I'm inspired by Sam Harris' sharp attacks on religion

Like all of us, Sam Harris has changed over the years.

Following the publication of his acclaimed The End of Faith in 2004, Harris became well known as an eloquent advocate for atheism against the foolishness of religion, joining other noted atheists -- Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett -- who were known as "The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism."

Since, Harris has written additional books and has fashioned a vibrant online presence through his Waking Up app and Making Sense podcast. He still bashes religion, but appears more concerned with other subjects, such as helping people experience the notions of no-self, emptiness, and lack of free will that are compatible both with Buddhism and neuroscience. (Harris has a Ph.D. in neuroscience.)

I was reminded of the old-time Harris when You Tube kept displaying to me a video called "Sam Harris: Arguments Against Religion - Part 1." This is a compilation of highlights from talks and debates Harris did after The End of Faith came out. 

I've been listening to the video while I exercise. It's inspiring stuff. Well, unless you're religious. Then you'll think this is blasphemous disgusting stuff. Harris doesn't pull any punches. He hits hard at the ridiculousness of religion, using facts and logic to make his case.

There's a quote in the Amazon listing for The End of Faith that reflects how I feel when I watch the video. 

"The End of Faith articulates the dangers and absurdities of organized religion so fiercely and so fearlessly that I felt relieved as I read it, vindicated....Harris writes what a sizable number of us think, but few are willing to say."―Natalie Angier, New York Times

Truth-telling has tremendous power.

Harris isn't a comedian, though he does make humorous remarks, but this video has something in common with an edgy stand-up comic. We laugh because the comic is fearless about making fun of "sacred cows," forbidden topics, that usually aren't talked about in polite company. 

In Harris' case, it isn't so much laughter that he elicits from me (though sometimes that happens), but a sense of "Oh, yeah, that's just how I feel, but for some reason I've been reluctant to say it as directly as Harris does." Well, one reason is that I'm not as knowledgeable as Harris is, or as eloquent.

Can't do anything about that. But I can try to be more honest about how I genuinely feel about certain subjects, following in Harris' truth-telling footsteps. For example...

Harris spoke about the insanity of allowing Iron Age myths found in the Old Testament and Jewish lore to inform 21st century warfare and politics. A large proportion of Israelis believe that God gave the Jews territory in the Middle East, so they're now entitled to it. Lots of Christians in the United States believe the same crazy thing.

As Harris notes, a belief is a statement about reality, truth. It's different from a hope.

It isn't crazy for an Israeli to think, "I hope my country can keep control of the West Bank." I don't share that hope, since I favor a two-state solution where Palestinians have their own country. However, it's a lot more acceptable than a bizarre belief that God, the cosmic real estate agent, bequeathed land to Jews.

There's zero evidence supporting that belief, just as there's zero evidence supporting any other supernatural claim religions make. Yet religious people usually aren't challenged about their fact-free beliefs in the same way someone would be if they claimed the moon landings were faked, or that Donald Trump had the 2020 presidential election stolen from him.

Since Harris was speaking not long after the 2001 9/11 attacks by Muslim terrorists on the United States, he was blunt about the Koran -- which he correctly calls not the word of Allah, but one of the world's most boring and poorly written books. Of course, Muslims believe it was dictated to Muhammad by an angel, so every word in it is true.

That sort of religious dogmatism obviously is highly dangerous. Islamic martyrs believe that they'll head to paradise if they die killing infidels. Clearly they're wrong. But that's no comfort to those who lose their lives in the name of Muslim terrorism. 

I'm not as familiar as Harris is with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim history. I do know that he's absolutely correct about how the Bible in no way is divine, but purely human.

The content of the Bible has changed a great deal over the centuries. Some parts of it have been deleted, with other parts added. Editing has altered the meaning of passages to make them conform to how Christians want to spin the story of Jesus, whose supposed miracles aren't unique at all, but were taken from myths floating around the Middle East long before Jesus supposedly existed.

