251. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #23203 by NormanDoering on February 26, 2007 at 6:39 pm

Logicel wrote:
"The bar of intellectual honesty is set so low at the moment for American conservatives, ..."

It's getting lower still.

And you thought Ann Coulter was going as low as you could go, didn't you? Watch it sink lower in the coming years. You haven't seen nothin yet.

252. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22993 by NormanDoering on February 25, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Yorker asked how I knew that spears were one of man's first tools.

I watched some nature shows on the Discovery channel -- the cavemen are all walking around with spears but no digital watches.

"I would've thought that throwing rocks and wielding clubs (as chimps do) might have been our first tools and weapons."

I said one of the first -- I didn't say first. And the information comes from the chipped stones that archaeologists find... Look here:

http://www.stoneageinstitute.org/c_research.shtml#ExperimentalArch

"I don't see how the spear would change our views."

They shaped it, biting to make the point. It's not an entirely found tool.

253. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22992 by NormanDoering on February 25, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Chris Davis wrote:
"I've utterly lost faith in Koko... a transcript of an open webcast by Koko and Dr. Penny Patterson, her companion. To call it disappointing would be a massive understatement: it was pathetic."

That was pathetic.

My cat could communicate better with me -- but she forced me to learn her language, she wouldn't learn mine. Her language was one of position -- meow in front food bowl; wants to be fed, meow in front of litter box, wants box changed, scratch door -- wants out or in depending on position.

Damn selfish and lazy cat, don't know why I put up with her.

Seriously, though -- learning this has been disheartening. What about the other language users? Like Washoe?

254. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22940 by NormanDoering on February 24, 2007 at 6:40 pm

Yorker asked:
"Now that I think of it, I'm wondering how this news may change our view of human evolution?"

Because the spear was one of man's first tools.

Once that adaptive threshold was crossed by man, our technology started evolving rapidly.

255. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22937 by NormanDoering on February 24, 2007 at 6:27 pm

It's not just chimps that use language. Remember the Gorilla Koko:
http://www.koko.org/world/signlanguage.html

256. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22931 by NormanDoering on February 24, 2007 at 5:23 pm

woot asked:
"What's up with the shameless promotion of your blog at every opportunity? Are you that desperate?"

What's the point of having a blog if no one reads it? Or if only stupid people who can't get it read it?

257. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22927 by NormanDoering on February 24, 2007 at 4:09 pm

When thinking about souls, consider the origin of the word -- which gets noted on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit

Etymology: The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning "breath," and "soul, courage, vigor." It's pneuma (the same root in the word pneumonia) and neshamah (literally meaning 'breath') in Hebrew. In India Prana means breath and soul.

Then here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

The word "soul" did not exist in the times of Jesus, Socrates or Aristotle, and so the quotations, interpretations and translations of the word "soul" from these sources, means that the word should be handled very carefully. One might go as far as saying that the word "soul", in the sense we use it today, did not exist in Hebrew or Aramaic, but it existed in Greek. Ancient Greeks typically referred to the soul as psyche. Aristotle's works in Latin translation, used the word anima, which also means "breath". In the New Testament, the original Greek word used is "Psyche" which in Ancient and Modern Greek means soul.

Is it not interesting that in many languages the word soul had its origin in a word which meant 'breath' and/or 'wind' and/or 'air', or 'movement' (anima). So, if spiritual and respiratory both derive from the same root does that suggest how the idea for what souls had occured to ancient people?

The ancients asked what's the difference between a live body and a dead one and saw that living things breathe, dead things do not and living people have beating hearts, the dead do not. So, heart and breath get deeply associated with their vitalistic notions of life. The ancients didn't know about air as a gaseous mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, contaminated with varying amounts of whatever.

In Genesis the animating power of breath is displayed when God breathes life into Adam. Breath is life (like blood that also got a lot of attention in ancient holy texts and why vampires and Christians drink it -- also the heart which stopped beating).

The air itself was full of things for ancient Christians; evil spirits could come to take over causing Demonic "possession" - result of inhaling one or more of the evil breaths thought to hover in the air around us.

The word "inspired," the breath of a god could take over their bodies to deliver words of wisdom or apocalyptic admonitions. In John 20:22. Jesus "breathed on them, saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit!'"

Look up the etymology of spirit, soul, and ghost and see what you find.

258. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22926 by NormanDoering on February 24, 2007 at 3:56 pm

I read about it on newscientist.com and linked their article in my blog before you found it on yahoo:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/news-flash-monkey-becomes-shakespeare.html

259. Atheists come in last

Comment #22881 by NormanDoering on February 23, 2007 at 7:05 pm

IPV4 wrote:
"I know this article is unrelated but needs to be posted on the RD website."

At least Abdel Kareem Nabil wasn't killed, they did that in Pakistan recently. The Taliban did it too.

And speaking of unrelated articles, there's and article called "Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies" at newscientist.com and here's the first paragraph:

"In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate."

So, everyone, be on the look out for a large black monolith.

I got a link on my blog, here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/news-flash-monkey-becomes-shakespeare.html

260. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22812 by NormanDoering on February 23, 2007 at 4:07 am

Did the debate end?

Andrew Sullivan has said basically nothing about it on his blog. He's moving on as if nothing happened.

261. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22774 by NormanDoering on February 22, 2007 at 8:01 am

Sancus wrote:
"Not just because it "feels nice" but because this gives me predictive power over my dreams and imagination. This power is unparalleled, because I have never met a person who claimed to have the same mastery over their dreams as I do over mine."

Are you talking about "Lucid Dreaming."

Are you familiar with the term?

262. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22771 by NormanDoering on February 22, 2007 at 3:38 am

I agree with those who have said it's not about winning but learning - so don't confuse the style on my blog with the substance. Even as far as learning goes using the wrong words just dances around a subject rather than deals with it.

The word Sam wants is "dogma" not "cultural prejudice" or "contingency." Those last two phrases engulf way more than religion and they miss the point.

263. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22698 by NormanDoering on February 20, 2007 at 9:20 pm

I just posted my reaction on my blog:

Harris versus Sullivan: The battle becomes a pillow fight
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/harris-versus-sullivan-battle-becomes.html

Here's a taste:

"Dogma" gets closer to the heart of the matter than "cultural prejudice" or "contingency." Those two phrases are vague and fluffy pillows, but the word "dogma" cuts to the bone.

264. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22670 by NormanDoering on February 20, 2007 at 12:58 pm

I just skimmed through Sam's newest at beliefnet.com and it is surprisingly gentle and some of it is baffling. For example, Sam says: "I did hear some bomb-blasts in the distance. They were magnificent."

Huh? What exactly are "bomb-blasts in the distance"? Could he mean things like my blog entry? Here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/harris-versus-sullivan-battle-continues.html

Is Andrew going to know what he is talking about?

And why doesn't Sam use the word "dogma" instead of the overly broad and off the mark word he continues to use, "contingency."

And some of Sam's claims aren't entirely on the mark, for example: "...the discourse of science already exists, and it already functions by norms that are quite alien to religion. If applied in religion, these norms would leave very few traditional doctrines still standing. But contrary to your fears on the matter, this would not make religious music, art, or architecture any less beautiful."

Well, if beauty is the enjoyed emotional reaction to a work of art I would think -- and indeed do feel it in myself -- an emotional change in reactions to art. I don't think an atheist and a Christian are going to have the same emotional reaction to a film like Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" or "2001."

And, I'm not sure, but I suspect Sam may have stumbled into his own straw man with this comment: "Your [Andrew's] comments seem to invoke a stark opposition between reason and emotion that I do not believe exists (and which now seems quite implausible at the level of the brain)."

I don't recall where Sullivan proposed any "opposition between reason and emotion." Did I miss that?

265. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22586 by NormanDoering on February 19, 2007 at 5:15 pm

In my blog post on Deepak Chopra I say this about him:
"...explain why Deepak Chopra is stupid and not just ignorant. I can sum it up for you right now: Deepak Chopra's preconceived notions of "non-physical" causes and "non-physical" consciousness blind him to all potential physical, brain level, explanations for human behavior and render him grossly incapable of learning anything new in the areas of neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology, quantum physics and related scientific subjects."

I think this might apply to Sullivan too. His assumptions will blind him if he is wrong. Remember, Sam Harris noted things that would change his mind, Andrew Sullivan could not.

Here's my blog:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/

266. Memo: Stop teaching evolution

Comment #22559 by NormanDoering on February 19, 2007 at 3:17 pm

I blog on that here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/get-me-off-this-crazy-planet.html

And my fixed Earth link works, as well as my Panda's Thumb link.

