http://www.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.a…;u=7037&t=0
Hitchens is my favorite of this latest breed of outspoken atheists. Unlike Dawkins and Hitchens, he doesn’t go out of his way to insult religious people, and he seems to be the most intelligent and well-spoken.
I assume you mean:
[Harris] is my favorite…
I never really see Dawkins or Hitchens going out of their way to insult anybody. They are generally polite until provoked. When Hitchens is percieved as insulting it is usually just because he voices contempt for certain religious ideas. He can’t help if people get offended when bad ideas are exposed.
I assume you mean:
I never really see Dawkins or Hitchens going out of their way to insult anybody. They are generally polite until provoked. When Hitchens is percieved as insulting it is usually just because he voices contempt for certain religious ideas. He can’t help if people get offended when bad ideas are exposed.
Yeah, sorry, I meant Harris.
Harris also exposes bad ideas, but he doesn’t do it in an insulting way. He doesn’t talk down to religious people and treat them like they’re stupid. He recognizes that, since most people are religious, that there’s something going on besides sheer stupidity. If Dawkins and Hitchens realize this, they don’t show it. Watch Dawkins’ speech at Randolph-Macon Women’s college, where he, almost verbatim, says that the students at Liberty University are stupid. I see your point about Hitchens though…he’s more “impolite” than “insulting,” but I don’t think the impolite approach is a good one either. All that does is turn people off to what he has to say.
I checked out a little of the video, and will look at the whole thing later. Harris is pretty darn well spoken and very polite. Unfortunately, he is wrong about science in man’s life being a scientific question. Good science requires good philosophy.
I think that’s just a semantic difference. Philosophy can be regarded as a science and, having heard Harris speak quite a bit, I imagine that’s how he looks at it.
I think that’s just a semantic difference. Philosophy can be regarded as a science and, having heard Harris speak quite a bit, I imagine that’s how he looks at it.
Well, I also listened to it a bit. I loved his early statement, “surely there are objective facts to be learned about the basis for human happiness.”
But the reality is he’s not using philosophical arguments. He’s using scientific ones. He’s not using philosophy as science other than to say that happiness can be described by science. I love that he’s out there for atheism don’t get me wrong, but this is the big problem I have with him and Dawkins.
He’s studying for a doctorate in neuroscience, so it isn’t surprising that his arguments tend to spring from science. His arguments are far more philosophical than Dawkins, however, probably because Dawkins is a biologist…and biology doesn’t involve the obvious philosophical questions that neuroscience does.
I think Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ attitudes are so rude because they are British. A British accent can really come off as condescending. 
I don’t really blame them, especially Hitchens. Usually Hitchens comes into an interview with some pompous theocrat who starts passively aggresively wailing on the the guy, provoking him into being kind of an ass. But Hitchens mentions Ayn Rand favorable a few times, one time I think he said she was a great thinker or greater thinker then Bibical scholars.
Hitchens may be provoked when he’s on TV, but it’s because he goes out of his way to be rude. People don’t provoke Harris when he’s on TV, because he comes off as a polite, respectable person.
I think Kendall has it right. I like the fact Harris is out there, but he’s missing a large part of the picture. All of the questions that are attempted to be answered by religion, can be answered better by good philosophy. That’s something I think Harris should have made note of. The starting point is always a philosophical one, because that’s where you set out your axioms regarding the nature of existence. Science itself rests on certain axioms, axioms which, to be sure, come from direct experience.
Also, America is a secular society. It’s based on a secular idea, despite a weak reference to a “creator”, and it’s the best example of a successful and peace loving society. Many of the founders were weakly religious, being a deist makes you almost atheistic.
I did like his statement that atheism doesn’t say a lot about what you believe. It’s equivalent to being a “non-astrologer”, all that says is you don’t believe in astrology. That was a great point, well made.
Here is the big point, however…
The most fundamental question wrt to this subject is: is there a god or not? The only way to establish the truth of that statement is by reference to evidence. There is no other way. As soon as you posit another realm, not open to the evidence, you are in a no-man’s land, where the mind can’t function, and where you can say anything, and so you might as well say nothing. In effect, you are literally talking about nothing. This is something that has to be driven home, hammered, otherwise it gets lost in the conversation, as if it’s not important. Certain points have to be emphasized , because they are so crucially important. It’s like talking about building a 20 mile high sky scraper made of balsawood while ignoring the laws of physics. STOP the conversation, and insist that nothing more be discussed, until you understand the physics won’t let it happen. Otherwise you’re spinning your wheels and wasting your time. Period.
