Are you a theist? Maybe you should reconsider...

Sam Harris owned his ass. I'm actually working through "The End of Faith" as we speak. It's not the best written book ever, and I think this e-mail correspondence is a lot more insightful and compelling. I'm inclined to say that my beliefs largely coincide with Harris', except that I would consider myself agnostic (i.e. the possibility of a higher being does exist).

This is of particular relevance to me, especially now. I'm going through a tough time in my life, where I all but completely rejected Islam in my life a few years ago. In the last year, I've begun dating a woman whom I'm very much in love with who is a non-muslim agnostic. My family hates this and is pretty much almost moving to the point where they are making me choose between them: something I want to avoid of course. However, the most frustrating thing is that my family's arguments are rooted in dogma, and not reason. Every theological/moral/ethical argument we have about the "rightness" of my actions, I basically win by running logic circles around them, yet my reasoning bounces off of them liker rubber bullets. It's an extremely frustrating, and traumatic experience.

Thanks for posting this, Judd...I really enjoyed that correspondance.

For the record, Prager is a douchebag, as far as I'm concerned. Harris clearly destroyed him in this exchange, although it was obvious that they were both more intent on taking potshots at each other than actually engaging in debate.

That said, I'm still a detached, relatively non-active member of the Presbyterian Church, and I'll most likely stay that way for a long time.

Thanks for the link, Judd. It's a great debate and I wouldn't even go as far as saying that Harris completely owned Prager. I think both men made some damn fine points. I've heard Harris's points made hundreds of times, mostly by that asshole Richard Dawkins - but I don't often see religion defended as elloquently as Prager did it, mostly (I suspect) because both Harris and Dawkins are more comfortable when debating the crackpots who start spewing psalm and ignorance from word one. It didn't quite change my position but gave me something to chew on and, at the very least, proves that there are some religious people who have their feet planted firmly within this earth. And that's a nice thing to know.

Sam Harris is a moron arguing about things he does not understand with other morons who also don't understand what they are arguing about.

Beside Sir Isaac Newton believed that Jesus will back in 60 years time, or maybe it was 57 years I forget.

For once...LINK something.

That would be an interesting bit of trivia if you would just provide some sort of citation.

I’d like to begin this exchange by making the observation that “atheist” is a term that should not even exist. We do not, after all, have a name for a person who does not believe in Zeus or Thor. In fact, we are all “atheists” with respect to Zeus and Thor and the thousands of other dead gods that now lie upon the scrapheap of mythology.

I've been saying this for years now (except I used Santa Claus in place of Zeus); good on you, Sam Harris.

OMG! That means gravity doesn't exist!

If the best theist we can produce for this debate is eenin, then I take that as proof that there is no God.

I think most theists have learnt not to touch these kinds of debates with a ten foot pole, since they mostly boil down to:

"PROVE there is a god"

"I can't"

"Hahahahahahaha!"

And eenin, I'm not sure if what you're saying is true. But even if it is, so what?

"I’d like to begin this exchange by making the observation that “atheist” is a term that should not even exist."

This is a pretty asinine statment. Most atheists self-identify as such. Atheism is a belief that there is no god, period. I believe there is a god and as such I am not simply an atheist + one god. Theists don't believe in multiple gods (okay I suppose there are some that do but those would typically be called polytheists).

And when someone says "PROVE there is a god" I've often asked what they'd accept as proof. I rarely get a good answer.

Also, here's a pastor that raises some interesting question to Harris and his Letter:
http://www.dougwils.com/?Action=Sear...ing=Mr.+Harris

And those two gents were too busy talking past each other for one to "own" the other.

"Prove there is a god" means "Give me evidence. Something indisputable that can put this whole argument to rest"

With that I agree completely.

That's a very accurate self-portrait you've painted there.

This is how I see it:God is that which we cannot know. There is a difference between believing in God and being religious. Anyone, atheist or not, can go around trying to disprove distinctive aspects of different religions. You can ridicule them for their faith in set laws and a moral code, and they can ridicule you for your lack of such. As far as I'm concerned, every religion worships the same God(s) in very different ways. In one of the article's someone mentioned "burden of proof." Who does this fall on? Prove to me God exist's! Prove to me he doesn't! This is impossible so the burden of proof falls on whoever is making the argument. It is not the "job" of a believer to make others think their way unless they believe it is, the same goes for non-believers. Everyone interprets their own religion in different ways. Petitioning against the literality of religious texts is legitimate and justifiable. Flat-out denying the possibility of a God, to me, is denying the possibility that there is something we cannot understand.

Wow, just... Wow!