267. God, sex, drugs and politics

Comment #22556 by NormanDoering on February 19, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Looks like something I'll be blogging about here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/index.html

268. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22348 by NormanDoering on February 15, 2007 at 1:11 am

To get Sam's metaphors it helps to know that those new and dirty glasses are based on this Bible verse:

"Neither do men put new wine into old bottles; else the bottles break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." -- Matthew 9:1 7

Sullivan doesn't seem to know that. Sam is saying the new wine will destroy his old bottle?

269. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22347 by NormanDoering on February 15, 2007 at 12:46 am

Logicel wrote:

"I was then able to move to a different continent and country and walk into a church that was itself part of that universal inheritance. There is no free place on earth where I cannot find a home."
_______

Some feel that way about McDonalds.

270. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22324 by NormanDoering on February 14, 2007 at 7:11 pm

If anyone wants to move to my blog for discussing this, it's here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/

You can comment on specific posts, like this one:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/02/yes-andrew-there-is-god.html

Andrew, instead of answering why he believes Jesus rose from the dead, asks Sam why he and so many others believe like Andrew does. He asks "What is your explanation? How do you account for why one person out of the billions who have ever lived had this impact? How probable is it that all these countless followers were all deluding themselves completely?"

Well, contrary to Andrew's assertions, it's obviously quite probable that all those followers are deluding themselves. What does Andrew make of the believers in Islam, Hinduism etc.? Look at all the things people do believe, Andrew, and then think that through again. Aliens abducting people, faith healers curing people, John Edward talking to the dead, Sylvia Brown telling you where the body is buried, Elvis sightings, Nazi holocausts that supposedly never happened, white supremacy, Ouija boards, voodoo, penis enlargement pills, breast creams, real estate scandals, Scientology, … and on and on and on.

Andrew points to the "many" Gospels (including Gnostic gospels Andrew? The gospels of Thomas and Mary?) that date from the period after Jesus' death testifying to the "power of his message," noting that only one of the thousands of Rome's victims is remembered in this way - and not just remembered but worshiped over two millennia later…" Andrew then asks: "Does this not intrigue you?" Have you never asked how on earth did this happen? He then says: "As a simple piece of historical inquiry, it's an astonishingly unlikely turn of events."

It's not really astonishing if we look at the bigger picture of human history, not just Christian history. Andrew is impressed because Jesus is not just remembered but worshiped over two millennia later. Let's compare that with Egyptian religion, with how long Isis, Osiris and Ra were worshipped. It kicks off sometime before the "Archaic Period" (3414-3100 BC) when there is the unification of all Egypt. By 3000 BC at the very least, people had already been worshipping Isis, Osiris, Ra, and the Amen but now it's big. Further south, the Kushites seem to have also worshipped them. This religion lasts for more than 2,000 years as a state religion, closer to 3,000 years, and that is longer than Christianity has lasted. It sort of, but not quite ends, as a state religion with the Persian Period (517-425 BC) I think. But if being a state religion is the rule, Christianity died after the Enlightenment (perhaps its own Persian Period?) and that makes Christianity's life span significantly shorter than that of the Egyptian religion. In some ways, however, Isis, Osiris and Ra get incorporated into some forms of Gnostic Christianity and they continue far into the first centuries of AD.

If Andrew is going to accept long endurance, great numbers of worshippers and huge temples as indicators of "truth" rather than "truthiness" he'll have to start believing in Isis, Osiris and Ra. He'll also have to consider Hinduism and believing in Zeus.

271. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #22269 by NormanDoering on February 13, 2007 at 7:41 pm

I've started a blog so I could add some cynical snark to this debate:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/

Feel free to drop by and leave a comment.

272. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21732 by NormanDoering on February 10, 2007 at 8:01 pm

Is there a transcript of this Reza and Sam debate?

I don't hear that well these days.

273. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21475 by NormanDoering on February 9, 2007 at 11:09 am

funkyderek wrote:
"...Andrew Sullivan has effectively abandoned the debate. By posting that his position cannot be defended rationally, and that he believes it merely because he has always believed it, he signals his lack of interest in getting to the real truth of the matter."

That's not quite a fair reading of Sullivan's writing. Sullivan wants to debate something Sam isn't quite seeing (because Andrew can't really saying it clearly). Sam Harris can score all the points he wants with us atheists who demand that reason triumphs emotion, but he isn't going to get anywhere with Andrew Sullivan until he starts exploring and questioning those fragments of emotional confession Sullivan puts out there as evidence. Until Sam does that, Andrew will score for his side and Harris will score for our side and no minds will really be changed. However, there are rather curious confessions in Andrew's essays that Sam needs to explore instead of just letting lie there unexamined.

