we are barely scratching the surface, but our vision
is clear enough to allow us to see a realistic future based on objectivity
and rationality. People like Mr. Harris are models of what humans can
collectively be, and while I won't go so far as to say Mr. Harris is our
messiah, I do at least have to acknowledge that he is a good prophet
pointing us in the right direction. At this point, it is a dream, a hope,
a vision. We can only achieve this goal one step at a time, one person at
a time.

Mr. Harris is asking humans to be very human, that is, to be able to
adapt, learn, grow, and evolve.

The "Church of Reason" is an oxymoron. The "Age of Reason" or the "Age of
Rationality" might be better ways to describe our goal.

Best,

HF