Torturing Muslims for Buddha
by Joy"New Atheist" Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith" is somewhat more of a mystery than Dawkins himself, given his youth and the ideas he promotes. Here are some quotes from John Gorenfeld's story for AlterNet today about a telephone interview he conducted with Harris,
Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture
Sam Harris's books "The End Of Faith" and "Letter To A Christian Nation" have established him as second only to the British biologist and author Richard Dawkins in the ranks of famous 21st century atheists. The thrust of Harris's best-sellers is that with the world so crazed by religion, it's high time Americans stopped tolerating faith in the Rapture, the Resurrection and anything else not grounded in evidence. Only trouble is, our country's foremost promoter of "reason" is also supportive of ESP, reincarnation and other unscientific concepts. Not all of it is harmless yoga class hokum — he's also a proponent of waterboarding and other forms of torture.
"We know [torture] works. It has worked. It's just a lie to say that it has never worked," he says. "Accidentally torturing a few innocent people" is no big deal next to bombing them, he continues. Why sweat it?
Why am I not surprised by discordant bloodlust from a "New Atheist" pot-stirrer?
Torture then and now: The difference, he tells AlterNet, is that the Inquisition "manufactured" crimes and forced Jews to confess "fictional accomplices."
But if the Iraq War hasn't been about "fictional accomplices," what has? "There's nothing about my writing about torture that should suggest I supported what was going on in Abu Ghraib," says Harris, who supported the invasion but says it has become a "travesty." "We abused people who we know had no intelligence value."
While our soldiers are waging war on Islam in our detention centers, according to Harris, our civilians must evolve past churchgoing to "modern spiritual practice," he writes. "[M]ysticism is a rational enterprise," he writes in his book, arguing it lets spiritualists "uncover genuine facts about the world." And he tells AlterNet there are "social pressures" against research into ESP.
Okay, okay. Maybe a look at Harris's version of "modern spiritual practice" would help explain the bloodlust…
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.
I wonder if Dawkins is aware of Harris's New Age spirituality, and whether he'd think it fits into HIS vision for a religion-less world. I'll just end with Gorenfeld's final thought:
In Harris's vision of future America, we will pursue "personal transformation" and gaze into our personal "I-we" riddles, while the distant gurgles of Arabs, terrified by the threat of drowning, will drift into our Eastern-influenced sacred space, the government's press releases no more than soothing Zen koans.
January 5th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
What exactly is "unscientific" about scientific studies of ESP and cases suggestive of reincarnation?
The only unscientific thing is to allow blinders caused by what we believe is true (ie: reductionistic materialism) to prevent us from investigating certain phenomena because we have already made up our minds that they cannot possibly be real.
This kind of unscientific hubris is behind the negative reception received to any suggestion that evolution may be something more than blind natural selection of random mutations. The fact that many of those who cling to the labels "scientist" or "rationalist" doesn't make it any more scientific or rational.
Comment by MatthewCromer — January 5, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Wow, great find. The New Atheists are off to a very bad start when their British leader has already Jumped the Shark and their American leader is a New Ager. Perhaps it is all up to PZ Myers.
Comment by MikeGene — January 5, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
The best thing about Sam Harris is that if they ever make a movie about him, they can get Ben Stiller to play the lead role.
Comment by macht — January 5, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
MatthewCromer:
Well, it would be hard (one would think) for a confirmed metaphysical materialist to accept such things as real, so perhaps we can suppose "New Atheist" Harris isn't really a metaphysical materialist any more than he's an atheist. Hmmm…
I wonder if Harris has bothered to think about how well torture, euthanasia and hate-speech accords with the lofty detachment of the Buddha. Maybe he's just a precocious overgrown iconoclast jumping on the hate bandwagon because that's where the money is…
Macht -
Hehehehe… I caught that striking resemblance too, Macht.
Comment by Joy — January 5, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I should add that I think Harris is pretty scary with his propensity for approving torture and violence versus Dawkins who I think is mostly just a pompous blowhard addicted to the limelight. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — January 5, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Joy, I was not suggesting that Harris is a metaphysical materialist but rather that most of the hardcore atheists are. . . Perhaps including the author of the alternet article you quoted.