In short, all religions are B.S. (The only exception is non-supernatural Buddhism, which is highly psychological and thus open to confirmation or rejection.) This includes the Eastern religion I was a member of for thirty-five years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB).

The hour is late and I don't feel like pointing out all the absurdities taught by RSSB, many of which I never really believed in. So I'll limit myself to one absurdity that comes easily to mind: the belief that Kal, the negative power (think Devil, more or less) who oversees the lower realms of creation, got his position by impressing God with an impressive display of athleticism. 

Here's an excerpt from my 2009 post, "A dialogue about Radha Soami Satsang Beas." The dialogue was between me and Shiloh, who wrote to me because she was concerned about her sister being sucked into a cult. Shiloh asked me some questions about RSSB, which I answered, then got comments on those answers from Shiloh.

(5)  Are Kal and the mind used to dispel the disciple’s rational assessment of the master and his words and actions?

Brian: Absolutely. Questioning is supposed to happen before initiation. Afterwards, the initiate is warned to beware of Kal, the Universal Mind who stood on one foot for eons and earned the right from God to rule the lower regions of creation. (Shiloh: Great heavens! How spiritually athletic!)  Kal's job is to keep souls here, and the mind is his means of doing so.

Shiloh: I rest my case. The above-mentioned attitude nullifies the checks and balances ingrained into our very souls to guard against deception. Willfully giving up the critical mind must indefinitely commit one to labor, with dwarfed mentality, through a spiritual never-never land where the only hope of eventual rescue is through painful disillusionment. Since my sister defensively denied that there was any such requirement, she obviously knows, deep down, how dubious this is.

Comments

[sant64]

You neglect to mention that Harris supports Israel's genocide in Gaza.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/11/sam-harriss-fairy-tale-account-of-the-israel-hamas-conflict.html

This must mean that Harris is fine with the indiscriminate killing of many thousands of children for the sake of keeping safe real estate that was stolen from Palestinians decades ago by people who, in a remarkably curious coincidence, subscribed to a racial/ethnic religion that Harris still identifies with. Jihadis come in all shapes and sizes.

Pragmatists such as William James and Dewey believed that the value of religious beliefs lay not in their conformity to factual or metaphysical truths but in their potential to shape human experiences, foster communal bonds, and guide ethical conduct. They considered religion as a social and cultural phenomenon that provides a framework for individuals to make sense of their lives and find meaning within a community.

James and Dewey pointed out that facts are not the same thing as truth. I believe they're right about that, particularly with religion.

If it were so that facts are the same thing as truth, and that Harris is correct that religion is the root of all evil, it would follow that most criminals locked up in America's prisons were impelled by religion to take a sociopathic path in life.

We'd also expect that BSRSSB would be an incubator of sociopathic behavior. (Note that I don't even have to bolster this claim, it's so obviously true.)

Now let's look at the flip side. Is most of the criminality in the U.S. arising from people with an actual belief in God? Or do most criminals have the belief that religion is BS, and that outside of hedonism life has no meaning?

Again, so obvious, no need to argue the answer to that.

Conclusion: Harris is simply wrong about so much. His urgent alarm that religion is a terrible problem in America has failed because of a lack of evidence. And given that Harris clearly is deeply religious himself in a coy way, so very hypocritical.

Ah yes, quite Buddhist, unless it involves the use of bombs on hospitals.

[umami]

Apparently, the Navajo own the moon.
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/07/1223351685/some-people-are-paying-to-deposit-human-remains-on-the-moon-the-navajo-nation-ob

But they do have a point. Do we have to trash absolutely everything in the mad scramble for profit? The people of the moon weren't even consulted!

Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)
"Spirits and angels know that there are people living on the Moon just as there are on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Even the spirits who have not seen and talked with spirits from these moons have no doubt that there are people there because the moons are planets, too, and where there is a planet there are people. Humanity is, after all, the purpose for which planets exist, and the Supreme Creator has done nothing without a purpose. Anyone who thinks with even slightly enlightened reason can conclude that creation came about so that heaven could arise from humankind."
https://newchristianbiblestudy.org/exposition/translation/other-planets-nce/passage/730

"the inhabitants of the Moon do not speak from the lungs like the inhabitants of other earths, but from the abdomen, and thus from some air there collected, by reason that the Moon is not encompassed with an atmosphere like that of other earths. I was instructed that the spirits of the Moon, in the Greatest Man, have relation to the ensiform or zyphoid cartilage, to which the ribs in front are joined, and from which descends the facia alba, which is the fulcrum of the abdominal muscles."
https://newchristianbiblestudy.org/exposition/translation/earths-in-the-universe-whitehead/passage/731

[umami]

One 'm' in Emanuel, sorry.

[umami]

"As an anthropologist, I have often heard people argue that without religion there is no morality. And last year, during the presidential campaign, Ted Cruz argued that people of all faiths have the constitutional right to run for the presidency, but atheists are not fit for the job. However, data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons suggest that atheists are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people, and globally the least religious countries have the lowest crime rates. This is of course correlational evidence: it does not mean that being an atheist leads to committing fewer crimes. But the intuition that our study reveals, i.e. that atheists are immoral, is definitely not supported by reality."

"Q. Does this tell us anything about the purpose of religion in society?
A. Religion has been so successful in the course of human history partly because it functions as a public signal of conformity to group norms, and that is because it involves arbitrary rather than functional rules and behaviors. For example, hunting, fishing, or trading like everyone else is the logical thing to do and offers directly observable benefits (food on the table and money in the bank). But going to church, fasting, or memorizing the Bible are costly signals of commitment to the norms of the community. Reliance on such signals has been crucial for the formation and maintenance of the first large-scale societies, in the absence of reliable secular institutions, and this evolutionary heritage is still with us today."

https://today.uconn.edu/2017/08/think-atheists-likely-serial-killers/#

[umami]

Reliable secular institutions are key, however.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/corruption-violent-extremism-kleptocracy-and-dangers-of-failing-governance-pub-63982

A rallying cry of the religious right is that government can't fix all your problems. Dismantle secular institutions, and people will turn back to religion.

Caveat: Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.

[FanBoysUnitedAgainstFaith]

Sam Harris is a genius of the highest degree, as is Brian for recognising and parroting his views.

Their penetrating, sophisticated, nuanced and multi-perspectival insights into the nature of reality, consciousness, freewill, religion and complex geo-political conflicts is breathtaking to behold and must surely be considered one of the Great Wonders of the modern world.

They certainly aren't NPCs 🤔

Religion is bad, hmmkay. And brown Muslims are the worst.

Warning, dear believers, do not watch watch this, it contains anti-Harris content 😱:

https://youtu.be/Ajw8JQkj0zM?si=7FCoHQtab41aBibz

[Appreciative Reader]

Enjoyed listening to the thing (bits and pieces of it, that is).

Persuasively argued, all of it (that I chanced on, in the bits and pieces I landed on). Nothing new really, though, and all kind of elementary --- except, this thing is indeed so very elementary, that it is astonishing that so many, even today, continue to latch on to this nonnsense.

For instance, the argumentum ad consquentiam thing, that Harris discusses more than once in here, it's amazing how widespread is this completely elementary fallacy, and how presumably functional adults do not recognize it as such. There's quite a few instances of this we've seen here. And more importantly, I've seen so MANY people, IRL, follow this particular fallacious route to arrive at (or at any rate as justification for) their absurd beliefs.

And of course, that's just one example, that I touched on here. Point is, most of this is actually elementary. And yet the transparent idiocy of it all makes no difference to those who insist on believing nonsense.

Yeah, cool vid.

[Trez]

He's so right about religions are bull shit

Taking Gurinder Singh Dhilion and Radha Soami this is the no1 bull shit religion worldwide

Gurinder Singh Dhillon is The Devils advocate giving Kals initiation of the five names to the disciple so he can take they're soul to hell.

He is misleading all with lies on stage and gives darshan which he puts a spell with his eyes on all the sangat slowly start to believe he's a god and worship a little man That's the power of the negative Kal who devors all.

Kal's job is to keep souls here, and the mind is his means of doing so.

Gurinder Singh Dhillon is his faithful sevader

Beware of the Devil in disguse as he is really Gurinder Singh Dhilion
Ask him why does he give Kals 5 names and watch him trying to get out of it like the Snake he is

Expose the evil and cast out the devil

[P’s Law]

RSSB should be viewed the same as the great Greek tragedies.

So much drama. So much tragedy. It’s a cult tailor made for the masses. About 60% of what they believe is true. But that can be said of almost any major world religion.

Let’s say that 80% of what RSSB believes is true, that still leaves you with 20% non-truth. That’s still enough to f up everything according to Pareto’s Law.

[RS]

GSD is always telling truths. The problem is he rarely shares the fundamental truths. He’s not a liar.

But… don’t you want to know the Truth??

[Kranvir]

Gurinder singh Dhillon seems to want to take over the world with his RSSB cult. He recently payed a visit to pakistan to try and convert the muslims into to his fake ass version of santmat. He also seems to be taking a leadership role in becoming the cult leader of other rssb cults , with him anchoring to be the top dog - a dog being the right word for him , because all he does is bark nothings on stage. Whats more he admitted he will take anyone, be they muslims/ Hindus/ Sikhs, you don't have to be special and the so called chosen one and he sees himself as the christ reborn, the saviour of mankind - creep. Once you do your research and get a reality check you realise he's nothing but a mafia boss pretending to be a cult leader , with ulterior motives and hiding his real self behind a false image of a high almighty baba. Looking deeper, you realise if he's not god, he must be working for the negative / kaal power. His job is to delude souls back to the belly of the beast. So see past his image, forget how u feel around this crook, but instead do your research. Gurinder your days are numbered and karma will smack you in the mouth.

[umami]

Hey, Kran.
It was always that way--any religion or no religion at all. What's yours?

[Rab da Banda]

I never understand why people are so blind that they can't see what GSD did and doing....but still following him as brainwashed mob
Some are examples
1. He told Court that he has nothing to do with Sikh brothers but latter accepted as there was paper trail with his sign
2. He made excuses to court not to be appeared in front of judge
3. He asked court not to disclosed his Income related documents
4. He is direct linked with shell companies
5. He took lands from Punjab farmers and govt land
6. How is is living with luxurious life and his both sons are millionaires..no one asked where this money came from
8. Most of land is captured in India illegally to make their centre
9. What seva and Kirat hi does?
10. He is too fragile that himself suffer from Cancer and his wife become ill and he couldn't do anything.
11.From where this money coming from for treatment in UK and Singapore..why it was not treated in India. Don't they believe in Indian Doctors
12. How he managed to make his own house on charity land in Haynes, UK
13. How did he get private jet
14. If everyone is volunteering than how he is paying many of his staff more than $100k per year
15. How some of his staff living luxurious life
There are 100s of clear proof which shows how fraud he is
People are that level of brainwashed that they think He knows everything about their personal life and he can fix all their issues.
You will hear very common statements e.g. Babaji knows everything. Babaji will fix everything. Babaji is with me etc But reality is that Baba couldn't even do anything about his cancer and had to go to see doctors, couldn't save his wife..and told lots of lies to court and scare from his sins
Now he is spending most of his time in UK and organising many events

How can be a coward and fake person be a God in Human form. If he lost his political connection then he will be in jail in no time. You never know how many people got murdered by his goons and threatened so they don't raise voice against him