For example, Sullivan wrote: "I have had two serious crises of faith - but neither came close to a loss of faith in God's existence. The first crisis was the worst. Almost fourteen years ago, it occurred to me not that God didn't exist - that never occurred to me - but that God might be evil."

That's an interesting emotional confession there. Sullivan doesn't go from "God is good and loves me" to "God is indifferent" to "God is evil and hates me," then back to indifferent. The middle state, the whole idea that God is indifferent to us just won't register in Sullivan's imagination and he appears to pop between two extremes.

The idea that this god Andrew believes in has feeling is a claim he is almost sneaking past Sam without Sam getting it. Andrew first defines God as "...a force beyond everything and the source of everything..." and that could mean a quantum vacuum fluctuation from cosmology -- later Andrew sneaks in the hidden claims that God desires, plans, has intensions, will, emotion -- a mind like Andrew's created in Andrew's own image. He just assumes this and doesn't even know he has added all this mental anthropomorphism.

Andrew also seems to be a Unitarian with delusions of being Catholic. He just might be Catholic and Christian in a way similar to the way he is gay or to the way I am hetero. You could remove all the women from the universe and, unless you did some scifi brain surgery on me, I'd still imagine myself to be heterosexual, still have this desire for something that didn't exist. So, even if we remove Jesus, prove he never existed to Andrew, Andrew will still have those remembered feelings and desires.

Something that might be relevant:

Back in 1997 Vilayanur Ramachandran headed a research team that studied patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. He measured fear and arousal in groups, a non-religious control group, each group was shown a bunch of words, violent words, sexual words, simple words (like "wheel"), and religious-related words. Religious words showed a greater arousal in the temporal lobe epilepsy sufferers in comparison to the non-religious, whom were aroused by sexual words, and religious control groups, whom were aroused by religious and sexual words.

The patients were not experiencing seizures or supernatural occurrences at the time of testing, they were highly sensitive to religious words. Thus, the experiences of temporal lobe seizures strengthened the patients interest in religion.

That feeling will still be there no matter what is proved by logic. Andrew is Catholic because he has an emotional reaction to Catholic imagery in an area of the brain where us non-religious people just react to sex.

What does that mean?

274. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21377 by NormanDoering on February 9, 2007 at 1:00 am

Mr. Mark wrote:
"... from there on, the theist presents less and less of an argument based on fact and more and more of an argument based on their feelings..."

But feelings are important too. Sam should not ignore them. If emotion is what makes Andrew believe -- then ask him about his feelings. Learn something, Sam, don't just preach.

275. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21157 by NormanDoering on February 7, 2007 at 7:48 pm

savroD wrote:
"...If I were a believer, as Andrew, ... jesus must come down from heaven and tell me there is no god, for me to believe. It's the only evidence one can accept."

The only evidence? How about if someone actually invents time travel and we go back and see that Jesus was just a loony rabbi who did a few magic tricks to con the gullible. Then Paul takes Jesus's spooky reputation and makes up most of the story in the gospels after Jesus is dead.

There are thousands of things both Andrew and Sam could have dreamed up as examples of things that would change their beliefs. You just need a little imagination.

276. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #20651 by NormanDoering on February 5, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Sancus,

Your quote from Sullivan;
"...how do I know this was Jesus? ...But I am a contingent human being in a contingent time and place and I heard Jesus... this unchosen belief in God's existence - the "gift" of faith - does not prompt me to lose all doubt in my faith, or to abandon questioning. I have wrestled with all sorts of questions about any number of doctrines that the hierarchy of the church has insisted upon."

It reminds me that Sullivan has had a failure of imagination here. There are some "what if" scenarios that would force him to question if Jesus existed.

For example, there is a book by Joseph Atwill called, "Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus."
http://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Roman-Conspiracy-Invent/dp/1569754578

What if archeologists, digging through some Roman ruins, found the notes of the Roman's who had designed the New Testament to fit their purposes.

These notes would be mail between Vespasian, Titus and Domitian outlining how they were inventing Jesus and creating a new fake religion in a psychewar move against the Jews.

How would Sullivan deal with that news?

277. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #20633 by NormanDoering on February 5, 2007 at 9:07 am

sandipchitale wrote:
"..Andrew keeps explaining how his feeling/emotion of the faith in god always existed and is very real to him..."

I think Sam is making progress in spite of talking past Andrew. Sullivan seems to have revealed that he has a "weak theist" position. People talk about weak and strong atheism, well, it seems weak and strong atheism have mirror images in weak and strong theism.

"Sam may be mildly interested in and amused by it."

He should be more than mildly interested. If you want to know why people believe in God then you must listen to people like Andrew Sullivan and you should learn. If you don't do that you won't get anywhere.

Sam should start asking questions instead of lecturing on logic.

Compare what Sullivan wrote with how I began my essay here:
http://www.textfiles.com/occult/notcrst1.txt

I wrote:
"My indoctrination started in earliest childhood, so long ago I cannot remember when I first heard the words 'God' or 'Jesus.'"

Sullivan wrote:
"My acceptance of God's existence ... goes so far back in my consciousness and memory that I can neither recall 'finding' this faith nor being taught it."

"Sam is trying to refute the object of that belief/faith i.e. the god. I hope Sam clears that distinction. Otherwise they will keep going past each other for long time."

The problem is that Andrew'sd belief actually has none, or very little, content. He believes in God, but he doesn't believe much about God. Andrew doesn't believe so much as hope. The object of Sullivan's belief is to vague and fuzzy to pin down. It would be like nailing jello to a tree.

Sam can start by asking questions like, "do you think God might turn out to be completely indifferent to human beings? To you?" It is about feelings and not logic. That's the big failure of most atheist arguments. We're fighting emotion with reason.

278. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19936 by NormanDoering on January 30, 2007 at 6:12 pm

jjk wrote:
"I predict no comeback from Andy."

I predict that jjk will be proven wrong.

I tried Sam's "James Randi style, I want proof demonstrations" tactic in a debate many, many years ago. I didn't use a thirty digit number, I just made an entry in my journal and asked them to tell me what I wrote there. They've got plenty of lame excuses for why God won't reveal himself in those terms and you'll see some from Andrew if he doesn't ignore the whole point.

Perhaps I should get a new email account, call myself "God," and send Andrew a 30 digit number and tell him to have faith that I'm God and I've given him the correct number -- if Sam says "no," he's lying. Who are you going to have faith in - someone who claims to be God or an atheist?

279. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19731 by NormanDoering on January 29, 2007 at 3:46 pm

Part of Janus's Long answer:
"A truth-seeking method has to incorporate a process of some sort that allows it to distinguish true assertions from false ones. Empiricism, for example, tests hypotheses by checking their coherence with external reality."

That term, "checking their coherence with external reality" is rather vague and perhaps circular. The term "external reality" is almost synonymous with terms like "reality," "the Truth" etc.

"The only thing left is so-called subjective evidence, i.e. personal experiences or 'revelations'."

Science can't really escape subjectivity. First we do have subjective experiences that are hard for science to define and put in order. Second, a scientists experiences can lead them astray too:

http://skepdic.com/blondlot.html

But I'm playing devil's advocate here, I agree with you - yet I know neither you nor Sam will get very far making such arguments with Andrew and those like him.

The reason is because of the emotional power religion has. As long as you can't prove him solidly wrong, his emotional desire will lead him.

280. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19594 by NormanDoering on January 28, 2007 at 6:53 pm

Janus asked:
"Which of the four facts mentioned in my previous post do you want me to 'prove'?"

Start with this one:
"It is a fact that faith is absolutely worthless as a way to find out the truth."

281. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19584 by NormanDoering on January 28, 2007 at 3:19 pm

Janus wrote:
"This battle between rationalism and religious faith is, ultimately, a very simple one:
We're right, and they're wrong."

Prove it.

282. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19570 by NormanDoering on January 28, 2007 at 11:54 am

There has been something bugging me about the way some people have been dismissive of my claims that Andrew Sullivan has "another definition of 'truth.'" They called Andrew "dishonest" and such -- but Andrew is serious I think.

It hit me when I read this blog:
http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2007/01/rational-discourse.html

Where the blogger claims:
"We have two kinds of beliefs: Beliefs that ought to be the same for everyone, and beliefs that do not need to be the same for everyone. We have perfectly good words which denote these categories: truths and facts in the first sense, and opinions, attitudes, and feelings in the second. It is precisely because we have a moral duty to believe the truth that religions have placed their claims firmly in that category."