Comment by MatthewCromer — January 5, 2007 @ 4:58 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Torturing Muslims for Buddha…
IMHO, Joy is one of the brightest minds I know among Internet personalities. Her latest post on "New Atheist" Sam Harris is spectacular. I will refrain from making any comments, just read it if you haven't yet. What a great find!
……
Trackback by Teleological Blog — January 5, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Sammy Harris, you old rational son of a gun, you!…
The rational-minded Sam Harris declares an end to irrational religion in order to make room for the scientific spirituality he advocates: xenoglossy†, ESP, and other New-Age mystical touchie-feelies. Who knew that pure ice-cold atheism could be so mi….
Trackback by He Lives — January 5, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
MatthewCromer:
Harris is obviously not a metaphysical materialist. Nor is he strictly an atheist, as Buddhism is listed as a religion in spite of its non-belief in deities. New-Agers come in more under the Pagan heading, I'd think, though either way (in my experience with "the New Age capital of America" that is my closest city) it's more about learning how to get in touch with your own selfish genes… §;o)
This is the first exposition/interview starring Harris that I've seen. And yes, it is most definitely a "leftist" website where you might not expect to see sympathy for dat debbil religion. The "leftists" (again in my experience) are generally not anti-spiritual, anti-religion, or even anti-Christian. It's just some hyperbolic loudmouths (like PZ) who like to give that impression.
The politics of the "New Left" is not necessarily bound to the ideology of those who make most public claim to it. PZ found that out last June in Las Vegas. Dawkins and Harris still appear to be clueless.
* [You might enjoy a corner of DKos, the most popular "leftist" site on the net, Street Prophets].
BTW, did you notice the central citation? Quite weird, so I chose it on purpose given previous experience with and discussion of glossolalia here on TT…
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.
Isn't this just jaw-droppingly amazing? Having entirely dismissed Christianity as some clear and present danger to civilization in his books, Harris actually uses the phenomenon of speaking in tongues while possessed by demons for evidence to support his belief in reincarnation. While at the very same time admitting he has "no idea" scientifically what's going on!
Even better, he uses the term "xenoglossy" as it applies to demon possession while completely ignoring glossolalia – the speaking in tongues practiced by some Christians under the influence of the Spirit.
Why, one might ask one's self, is xenoglossy during demon possession 'evidence' of reincarnation, but glossolalia during communion with the divine is *NOT* evidence of the Holy Spirit? Are Pentecostals praying in tongues really just suffering self-hypnotic regression into past lives?
Quite revealing.
Comment by Joy — January 5, 2007 @ 5:41 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Wow, I thought Harris looked oddly familiar the first time I saw him, and now, thanks to you Macht, I understand why!
Comment by Deuce — January 5, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Harris the Rationalist's belief in ESP reminds me of Peter Singer, the advocate of euthenasia who spent considerable sums of money caring for his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's.
Comment by Krauze — January 5, 2007 @ 7:27 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
He is pretty ignorant on torture to boot. It simply doesn't work to torture people for intelligence. It is known to be really unreliable. Either they are able to hold out against it via training, or if people break under torture, they will essentially tell the person torturing them exactly what they want to hear to make them stop hurting them.
Thanks for the post, that makes interesting information.
Comment by thesciphishow — January 5, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
So it seems Harris isn't truly an atheist, he's simply anti-Christian!
Comment by Varenius — January 5, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
joy,
Hey, you're right. But I think he looks more like "Monkey-Boy" from Saturday Night Live.
Comment by Douglas — January 5, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
January 5th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Yeah, it turns out to be a sectarian battle among religious people. At what point is Dawkins going to comment on this religious strife?
Comment by MikeGene — January 5, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
January 6th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
thesciphishow:
Whether or not experience with and observations of torture as a worthless exercise counts as 'scientific', our military and intelligence communities have known it for a long, long time. So why don't we just drug these guys to tell us what they know? I know they must have developed something at Aberdeen or Ft. Dietrich or one of our many other military 'research' labs that's better than sodium pentothal by now. The information's not less reliable than what little they get from torture.
