by Blueblades 7 Replies latest jw friends
I just finished reading Sam Harris's book 'Letter to a Christian Nation'. Small book 97 pages. Read it in under two hours. He makes a lot of sense in what he says in this letter. It's about behavior of Christians Jews and Muslims. Anyone else read it, what are your thoughts?
Blueblades
I downloaded it from Audible.com. Harris wrote it in response to the feedback he got after publishing The End of Faith. I'm listening to The God Delusion right now and will follow-up with both of Harris' books next.
I read The God Delusion, also heard it on you tube. I'm waiting for my library to call me when The End Of Faith comes in.
Blueblades
I haven't read the book, but I've heard a lot of Sam Harris from videos and such from the net.
There are three things that come to my mind when going over the points and things that he (and Dawkins) make. There are a few things that they bring up as their 'major' points of arguement and they seem to get repeated a lot.
Of course the first is a simply biased view (which he sometimes acknowledges) where we basically end up hearing the worst of religion and the best of science and atheism. Balance is needed and I think that they could do a little more in simply acknowleding what religion has done for mankind (negitive and positive). Again, I haven't read the book but have noticed this in much of the info online (including the 'beyond belief' video conferance which contains hours of video).
Another argument that keeps coming up is the 'teapot' theory, that belief in God is like believing in a teapot floating in orbit out in the galaxy. The point being that just because you can't prove something is not true doesn't make it likely.
The problem I see with this is that it seems to be an arguement not based upon equality of substance. The proposition is that belief in god is just as likely to be true as belief in that teapot. Now while we may have no scientific proof that pleases scientists as to the exsistance of God, there are things in this world that at the very least make the idea of God more likely than an absurd idea like the teapot. The most basic argument being that of cause and effect, how did consciousness arise from no consciousness? How could there be an effect greater than its cause? While this is not direct proof of god or any individual belief system I think simple things like this at least make the 'God concept' more likely than the giant teapot. It becomes an issue of making your arguments relative and balanced.
But I by no means discourage this debate. I just hope both sides can turn away from becoming to polarized in order to simply gain followers rather than keep to their principles.
Drew, my next book is on "The God Theory", trying to be balanced.
Blueblades
I haven't read this yet, but want to since I read "The End of Faith".
how did consciousness arise from no consciousness?
Consciousness isn't an on/off state. There are animals that have a sense of self, look up the psychology experiments done in this area. Some animals recognise that the creature in the mirror isn't another animal but is themselves reflected. That suggests a level of consciousness, although clearly not on the same level as homo sapiens.
Now while we may have no scientific proof that pleases scientists as to the exsistance of God, there are things in this world that at the very least make the idea of God more likely than an absurd idea like the teapot.
That is the point there is no empirical evidence for either so the teapot is no more absurd than the absurd idea of a god or gods. The only thing that makes the god concept more likely is the personal beliefs of theists which have the same empirical weight as the personal beliefs of flat earthers.
The most basic argument being that of cause and effect, how did consciousness arise from no consciousness? How could there be an effect greater than its cause? While this is not direct proof of god or any individual belief system I think simple things like this at least make the 'God concept' more likely than the giant teapot.
I would be intrigued to hear the basic argument although I fear your following sentence may have hindered you already. The teapot is merely an example to show that a lack of empirical evidence against something isn't proof that it exists. Your argument that the god concept is more likely than the teapot concept is purely based on a belief structure not on any kind of empirical evidence, if the christian religion were based on a worship of floating china teapots then the god concept would work just as well to show the lack of empirical evidence for teapot worship.
I read it and while I agreed with most of what was written I felt it was written to reinforce the non theist's attitude rather than written for those in a god faith. I passed it on to a close friend who is a born againer to check the reaction and he was very offended by a majority of the book. Because it was very honestly presented and does not hold back in its condemnation of theism (ala The God Delusion) it may be dismissed by "believers" because of its in your face honesty.
If one is trying to wean someone off of the "mysticism" that is so prevalent today I would suggest a copy of Sagan's book "A Candle in the Dark" as a primer to rational thinking. I have found that discussions originating from this book to be less emotional and combative.
Asheron
