Re: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris

Not me. I wouldn't enjoy being preached to for hours upon hours. Besides, you'd have to put up with his bodyguards:

  "I saw Sam Harris at the recent Atheist Alliance conference. He's surrounded by bodyguards. Big guys. The way you know Sam harris is around is the sight of two huge, very mean-looking guards. Sam is the little guy in the middle."

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/sam_harris/2007/09/religion_as_a_black_market_for.html

What is very interesting is that someone like Sam Harris was given a platform in the NYT to attack someone like Francis Collins. After all, I'm not sure why anyone would think Harris is a good spokesperson for science. Consider this:

  ""The End of Faith" may be the first book suitable for the Eastern Philosophy shelf at Barnes & Noble that somehow incorporates both torture and New Age piety, and offers pleas for clear scientific thinking alongside appeals to "mysticism." The old-fashioned brand of atheist, like the late Carl Sagan, argued eloquently against religion without supporting rituals and ghosts.

  Harris, however, argues that not just Western gods but philosophers are "dwarfs" next to the Buddhas. And a Harris passage on psychics recommends that curious readers spend time with the study "20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation."

  Asked which cases are most suggestive of reincarnation, Harris admits to being won over by accounts of "xenoglossy," in which people abruptly begin speaking languages they don't know. Remember the girl in "The Exorcist"? "When a kid starts speaking Bengali, we have no idea scientifically what's going on," Harris tells me. It's hard to believe what I'm hearing from the man the New York Times hails as atheism's "standard-bearer."

  Harris writes: "There seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which have been ignored by mainstream science." On the phone he backpedals away from the claim."

http://www.alternet.org/story/46196/

We all know about Collin's extraordinarily impressive resume as a scientist. What about Harris?

  "Harris is cautious about revealing details of his personal life and history.[2] He has said that he was raised by a Jewish mother and a Quaker father,[2][3] and he told Newsweek that as a child, he "declined to be bar mitzvahed."[4] He attended Stanford University as an English major, but dropped out of school. Harris has recently talked publicly about experimenting with MDMA as a student and the powerful insights he felt it gave him into spirituality and psychology.[5] He also has studied with "several meditation masters" in the Buddhist traditions. After eleven years he returned to Stanford and completed a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy. He is researching for a Ph.D. in neuroscience at UCLA,[2] using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.[6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris_(author)

Harris used to promote himself as follows:

  "He is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines, for twenty years. Mr. Harris is completing a doctorate in neuroscience."

(cut and paste that into a Google and you'll see how widespread that description is).

When I first learned about Harris, that description made me think he was someone in academia who had studied religious traditions as a scholar and was now moving into science (to give his NA agenda more authority). But here is a description of his "studies" during all those years:

  "What he'll say is this: At age 19, he and a college friend tried MDMA, better known as ecstasy, and the experience altered his view of the role that love could play in the world. ("I realized that it was possible to be a human being who wished others well all the time, reflexively.") He dropped out of Stanford, where he was an English major, in his sophomore year and started to study Buddhism and meditation. He flew around the country and around the world, to places such as India and Nepal, often for silent retreats that went on for months. One of his teachers was Sharon Salzberg, a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. Harris stood out, she recalls, not just because of his relative youth - everyone else was a generation older - but because of his intensity.

  "His passion was for deep philosophical questions, and he could talk for hours and hours," Salzberg recalls. "Sometimes you'd want to say to him, 'What about the Yankees?' or 'Look at the leaves, they're changing color!' " At the time, he was supported financially by his mother, though he did work for one memorable three-week stint in the security detail assigned to the Dalai Lama.

  "You walk into a room and everyone is beaming good vibes," he recalls, "and I'm looking for dangerous lunatics. I wouldn't recommend it."

  During his 11-year dropout phase, Harris read hundreds of books on religion, many of which are listed in the lengthy bibliography of "The End of Faith." His interests eventually turned to philosophy of the mind, which led him to re-enroll at Stanford in 1997, this time to study philosophy. He wrote a lot before and after he got his diploma, but nothing was published."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501998_pf.html

I'd rather have a beer with Hitchens.

-Mike

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dehler, Bernie
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 11:55 AM
  Subject: RE: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris

  Funny little battle- I wonder if Harris would object to an appointment of someone like Kenneth Miller? Miller is outspoken for faith, but sides with the atheists against ID.

  "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

  Also curious- how Eugenie Scott weighs in. I haven't heard yet.

  By the way, of all new atheists, Harris is my favorite. the one I'd most want to 'share a beer with."

  .Bernie

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  Subject: Re: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris

  He would say no. The type of Christian he could support is one who keeps quiet about his faith (although Harris would not state it so bluntly).

  Remember, this is all politics. As such, Collins represents an existential threat to the NA movement by simply being both an outspoken Christian and a leading scientist. While many on this list enjoy scientific, theological, or philosophical arguments, for most people out in the real world, the mere fact that a leading scientist can be such an outspoken Christian is sufficient to completely discount the NA message. Only by getting people like Collins to keep his faith in the closet can the NAs more effectively equate science with atheism and pseudoscience with religion.

  Mike

  ----- Original Message -----

    Subject: RE: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris
     

    I would like to ask Sam Harris:
    "Do you think a prerequisite for the job is that one must be an atheist?"

    I would truly like to know his answer. And if he says 'no' then I'd ask what kind of Christian could he support, if not Collins?

    .Bernie

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    Subject: Re: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris

    Cue response from the other Myers (PZ) in 5.4.3..

    Seriously, it's good to see people come to the defense of Collins. Harris's piece was purely political and an attempt to advance his Cause. Of course, since it's a NYT piece, Harris held back his more vitriolic opinions about Collins and instead played the role of concern troll. Nevertheless, Collins is the big fish here and he should ignore these NA attacks, which are nothing more than attention-seeking tactics.

    -Mike

      ----- Original Message -----

      Subject: [asa] Miller and Myers on Harris
       

      Todays New York Times has a number of letters regarding Sam Harris's op-ed piece on Francis Collins. Two letters very supportive of Collins are from Ken Miller and David Myers (psychology prof at Hope College and I believe an ASA member). See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/opinion/l29collins.html?_r=1&hpw

      Karl (asa member)
      ***********************
      Karl V. Evans
      cmekve@aol.com

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Received on Wed Jul 29 13:58:03 2009