Sam Harris/Andrew Sullivan Online Debate at Beliefnet

Sam Harris, ardent atheist and declared enemy of fundamentalism, versus Andrew Sullivan, devout gay HIV-positive Roman Catholic and former editor of The New Republic. See http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904.html.--Percy

I've really been enjoying this debate (dialogue?) and I wish that more of the debates here at EvC proceeded along these lines. The arguments themselves aren't of any higher caliber than can be found among our participants, but there's an air of civility and rational discourse (that, surely, can't go on for much longer.)

Just a quick bump, because there's a new Sam Harris reply in the dialogue, and its a body-blow to Sullivan, I have to say. He's turned charges of dogmatism and intolerance on their head and right back around on his accuser.

I like Sam and I especially like his approach over that of Dawkins.Have you watched the Beyond Belief series that Percy posted? I don't remember in which episodes Sam is involved in discussion but those have been the most entertaining to me.I really need to read his books but from what little I have heard from Sam I like that he seems to focus more about the practicalities of faith rather than faith itself like Dawkins. The moment you let faith all of a sudden dissuade the rational part of your brain into believing something like the flood of Noah actually occurred as described in the Bible then you have a problem. I don't get the impression that he necessarily has a problem with faith as some notion of a basic belief in the supernatural without any practical impact on the world. This is especially true given his vague comments in the Beyond Belief series about reincarnation and some peppered support for certain rituals such as meditation as he mentioned in the end of his last reply.I think Sam's message is going to be lost though because it is more complicated than that of Dawkins. It is somehow more intellectual and less passionate. It is why I think a man like Dawkins gets more of the spotlight even when some of the things he says are somewhat controversially extreme.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I think Sam is missing something with his charges of dogmatism. Even scientists use subjectivity in the form of intuition, and then they are charged with thinking the idea out and coming up with a means of objectively testing it. The testing part is where technology comes in, and absent the technology to test for something via observations or experiments, science cannot really make an informed decision.That means the belief intuitively arrived at, or through a revelation perhaps or some other subjective means, cannot be considered wrong on that basis alone. Let's take a real life example people deal with all the time. A person falls in love and is considering marrying someone. They have subjective feelings and perceptions which they must rely on to make a decision. These include objective observations, but they are still not repeatable, scientific type observations.Should we say it is foolish and absurd to get married in the beleif that your potential spouse loves you because basically it's a faith thing? You have no scientific assurance the other person loves you, and guess what? They may not, or they may not stay in love with you, but to use science to claim it is wrong to trust your spouse in marriage is absurd and actually contrary to what it takes to work out that relationship.Sure, one must use reason, and lovers are notorius for erring in that area, but basically faith and trust are essential ingredients to a successful relationship. This is just one example where it would be absurd to use science to denigrate as mere dogmatism subjective evidence and resulting faith in something.The same holds true for God. Although I would argue that the creation and universe itself is strong evidence for God, God's means of relating with us spiritually entails a subjective process like any relationship. It's not that God cannot be tested. One can test God in thier lives via faith, prayer, and subjective means. I actually think science can test aspects of God via science, but science is limited technologically, and it's wrong to make a claim based out of absence of evidence when the reason for the lack of evidence is a lack of technology.Lack of technological means is not evidence of absence.

Be careful that you don't start to drag this thread off topic as well.So far, you might be on topic, but there will be very little leeway given your history.

I have to say randman, you have moments where your posts are very eloquent and productive. This was a very good post.I would like to start off by agreeing with you on your point about using subjective reasoning, be it based on religion or not, to make practical personal life decision.I don't think that is what Sam Harris is necessarily speaking against though when he talks about dogmatism because he in other circumstances encourages the use of subjective investigation like I mentioned in my post to crash.I think Sam is focused on more practical things such as how to combat extremism especially extremist Islam. Another practical example would be how we structure a durable society taking into consideration the longevity of natural resources.Religion has something to say in both of these circumstances and it is Sam's claim that just because opinions are religious they should not be immune to criticism especially if they are irrational.The point where Harris and Dawkins both agree equally I believe is in the sense that religion in our society is protected from the deep critcism that would be necessary to counter some of its more impractical and irrational incursions on society such as the religiously motivated ban on stem-cell research.It is taboo to criticize stem-cell research opponents on the basis that their motivation is purely religious. I agree with both Harris and Dawkins in saying that this should not be taboo.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I see that your reference to stem-cell research is relevant to the topic but it is not the topic itself. Let's remember that.