This must honestly be one of the weakest arguments I have ever seen being made against atheism. Wilson constructs straw man arguments left and right, condescends towards Harris by saying that anyone who doesn't believe in a higher force believes in nothing but useless sacks of matter and goes on to say that religion is the only way to achieve a global moral standard...Basically he makes a case that Harris (or a ten-year-old with a bit of common sense) could rip to shreds in no time.

Does it get any more coherent? I stopped reading after five letters because my brain started hurting.

"Ridicule you for your lack of such?" What a moronic statement. The existence or lack of religious beliefs has nothing to do with someone's "faith" (a terrible, terrible term to use) in "set laws and a moral code". Furthermore, since the Bible explicitly condones slavery, genocide, and death for trivial crimes, I posit that it is not really the basis for any moral code as currently practices in the western world.

It is if they want their beliefs to be taken seriously, taught to children, or recognized as worthy of consideration when establishing public policies.

People stating "A" is true have a duty to prove it, or risk having their beliefs rightly considered foolish. The person asking for proof does not have a duty to disprove "A".

And even if you don't care what other people think. It's actually very important to have the proof for yourself, isn't it? Now, you might say that "you just know" for yourself and that's what matters, but that isn't knowing at all. That's just faith. And faith depends entirely on what an individual believes and perceives. If you were being completely honest to yourself, you wouldn't trust that, because human beings are a fallible bunch and perceptions are often a lie. And even though faith is often praised as a virtue, the fact is that it is entirely irresponsible and often dangerous to believe in something that can't be proven.

Like ghosts and aliens.

So by that statement do you mean to say... if one refuses to adhere to an organized religion or believe in a form of God, that individual couldn't possibly be a moral and just person?!

"if one refuses to adhere to an organized religion or believe in a form of God, that individual couldn't possibly be a moral and just person?!"

That's not what I was saying at all, I was merely stating that you can ridicule someone for their religious beliefs, and they can ridicule you for not being religious.

"Ridicule you for your lack of such?" What a moronic statement. The existence or lack of religious beliefs has nothing to do with someone's "faith" (a terrible, terrible term to use) in "set laws and a moral code". Furthermore, since the Bible explicitly condones slavery, genocide, and death for trivial crimes, I posit that it is not really the basis for any moral code as currently practices in the western world. "


Believers place their faith, in their religion. Faith is a great word to describe the amount of trust some put in their belief system. Faith and religion are inexorably tied. I did not use the Bible as an example, but since you want to, the Bible for all it's good or bad had a huge impact on the way our country's (and much of Europe's) moral identity was formed.

"the fact is that it is entirely irresponsible and often dangerous to believe in something that can't be proven."

Can you prove that stealing is wrong? No, but you probably believe it to be true.

I think some of you are confused. I'm not trying to defend the stories from religious texts that some take to be literal. I'm defending the values they promote. Deconstructing someone's beliefs just to try and make a point won't help anything. Only when people hide behind religious doctrine to force their will on someone does belief become an issue. You can't invalidate someone's morals just because they are based on a belief in God, no more than they can discredit your morals because they are not.

Huh?

You have simply put the question up as a trap here. Right and wrong are mostly based on opinion and that is not the argument that most bring. The question is, "Can you prove that stealing is harmful?"

The answer is yes. Whatever gains one makes from stealing, this is not a victimless crime.

And those values include the enslavement of others, killing witches, killing homosexuals, killing disobedient children, killing those who do so much as pick up sticks on the Sabbath, and rape. These are not just from stories, but from the LAWS (translate as "values") written in the Bible and Koran.

Yeah, but that God isn't really found in the Bible. Sure, he took a personal interest in the Hebrews for a couple hundred years...but then he basically said, "Fuck it" and left them to their own devices.

After a while, he felt bad...decided to give them a way to redeem themselves. They killed that guy.

We haven't heard anything from the big guy since. Yeah, his son appeared to Paul. But notice that it was to stop Paul from killing people that were affiliated with Him? See! He was still stinging from that whole crucifixion thing.

So yeah, "that" God has been completely fabricated. The one the Bible talks about...he's the one that's probably still going, "Jeez, and I knew that they were gonna nail him to that thing, too...what the hell was I thinking?!?"

And thus, the whole omnipotence thing melts like the Wicked Witch.

Sorry this is kind of long, but I figured someone should try to help out the Theists.

I don't really agree with Prager, so much as I disagree with Harris.

His side of those emails seems to be a pretty clear case of him piggybacking one argument on another.

The first argument is that God doesn't exist. That argument is successful, so long as we take him to be saying that there is no empirical/scientific evidence to suggest the existence of God. As a scientist, that's all he can really say. Sorry for the Theists, but they're just gonna have to concede that to him.

