You Guys Need to Communicate! (thoughts from an ex evangelical Christian)

How so? By being moderate? By enjoying religious diversity? Well, yes, but he should address how one could begin to challenge this way of thinking. What he is saying is that by opposing religion altogether, the crazies will have no motive for their craziness. Somehow, I doubt that.Motive in religion is very hard to pinpoint. The over-all motive is that in some way God desires our obedience. BUT, we as men are the ones who ultimately decide what 'God' supposedly wants. This can be anything from weekly church attendance, to preaching, human sacrifice, to abducting children, prayer, to building an arsenol. If anything, God is taking the blame for the power trips of men, and evil people are using religion as an excuse.Sometimes, holy books are the source of the ideas for what God wants. This is true of the Jewish desire for Israel, but not true for the Islamic terror groups. The shiites especially believe it is their duty to follow the will of God, and this plays out in willingness to suffer martyrdom for some worldly gain. They are simply following wholeheartedly in a the path they feel is 'right' and I believe that Harris is mistaken in saying that education plays no part, that lack of opportunity and poverty play no part. And mainly, lack of integration into a society where there is diversity of belief and the right government.Anyway, I don't want to get on your bad side, I just think people in general are very aware of the problems of extremist behaviour, and that it is just as misleading to proclaim 'religion is responsible for all the evil in the world'. When things are painted so black and white, well, I daresay moderates will start defending religion in general, but that does not mean they are covering for crazies. There should be more education about religion in general instead of feeding the ignorant masses a one-sided view.

You've raised a common objection to Harris's views, that it isn't religion that motivates men to fly airplanes into buildings and blow themselves up on crowded buses, but other conditions such as poverty or lack of nationhood or lack of education or revenge or desperation and so forth, and that the psychological climate of such men is far more complex than just seeking the glory of martyrdom and eternal happiness in heaven.One Harris reply to this is that if these were the conditions that drive men to terrorism then the repressed Buddhists of Mongolia would be the lead terrorists in the world today. But they're not, because the philosophy of Buddhism takes them in other directions. I think Harris would agree that an Islam not under stress from outside forces would be far less likely to breed terrorists. The problem he sees is that unlike Jainism and Buddhism, Islam reacts to stress with violence and terrorism. Unlike in times past, today their impact can and has been global.--Percy

I didn't 'conclude' anything about why Harris says what he says. I took the argument you presented and demonstrated the sophomoric flaws in reasoning using the argument's own terms.The Falwell/9-11 hypothesis is your own. By all means then, let's consider it.We have to hurry, though--before the book has been off the bestseller list so long that it's just a prop under the short leg of the kitchen table.Let's consider a specific case. Lutherans.Two major groups of Lutherans exist in the US: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS).Most observers would identify the ELCA as the 'religious moderates.' Their outlook is ecumenical, they have female clergy, they welcome gay couples, they engage in dialogues with other religious bodies for the purpose of overcoming differences.Missouri Synod? They're the fundies. They have the YECs and the people who think homosexual unions are an abomination. They disapprove of their members having communion in non-LCMS churches. They like home schools and make their kids wear funny clothes.Each group has its own constitution, its own seminaries and clergy, its own publishing house, its own conferences. Missouri Synod ministers do not appear in ELCA churches and ELCA ministers do not appear in Missouri Synod churches. There is no regular gathering at which members of both sides meet.Into this picture comes Sam Harris, bestselling author on the subject of religion, telling those ELCA Lutherans that they are far too tolerant of fundamentalism and that the time has come to crack the whip on those Missouri types.The ELCA Lutherans decide to put the Sam Harris Plan into action. What do they do?___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

The name is in the scriptures obviously to be read. The taboo about using the name claimed by later less devout clerics was superstious taboo not justified within the texts of scriptures themselves which have nothing in them suggesting the taboo.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

The kiddies are getting the education, corrupted as it is. The violence practiced by Mohammed and laced/injected into his scriptures is regimented and programmed into the minds of the students from kindegarten on up. For example, in Palestine there's no Israel on the school maps and the kids are trained up to extol and emulate the bombers and to hate the US and Israel in particular.In this, Harris is right, implying that it's the fundamentalists who really follow the respective scriptures as written. At least that's how I read him in the quotes. Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW ---- Jesus said, "When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near." Luke 21:28

Bonafide scripture is existent so far as mainline orthodoxy goes, with some variation but having definite perameters. In Islam, for example, it pretty much boils down to the Koran, the Haddith and the Sunnahs; in Christianity, possibly inclusive of the Apocrapha so far as Catholicism goes.