Yes I was only using it as an example of Sam Harris' complain about the immunity or religion to criticism.This is an issue that was also brought up in an example in the Beyond Belief series that Percy posted in another thread so people who have examined that may be familiar with it.This thread most certainly should not be a discussion about stem-cell research and it is not my intention to drag it in that direction.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

the thing that bothers me about dawkins (i don't know about harris. i boguth one of his books, but it's kind of on the bottom of my list of comprehensive exam reading) is that the only thing he says about anyone of moderate faith is that they give license to the whackos. that's patently illogical. if i drink one glass of wine a day to help protect my heart, it does not give license to the alcoholic who beats his wife and children. no more so, does a very tempered belief in whatever variety of deity make me in league with those who bomb abortion clinics or holy sites. of course, i have a very different understanding of most religious conflict from which i think he could benefit. but then he'd never listen to me.these men champion the rights and pride of atheists while screaming about how insidious and stupid theists and even agnostics are. we must not allow people to make thought a criminal act. there's a reason we have legal protections for the kkk in this country. not because it's comfortable, but because if we restrict thought, then ours may later be restricted. i am smart enough to avoid getting myself into trouble about the strongest of these feelings i have. i am a genocide researcher. i can't tell you how many times a day i am confronted by someone decrying holocaust deniers. but if there is a topic within academic research which is anathema, then someday it might be mine. academica especially must be free to explore all thoughts. i may not like it; i may think they're full of shit; but i will be the first to defend their right to study and publish like the rest of us. this is the reason our founding fathers allowed for the separation of church and state. because they knew that if they declared a wholly secular nation, that it would turn around and bite them in the butt. if it is acceptable to squelch any one form of thought, then in the future it could be acceptable to squelch any other form of thought. this is the only time i will ever use a slippery slop argument, but it is, also, i think the only time it is applicable. once you try to legislate the mind and personal opinion, everything changes.

Just caught up on Andrew Sullivan's last post and Sam Harris's reply to it. Reads like Andrew Sullivan has surrendered, offering a nolo contendere to Harris's fusillades. Harris's analogy of Sullivan seeming like a tennis opponent who is no longer holding a racket seemed very apt.I thought that Harris would have trouble advancing the premise that religious moderates are as dangerous as an enabling force as are fundamentalists as an overt destructive force, especially against Sullivan, but this seems to have been pretty much of a rout so far and I don't know what Sullivan can rally with.Harris's trio of premises, that faith is not a path to knowledge of the realities of this world, that religious differences in a world of mass destructive capabilities are critically antithetical to the chances for survival of modern civilization, and that religious moderates make this situation possible by their very tolerance of faith-based thought, have not been opposed by any sustainable argument. A tour de force by Harris so far.--Percy

Well, I understand that's his impression, but frankly I think he is way, way off-base. Religious sentiment is harshly criticized all the time. If anything, it's really the other way around in that criticisms are allowed of some forms of religion, such as Christianity, that would never be tolerated for others. Just look at the extreme statements, hateful stuff often, presented towards Christianity, and imagine what you would think if Jews, Muslims, or homosexuals were substituted for Christians and the Christian faith. I dare say you'd think a good portion of academia, artists, and the American Left were Klan members and David Duke types (except maybe on the Muslim thing).There is continual, sustained, and intense criticism towards theism in general, and Christianity in particular, and has been so for many decades.On the stem-cell thing, I also wholehearedly disagree. It's not just theists or strongly theists that express concerns over the boundaries of scientific experimentation, but this has been a concern among many for a very long time. There are, for example, ecologically-minded folks hostile towards conservative Christianity that express concerns about the effects of science and technology, including genetic engineering, and this is a widespread general concern over technology getting ahead of ethics.In fact, to say the motivation for being concerned over harvesting embryonic stem cells is purely religious, imo, is false. The motivation has to do with morals and ethics and so is affected by religion, but the objection is not primarily "religious" per se. It's an ethical question of whether using human parts harvested from unwilling human beings (if one believes the embryo is a human being) is acceptable. Edited by randman, : No reason given.