His next step though is much more suspect. He goes from making a statement about what science tells us about the nature of the empirical world, to what we should or shouldn't believe in. At first, it may be hard to see why that is sort of sneaky. One the one hand, science sort of does that all the time. It tells me that I should believe that when I jump up that gravity will pull me back down. Harris' argument is different. His argument involves a moral "should" and is straightforwardly utilitarian in nature.

He seems to be relying on the argument that the world would be much better off without religion. That without religion, the world would be less violent, oppressive, and miserable all the time. Since he is scientist, I think it's fair that Harris should have to produce some kind of evidence to support that kind of claim, but I think it's unlikely he could find any. The best he could say is that there is a high correlation between groups of people who are violent and groups of people who are religious. There is a big difference between correlation and causation though. 'People with hearts' and 'people with kidneys' has an extremely high correlation, but people don't have hearts because they have kidneys (at least not in any sort of straightforward sense of 'because'). If he wanted to actually show that religiosity (is that word?) causes violence and conflict, he'd need to observe the whole history of a control group who were kept completely free of anything resembling theism.

Does anyone really think that such a group of people would really show a significantly lower incidence of violence and conflict? It seems like to support his own position, Harris has to resort to a willfully oversimplified notion of human nature. People fight all the time. They do it for power, resources, ego, religion, or whatever. More often than not, it's probably some combination of all those. As an argument for why people should disbelieve in God, I don't think the fact that people are disposed to come into conflict with each other carries a great deal of weight.

Or he could present historical evidence as he does in his books.

As anyone with half a brain should admit. For the most part, it is dogma that Harris rails against.

And philosophically, you are quite correct.

Yeah, but that particular contradiction is not supported by the Bible or the original Creeds.

Omnipotent, sure...but omni-benevolent? Not so much.

It must be difficult for Christians to refute the worlds' religions past and present (as an atheist would do) and then have to quickly back pedal to explain how Christianity is the exception to this.

Another one of those things that humanity has invented...b/c the Bible, yet again, doesn't deny the existence of other gods, neither does it claim that everything else is a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

It does state that all of that other stuff exists, and that God would rather his followers abstained.

Although, it's not spelled out quite as politely as that.

Where does it state that all of that other stuff exists?

Exodus chapter 23 talks about calling upon other gods...

Ezekial bashes all over Miss Cleo in chapter 13.

If you go back to Exodus chapter 20 and in Deuteronomy chapter...gah...18? ...anyway, it specifically addresses "spirits"

Oh...and I think that the book of Micah talks about withcraft a little bit, too.

...oh!

My favorite verse of the Bible is Isaiah 1:13 which basically says that incense is an abomination to God. I know that was irrelevant, but I like that verse and it always gets a chuckle out of people.

Isaiah...he's so militant.

As well as the second Commandment, which somewhat admits that there are other gods, but says not to worship them.

That's not what he was trying to do.


Actually I think he was saying that atheism can't achieve a global moral standard. And it can't.

That infidelity is wrong can't be argued. The punishment for the crime is not what makes the crime right or wrong.

And in your mind what would that be? Because I have a feeling the only answer is God appearing to you personally. And if that happened you'd probably have yourself checked in to an institution.

What? The point you made has nothing to do with the point Judd made. Did you just come back from a deep study Bible retreat and develop some new one-liner non-sequiturs meant to confuse the arguement?

I am always amused by discussions over "divinely inspired" writings. Since there's obviously no legitimate proof of "divine inspiration" why don't I just say "through my hands god says in this post I am writing right now that all of your female family members must dole out blow jobs to the next 300 lb man they see or else they will be seen as immoral in god's eyes." Prove to me that god didn't inspire me to write that, well I guess he did then. This sounds stupid but is the exact same logic that silly religious people use. People think it's stupid when a person says they're divinely inspired now, but it's not stupid when a guy(s) says it thousands of years ago when they thought the earth was flat and generally didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.............

This strikes me as a weak criticism. I've never heard an atheist claim that they derive a global moral standard from it (not that they can't coexist, just that A does not definitively lead to B); atheists can't turn water to wine either, but I don't fault them for it just because theists claim they can.

Of course Atheists cannot achieve global moral standards from a belief set that doesn't exist. The best part about this is that religious people find this to be bad, hence, they teach shame to the natives.

Well, Moses seemed to take it pretty well.

But seriously now, there's no reason for me to limit myself. I'll take anything that isn't entirely subjective. So... what you got?

The Dark Lord Xenu speaks through me:

"Soon, I shall escape from my wrongful imprisonment and I shall rain vengeance upon...pretty much everybody! Fear my H-Bombs!"

Edit - Oh, btw...Hail Xenu!

Nothing if you don't take the Bible at face value.