Well, I admit my atheism is merely my opinion, an informed opinion, but an opinion. I don't think Andrew would admit that. I think there is another way to look at Andrew's abuse of the term "truth" that gets at why Sam Harris should consider Andrew an "enabler."

Who here is familiar with a book called "The Social Construction of Reality"? It's by a pair of conservative sociologists, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. It's several decades old.

I think it would be better to call Andrew's "truth" a "socially constructed public 'truth'" because it is more than an opinion to Andrew. People don't go to church and participate in rituals because of mere "opinions."

As a participant in the construction of that "socially constructed truth" Andrew is helping to create the environment in which fundamentalism breeds.

As atheists our job is difficult because we are using an opinion against the socially constructed reality of a large group.

It won't help to call Andrew a liar.

283. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19460 by NormanDoering on January 27, 2007 at 11:35 am

G Bile wrote:
"I was struck by this sentence: *Rather than teach our children to grieve, we teach them to lie to themselves*
Every religious person who realizes this should be cured of his delusion instantaneously."

There is no instantaneous cure for this delusion.

The only honest answer for all of is "I don't know what happens to us after death." As an atheist I would also add that the weight of evidence points to the fact that we will simply cease to exist. (Something Sam seems to resist by thinking "consciousness" just might survive death -- but what kind of consciousness can there be without memory and sense organs, things we know the brain does?)

Andrew is still attacking such atheistic notions on his blog while Sam puts off his response:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/quote_for_the_d_18.html

For the theist there is no meaning in life unless it's an eternal one.

284. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19407 by NormanDoering on January 27, 2007 at 1:24 am

John Phillips wrote:
"... is personal experience being declared as truth without any evidence to support it."

It's worse than that. Most experiences need to be intrpreted. For example - an anthropologist meets a tribesman in Africa who claims to know there are demons because he has one inside his head, pounding away on his skull. The anthropologist gives him some aspirin and the demon goes to sleep. The tribesman really had a headache, he just had another way to interpret a common experience.

Even worse if the anthropologist doesn't tell the tribesman the aspirin puts demons to sleep, but tells him about headaches, tension, bloodflow theories -- the aspirin will have a lot less chance of working.

285. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19393 by NormanDoering on January 26, 2007 at 10:02 pm

sandipchitale wrote:
"- the 'spiritual exprerience' does happen (exists) in that person's brain."

Indeed, that's supported by the neurosciences in several ways. Temporal lobe epilepsy has often been linked to a variety of religious/paranormal/transcendent experiences. Ecstatic communion with gods, epiphanies of artistic creation, alien abductions...

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) sufferers may become obsessed with religion:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Eguae.html

286. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19245 by NormanDoering on January 25, 2007 at 6:50 pm

Sullivan says:
"Where I respect your position, you refuse to respect mine."

kkant responded:
"Complete BS. The way you show respect for your opponent is to acknowledge the other's arguments and respond to them. Harris has gone out of his way to respond to Sullivan's arguments. In fact I think Harris has granted Sullivan's "positions" far more respect than they deserve."


The way I define things like "truth" and "belief" makes me tend to agree with kkant, however, I think Sullivan defines "truth" and "belief" very differently. It's more like he is talking about enjoying a novel than believing a scientific theory.

They may be talking past each other. Sam needs to ask what in the world Andrew means by terms like "truth" and "belief." Whatever Andrew means, he doesn't include anything rational in defining those terms.

287. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19216 by NormanDoering on January 25, 2007 at 3:39 pm

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
"...a notion of ultimate truth that is deeper than science, beyond science. It must rest on a notion that allows for the rational legitimacy of my faith."

No.

We don't have to know all the answers to know that some answers offered to us are clearly wrong.

The rational legitimacy of any religion is destroyed by other religions, by the way they break up and evolve, and by what we do know of religion's emotional nature. We know, and can see it in Andrew's answers, that it's not the perception of an absolute external condition but a conscious, imaginative construction in which religious faith operates as a tool to induce an emotional response to its "spiritual" vision.

The only truth Andrew has to offer is a claim in a book that "feels" right to him. All good works of fiction get at that emotional "truth."

288. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19046 by NormanDoering on January 24, 2007 at 2:05 pm

A preview of Andrew's response:
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/contra_harris.html

Andrew writes:
"... something strikes me reading the many emails you have sent. They fall into two categories: one batch lamenting his contradictions, intolerance and dogmatism;..."