Sam is not missing something and I suspect you did not read referenced article.The subjectivity of a scientists has to wash thru the objective testing rinse cycle.As I pointed out elsewhere, science is a system devised to strive for objectivity, to counter the unavoidable subjectivity of humans.Religious beliefs are founded on, and feasts on the frailties and subjectivity of humans.This is why there is one theory of gravity; but a multitude of views on the fundamental nature of God.This is why there is a fractured state of religion in general.The objectivity filter of science is why subjective scientist with opposing world views like (Collins and Dawkins) can both contribute to the advancement of science and knowledge.In fact, in the reference article Sam mentions so much.... And now.... Again "Subjective means" is not a valid method of testing! That is the whole point. It doesn't not work. This evidenced by the multitude of exclusive religious beliefs.I have no idea what you mean by "technological means". If that is the case maybe we should put the whole religion question on ice until we do or we are bound to make some major mistakes. I think Harris and Dawkin's would agree to that.

Well Sullivan is not a guy I'd pick to champion theism....but I do wonder if we used the same argument with atheism and atheists, what would the result be. The Soviet Union was devoutly atheist, so much as they viewed religious belief as a psychological diseased and "treated" many religious people in an attempt to cure them.Can we claim then more moderate atheists actually empower fundamentalists such as Stalin and Soviet atheism, and so atheism is incompatible with modern civilization?Keep in mind religious people are still being persecuted in many of the few remaining communist/atheist nations.Edited by randman, : No reason given.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

I'd recommend that you read the above dialogue, because it's exactly this contention that Harris has so admirably defended - that religious moderates do provide an operational cover for fundamentalist extremists.To play from your example - do you give license to the evils of alcoholism by enjoying a glass of wine? No, of course not. And if religious moderates were people who, by and large, repudiated the religious extremists in their midsts, that would be the same situation.But they don't, and it's not. The situation is more akin to you, with your glass of wine, responding to an assertion that "alcoholics wreak terrible damage on others with their illness" with angry protestations that I drink a glass of wine every night and I've never hurt anybody with it and why on Earth are you so angry at Alcohol?!To the extent that religious moderates choose to interdict atheist criticisms of fundamentalist religious nonsense by conflating their own moderate faiths with the faiths under attack - figuratively leaping into the paths of the bullets, as it were - they do provide a cover for fundamentalism. When the moderates assert that there are "other paths to truth", and we can't allow science to tread on where religion must walk, that provides a cover for fundamentalists to walk their religion all over the rest of us.I invite you to read the dialogue. Nobody's promoting that. But moderates and fundamentalists alike share the very aggravating habit of trying to inform public policy with their religious faith as though religion was just as good as facts. All that Dawkins and Harris are saying is that, sometimes we find ourselves faced with the question of "what should we do"? For instance, "should we allow embryonic stem cell research, or shouldn't we?"All Dawkins and Harris are saying is that, at that discussion, the only viewpoints allowed should be those based on the evidence. The person with the viewpoint who says "I don't think it should be allowed because of such-and-such an unsupported, faith-based religious belief" has no place at that discussion - just like there's no place at a discussion of geography for someone who thinks the Earth is flat. No, this is the reason that the Founding Fathers demanded the separation of Church and State. Because they were men of the Enlightenment, and they knew that no good can come when, at the discussion of policy, make-believe is held in the same esteem as fact.