Hitchens may be provoked when he’s on TV, but it’s because he goes out of his way to be rude. People don’t provoke Harris when he’s on TV, because he comes off as a polite, respectable person.
Hitchens’s failure is in giving the people he is arguing with too much respect by pretending they are capable of divorcing their feelings from their ideas. He may be a poorer salesman than Harris because of it, but he isn’t going out of his way to be rude; exposing bad ideas is his business now, which means bad ideas and the emotionally fragile people who hold them are directly in his way. Harris goes out of his way to be nice.
Harris doesn’t go out of his way to be nice…he acts much like I would if I were in his shoes, and if you knew me, you would know that I never go out of my way to be nice.
When Andreson Cooper asked if Jerry Falwell went to Heaven, Christopher Hitchens replied “no, and I think it’s a pity there’s not a Hell for him to go to.” While I agree with his sentiment, wouldn’t a simple “no, I don’t believe in Heaven” have sufficed? He then goes on to call Falwell all manner of names including “ugly little charlatan,” “pathetic little toad,” etc. What is the purpose of going out of your way to say things that you know will piss off your opponents? He’s not going to convince anyone to abandon religion by taking that route.
I like Hitchens…but I think his tactics are severely flawed. His tactics only serve to further the stereotype that all atheists are assholes who hate religious people and think they’re all stupid believers in fairy-tales.
I wasn’t aware of that. If the picture you paint is true, I’ll have to concede that them man does, on occasion, go out of his way to be rude. However, with regard to the Falwell question, I think “no, I don’t believe in heaven” may not suffice. One might say that a question begs to be ansered; if there were a heaven, would Falwell be allowed in? If there were any justice in this hypothetical and ridiculous universe, then I’d say no.
I wasn’t aware of that. If the picture you paint is true, I’ll have to concede that them man does, on occasion, go out of his way to be rude. However, with regard to the Falwell question, I think “no, I don’t believe in heaven” may not suffice. One might say that a question begs to be ansered; if there were a heaven, would Falwell be allowed in? If there were any justice in this hypothetical and ridiculous universe, then I’d say no.
Okay, that would be a fine way to answer that question, but the way you said it is not nearly as likely to offend someone as the way that Hitchens said it. And I’m not really painting a picture…those are verbatim quotes. If you YouTube “Christopher Hitchens,” his interview with Anderson Cooper is one of the first videos you’ll find. And I wouldn’t say that he only does this “on occasion”…this is usually how he acts.
You’re right. But the guy entertains me. If he were advocating a philosophy I agreed with instead of a shared nonbelief, I’d be harder on him from now on.
About fifteen and one half minutes into the debate, Sam Harris discusses how “one might need to go into a cave for a month or a year to have a [spiritual experience]” as if it would be a good thing!
That just made me laugh out loud. Let this show that those on the front lines of battling religion in the media are not necessarily for reason.
Hopefully Objectivism will get enough exposure where someone can write a best-selling book bashing religion at all philosophical levels then offering the philosophy of Ayn Rand as a positive alternative.
You’re right. But the guy entertains me. If he were advocating a philosophy I agreed with instead of a shared nonbelief, I’d be harder on him from now on.
Yeah, he’s definitely entertaining. As I said before, I like him…just think his tactics do more harm than good.
About fifteen and one half minutes into the debate, Sam Harris discusses how “one might need to go into a cave for a month or a year to have a [spiritual experience]” as if it would be a good thing!
That just made me laugh out loud. Let this show that those on the front lines of battling religion in the media are not necessarily for reason.
Hopefully Objectivism will get enough exposure where someone can write a best-selling book bashing religion at all philosophical levels then offering the philosophy of Ayn Rand as a positive alternative.
Here I come again to defend Sam Harris.
He doesn’t use “spiritual” in the same way that religious people do. When he says that, he means some form of deep introspection. I personally wouldn’t want to go into a cave for a month, because I would miss my material comforts. But I also don’t doubt that, if I did go into a cave for a month with nothing by own mind to keep me company, I would come out a changed man. Why? Because I would have nothing to do that whole time except sit there and ponder things.