Or what about those twisted mind-scams from Mission Impossible? If what we really want is useful intelligence – and we're willing to suspend Geneva protections to get it – why not try something effective? What's with the Dobermans and testicle electrodes and cattle prods and red hot irons and hanging people by shackles from ceilings and dungeon walls?
What's 'with' it is simple, unadulterated license for cruelty. Intelligence isn't what they want, and the prisoners mostly don't have any to give. They want to hear screams and see blood and watch people die slowly in fear and agony. And because so many of the soldiers doing the torturing come from reserves comprised of civilian prison guards, taking a look at what occurs daily in our own prisons right here in America tells us everything we need to know about the current popularity of sadism.
Harris appears to be young and fit. War supporters such as himself should join the Army and let some burned-out kid from Detroit who's served 4 involuntary tours come home. I'm sure there's a 'secret' CIA torture facility in Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan where Harris would feel right at home. Or he could volunteer as a torturer in an Army prison in Afghanistan, and extract some satisfying revenge against Muslims for destroying the Bamyan Buddhas!
Comment by Joy — January 6, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
January 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Joy wrote:
Varenius wrote:
Mike wrote:
In your eagerness to accuse Harris of inconsistency, you all are getting a bit sloppy. An atheist is someone who does not believe in a god or gods. Harris does not believe in God(s). That makes Harris an atheist, plain and simple.
Regarding Mike's assertion that Harris is simply one religious person arguing with others, Harris is careful in his book to distinguish religion from spirituality. A few quotes will give an idea of where he actually stands:
Joy and Gorenfeld would like to portray Harris as a New-Ager, but again the truth is quite different. Harris:
Comment by keiths — January 6, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
January 7th, 2007 at 12:39 am
keiths:
Are you sure? There are Buddhist pantheists, you know. Personally, I try not to define other people's beliefs for them. Too easily proven wrong.
It appears clear that Harris isn't a metaphysical materialist, as metaphysical materialists do not believe in a "spiritual" realm or that humans can access it. Buddhists do, and Harris does (though his version is more like "Rational Mysticism").
I also said it's clear that Harris is not strictly an atheist, but only because Buddhism is in fact listed among the world's great "religions." A Buddhist may not believe in Gods/god, so could self-describe as an atheist. Though a Buddhist atheist would probably not make a living sowing strife, confronting, berating or insulting everyone who does believe in God/gods.
It would be… how shall I say this? …inconsistent with Buddhism's tenets of right view, intent, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.
Well, he could be an apostate Buddhist, or a non-practicing Buddhist, or even a bad Buddhist, I suppose. And from the citation you offer on what he thinks of New Agers (a perfect vacuum of critical intelligence), he'd be a bad New Ager too.
Maybe he's positioning to start his own [atheist] religion. Samism?
Comment by Joy — January 7, 2007 @ 12:39 am
January 7th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Harris is careful to distinguish his (rational) belief in spirituality as superior to the (irrational) beliefs of others.
He understands the core truth shared by all religions, but also dismisses religions when they get the rest wrong or contaminate it with their incorrect dogma.
These sayings do nothing to refute the musing that this is a sectarian dispute, but rather sublimely validate it.
Comment by Pez — January 7, 2007 @ 2:07 am
January 7th, 2007 at 4:10 am
I wrote:
Joy asked:
Joy again:
Harris isn't a Buddhist.
Harris:
Joy again:
You do it all the time. In this thread alone, you've:
1) defined Harris as a New Ager;
2) denied his atheism;
3) defined him as an adherent of Buddhism.
But you're right about the second part. It was easy to prove you wrong on all three counts.
Comment by keiths — January 7, 2007 @ 4:10 am
January 7th, 2007 at 4:22 am
Pez wrote:
You seem to think that if Harris believes anything at all that is asserted by a religion, that makes him religious and a participant in a "sectarian dispute".
If that is true then we're all Muslims, since Islam teaches that it is good to help the poor, and most of us agree.
Comment by keiths — January 7, 2007 @ 4:22 am
January 7th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
keiths:
What is it about the words
"it appears"
"not strictly"
"may not"
"probably not"
"could be"
"maybe"
…that you do not understand? Is English not your first language?