What contradictions, intolerance and dogmatism? Do Christians even know the meaning of those words?

"... suggests we are talking past each other. I'm going to try and amend that in my next post... Those with faith and those without it actually read the dialogue differently..."

They need to start defining their terms. What is a contradictions? What is intolerance? What is dogmatism?

289. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #19011 by NormanDoering on January 24, 2007 at 10:55 am

alfonso wrote:
"... within this society of respect towards irrationality where fundamentalism grows rampant."

That's Sam's concept of an "enabler." It's in his first book and it's taken from ideas about how drug addicts and other problems people have rely on certain people in their lives who aid them in their maladaptive solutions. The "moderate Christians" like Andrew are dangerous enablers of fundamentalists.

Things like hurling false accusations at Sam and using touchy feely arguments to undermine reason are things fundamentalists also do. Andrew ultimately undermines his moderate views by thinking of the Bible as somehow god-written. In the end the Bible is not a moderate book, it's a fundy book.

290. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18924 by NormanDoering on January 23, 2007 at 4:46 pm

Sam Harris wrote:
"What if I told you that I am certain that I have an even number of cells in my body?"

Ummm... Let's see, you start out as one cell, odd, you divide into two cells, even, those into 4 cells, even, then 8 cells, even, then 16, 32, 64... all even. It's even from then on until you start removing cells. So, there may be slight odds you have an even number of cells. ;->

291. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18904 by NormanDoering on January 23, 2007 at 2:59 pm

Russell Blackford wrote:
"... I thought I'd made it clear that my objection to the nasty 17-y.o. girl remark was that it is ageist and sexist. I'm not sure if Norman, in his excellent post, has misunderstood what I meant."

You were clear. It was me who wasn't. That "But" wasn't directed at you but at readers who might be suspecting me to defend Christians.

"... that kind of sexism and ageism reflects badly on this forum. Indeed, young women in their late teens should be made to feel welcome here, not stereotyped and used as reference points for criticism."

I agree.

Here's a sample blog from such a young girl:
http://skatje.com/?page_id=2
http://skatje.com/?p=103

Atheists, like others, have been victims of our culture's prejudice and stereotypes. It weakens the insight of otherwise clear sighted critics of Christianity like Friedrich Nietzsche.

292. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18887 by NormanDoering on January 23, 2007 at 12:53 pm

I think Russell Blackford said some things that needed to be said.

Even Sam, in his new reply, accepts Sullivan's point that individual fundamentalist religionists can be good-hearted people.

However, unlike Blackford and myself, Sam isn't drawing on his own past experience in making his reply.

When I wrote about my atheism I put it in the context of my own experience with religion:
http://www.textfiles.com/occult/notcrst1.txt
http://www.textfiles.com/occult/notcrst2.txt

I've known a lot of Christians, there have been fudamentalists in my family, including a fundamentalist preacher. But no matter how much experience we have, those experiences are always limited.

Russell Blackford says:
"... it would foolish to write off all those people as simply stupid or intellectually dishonest, even though I believe that their position is seriously mistaken."

But would you say that religious people have failed to be completely rational (if that's humanly possible) in their quest for the truth and do you think this can be demonstrated by Sam to Andrew?

With this I agree completely:
"There's also no reason to make comnents about someone sounding like a '17-y.o. girl,'..."

But not because it's unfair to Christians, it's unfair to young girls.

There is an element of truth in the observation, however, that Andrew is getting emotional in his limited religious irrationality and that the emotion seems to be driving it.

293. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18691 by NormanDoering on January 22, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Edutheria wrote:
"I would substitute 'rigorously rational' for 'rational'".

Okay, 'rigorously rational' it is.

294. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18669 by NormanDoering on January 22, 2007 at 9:39 am

Andrew wrote:
"... use of the word 'lying' is imputing to the believer an insincerity you cannot know for sure. When we speak of things beyond our understanding - and you must concede that such things can logically exist - we are all in the same boat."

I think Pinker has an answer that Sam can use:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,554,The-Mystery-of-Consciousness,Steven-Pinker

Pinker writes:
"people have a motive to sell themselves as beneficent, rational, competent agents. The best propagandist is the one who believes his own lies, ensuring that he can't leak his deceit through nervous twitches or self-contradictions. So the brain might have been shaped to keep compromising data away from the conscious processes that govern our interaction with other people. At the same time, it keeps the data around in unconscious processes to prevent the person from getting too far out of touch with reality."