Roman Catholicism.(At least, it was in my experience)Like I said, though, the strictness varies between sects.

Yet even here at EvC you have examples that falsify that assertion. Look at Trixie as an example.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hi Archer,The longer we focus on Sam Harris's views the less I feel like I'm in a discussion. My feeling is that you and Anastasia are misinterpreting what Harris is saying, and I was only trying to clearly explain his views as I understand them. I have no problem if you want to reject his views, but I think what you're actually rejecting is a misunderstanding of his views. The more I try to clarify the greater becomes the disparity between what you and Anastasia think he's saying and what I think he's saying, so maybe I better quit before I get behinder.--Percy

Not rejection, Percy. Severe skepticism. It's about the same level of skepticism you would show if I logged on and said a New York Times bestselling author recommends shark cartilage as a cancer treatment and told everyone the idea merits serious consideration.You would be hard put to take that idea at all seriously until I put some beef on that bun. But you'd give me a hearty chance to do it.Same here.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

quote:

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Yet even here at EvC you have examples that falsify that assertion. Look at Trixie as an example.

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One example in Trixie does not falsify anything.Of course, I don't seem to recall Trixie saying that she, as a Catholic, was encouraged to doubt and question her Catholic religion. If true, this would be highly unusual.

But what is false? The state of mind induced by alcohol compared to our natural evolved state of mind uninfluenced by external chemicals? (Not that we can really avoid extrenal input. Blood sugar level has a marked effect upon mood-state)And even if it is false - what about the good old holodeck dilemma, portrayed wonderfully by Cypher in the Matrix. Why live a crap life in the "real" world when you can live out your fantasies in a pseudo-world?You won't find a bigger explorer of truth than me, whether it is in the dark abode of black holes, towering mountain tops, or the deepest most remote caves. But even I would be tempted by the allure of the holodeck.And I'm fine with you ddeclaring YECism, US fundie Christianity, etc as false - but to say God cannot reach and touch people through the crap of their surrounding religion is pushing your own beliefs a little too strongly. Glad to hear it ..and of course some very bad religion. Total agreement here.

Do you really think that the majority of parents - whether Christian, Muslim, or couldn't-give-a-damn - think about raising their kids to be critical thinkers? They don't even know what a "critical thinker" is!! All parents raise their kids with their own prejudices. In our (rather special) case, its the prejudice of educational snobbery

Okay, skepticism then. But to me you appear to be skeptical of a misunderstood take on Harris's views. In other words, you're skeptical of things he's not saying. Rather than responding to my attempted characterizations of Harris's views, you're drawing your own conclusions as to their implications and attacking those instead.To this point I've only been trying to get us on the same page regarding what Sam Harris really means. I don't think we're there yet.To attempt to draw us back into the discussion, my last point was that Harris believes that the tradition of religious tolerance among moderates is a critical weakness in the way the west approaches the threat of fundamentalist religious belief throughout the world. As I said earlier, and perhaps it was to Anastasia so maybe you didn't see it, I think Harris's first goal is to convince people that this is a real and serious problem, and that I'm not aware at this point of solutions that Harris has proposed. Certainly your example of the Lutherans does not seem like a proposal he would seriously entertain.I think what you and Anastasia are wondering is, "Okay, if religious tolerance puts us at untenable risk in a world of technologies of mass destruction, then what reasonable actions can we take?" This is a good and important question. I haven't finished The End of Faith yet (as a tough read I find it a surprising best seller), so I don't know if Harris addresses this question, but it would be very interesting to brain storm about reasonable possibilities.I've been puzzling about why this topic is drawing emotional reactions, and a thought just struck me. Perhaps the way you're reacting to these ideas is because you see Harris as using the threat of fundamentalism only as a rationale for attacking his true enemy, all of religion; that he's just an opportunist grasping at the events of 9/11 and after to forward his own anti-religion agenda. I don't think Anastasia sees it this way as she's already on record as believing he's doing this for the money. But questioning motivation is a debate tactic designed to distract attention from the ideas under consideration, and I hope we can avoid spending much time on them.--Percy

Well, you may not like it, but unfortunately for your blanket statement, one example does falsify it.Sorry. Which simply shows how utterly ignorant you are about Christianity and even Roman Catholicism.Even Jesus doubted and questioned his beliefs. And the Roman Catholic Church also constantly tests items of belief and over time even Roman Catholic dogma changes.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion