301. '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.

302. '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.

303. '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.

304. '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

305. '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.

306. '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."

307. '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?

308. '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.

309. '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. ;->

310. '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.

311. '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.

312. '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.

313. '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.

314. '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...

315. '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).

316. 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.

317. 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.

318. 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

319. 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.

320. The Atheist Delusion: a pisspoor presentation

Comment #11974 by NormanDoering on December 8, 2006 at 6:21 pm

>> "We need a Deepak Chopra satire now."
>
> We have one. He's called "Deepak Chopra."

No, no... not just dumb, but funny -- a Sixpack Chopar or something that even dimwits will realize is a Stephen Colbert version of the man.

> /That's right...I went there :)

Really? Did you go here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-answe_b_35875.html

Chopra's been on Dawkins' case for over seven posts in his blog on HuffPo.

321. The Atheist Delusion: a pisspoor presentation

Comment #11965 by NormanDoering on December 8, 2006 at 3:53 pm

We need a Deepak Chopra satire now.