Andrew is wrong, he has to lie to himself in the Pinker sense because the evidence against religion is too strong to say "yes" to it and still call yourself a rational human being. Too many religions, too many flaws.

Just because we can not know doesn't mean we should ignore the evidence we have that says "no" to religion.

Andrew might hope for more than this life, just like one might hope that that spammer from Nigeria really does have millions of dollars for you.

295. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18644 by NormanDoering on January 22, 2007 at 7:29 am

Edutheria quoted:
"... cherry-pick the Scriptures, ... No, Sam, the Gospels really aren't, to any fair reader, about owning slaves, the age of the planet, or the value of pi. They are stories about and by a man who preached the love of the force behind the entire universe, and the need to reflect that love in everything we do."

Interesting switch by Andrew, from Scripture to Gospels. Sam attacked the pre-Helenistic old testament, but Andrew defends the post-Helenistic new testament.

I wonder if Andrew can explain why it is he thinks the Bible is true but not the Koran, gnostic Gospels, stories of the Buddha...

296. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #18192 by NormanDoering on January 18, 2007 at 11:42 pm

ridelo wrote:
"I'm waiting for Andrew's response with impatience."

Here's my predictive preview of Andrew's response: First, those Inca walls you cannot push a razor knife between, well, I'll bet Andrew will find a gap in trivial parts of Sam's argumentation like "pi doesn't actually equal 3" as the Bible supposedly claims. This won't damage the core argument Sam makes but it will distract.

Sam rambled and Andrew will make him pay for his lack of focus.

Then Andrew will point out the best in the Bible, like the Beatitudes -- Sermon on the Mount -- in the New Testament. Basically the stuff Thomas Jefferson had left after he cut out all the miracles and hokum. Then maybe Psalms and Job.

Then Andrew might talk about faith as hope in the face of really bad odds and ask Sam where he finds hope -- especially where will he find it when his old and facing death.

If Sam's really good he'll be able to turn that around and show how Andrew's defense makes him an enabler of the fundies (an argument Sam made very well in his first book).

297. Consciousness Without Faith

Comment #16605 by NormanDoering on January 7, 2007 at 2:44 pm

Jack Rawlinson wrote:
"I worry about the use of words which carry a weight of historical religious baggage. Using such words to describe real-world, non-supernatural experiences carries the same risk as Einstein's use of 'god' - it throws the hungry religious believer a bone."

It also may have made Sam Harris most of his money. Long before Harris wrote his book there were plenty of others writing books, including me, and we didn't score a best seller.

George Smith:
http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Case-Against-Skeptics-Bookshelf/dp/087975124X/ref=pd_sim_b_1/103-4864574-4147037
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-4864574-4147037?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=George%20H.%20Smith

Dan Barker:
http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Faith-Preacher-Atheist/dp/1877733075/sr=1-1/qid=1168209740/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-4864574-4147037?ie=UTF8&s=books

Even me, Norman Doering in 1992:
http://www.totse.com/en/religion/christianity/notcrst1.html
http://www.totse.com/en/religion/christianity/notcrst2.html

We never got on any best seller list and I think our own books were better in many ways.

I think a lot of it is the maturity of the net, better marketing, and people like me promoting these guys on chat rooms.

I think we should acknowledge others besides Sam and Richard and Dennett.

298. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16431 by NormanDoering on January 6, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Mr. Harris,

I think this is a good argument against torture:
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/06/18/torture_1/index.html

Perhaps you should incorporate some of Darius Rejali's views into your view.

299. Atheists challenge the religious right

Comment #16128 by NormanDoering on January 4, 2007 at 7:10 pm

"Suffered enough?! Oh, please..."

Well, if you want to make them suffer more, do try to use these guidelines:
http://glumbert.com/media/wifebeat

300. The Atheist Delusion: a pisspoor presentation

Comment #12096 by NormanDoering on December 10, 2006 at 2:25 pm

Sancus wrote:
"Even the religious are better than Chopra."

You may have a point:

"The brain contains an enormous amount of water and salt. Are we to assume that water is intelligent, or salt is conscious? If they aren't, then we must assume that throwing water and salt together--along with about six other basic building blocks of organic chemicals--suddenly makes them intelligent." ~Deepak Chopra

I propose quoting Deepak Chopra as a form of satire.