Sam Harris, like Richard Dawkins, has made of himself a public figure. Moreover, he has made himself a public figure by issuing pointed and not-very nuanced challenges to the majority's traditional belief systems. The usual in-your-face bad boy attitude (in print), just another pollution of public discourse per modernism's polarized milieu.
Thus it's fair to speculate about who he is, where he's coming from and what he's saying. Most will speculate from within their own contextual frameworks. There is no other way for those of us he's ostensibly attempting to convert to even begin to understand what he's attempting to convert us to.
Your objections to that exercise do not carry much weight unless you are Sam Harris in disguise. If you are Sam Harris in disguise, then you've got yet another apparently discordant behavior to explain. If we are the target of your efforts to sell your new atheistic spirituality, that is, and not just handy targets of egocentric self-aggrandizement.
In which case it would be fair for us to simply write him off as an overgrown juvenile delinquent and wannabe mind-tyrant, laugh off his silly presumptions and obscure prose. Entirely dismissible.
Still, "Torturing Muslims for Buddha" is a pretty good title, which fits quite well with the confusion he has deliberately sown. Almost (but not quite) suggests that Sam Harris could have had as good a satirical sense of humor as Ben Stiller, to whom he bears an uncanny physical resemblance.
Comment by Joy — January 7, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
January 7th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Hi keiths,
Okay, so he's a Spiritual Atheist who kind of believes in ESP and reincarnation. I was always under the impression that he was someone like Dawkins. Thus, while Dawkins argues that all religions on evil, Harris argues that religions that don't meet his criteria for spirituality are evil. Like I said, for him, it's a sectarian dispute.
Comment by MikeGene — January 7, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
January 7th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Joy, I thought it was a great title!
Comment by MikeGene — January 7, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
January 8th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Joy wrote:
Joy,
Let's review the facts.
I said:
You said:
Why would you mention this if you weren't asserting that Harris is a Buddhist? It would be a total non-sequitur, like saying "There are Bulgarian car dealers, you know."
You also wrote:
Again, by asking this question you are asserting that Harris possesses a "New Age spirituality" that Dawkins either is, or is not, aware of.
You wrote:
Again, this would be utterly nonsensical if you weren't asserting that Harris is a Buddhist. And your sentence further asserts that if Harris is a Buddhist, he is not an atheist.
You chide me for making what you now recognize is a correct assertion about Harris's beliefs, while ignoring the fact that you yourself made three incorrect assertions.
So those who issued pointed challenges to slavery, or to the subservience of women to men, were guilty of "polluting the public discourse" Give me a break.
A good way to understand what he believes would be to read what he has actually written, rather than depending on Gorenfeld's interpretation. Point #1 in Mike's Critical Thinking Skills post is particularly appropriate here: "Gather complete information – more than one source." What better source to judge the man's ideas than his own writing?
I don't object at all to forming opinions about someone's beliefs based on what they have written. What I do object to is your hypocrisy in chiding me for asserting correctly that Harris is an atheist, when you yourself made three incorrect assertions about his beliefs.
Likewise, I wasn't criticizing you here for being a "loudmouth", as you assumed, but rather for your hypocrisy in accusing Dawkins of "demonizing" people when you have been demonizing him over and over, as the quotes I supplied amply demonstrate.
Comment by keiths — January 8, 2007 @ 1:46 am
January 8th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Joy asks:
Another hyperbolic demonization from Joy.
Let's look at what Harris actually says:
Comment by keiths — January 8, 2007 @ 1:55 am
January 8th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Joy: Sam Harris, like Richard Dawkins, has made of himself a public figure. Moreover, he has made himself a public figure by issuing pointed and not-very nuanced challenges to the majority's traditional belief systems. The usual in-your-face bad boy attitude (in print), just another pollution of public discourse per modernism's polarized milieu.
Keiths: So those who issued pointed challenges to slavery, or to the subservience of women to men, were guilty of "polluting the public discourse" Give me a break.
No Keiths, give us a break. There were many who challenged slavery when it was dangerous and unpopular to do so. The did not make lots of money by selling books and did not gain much fame through media adulation and a following of admiring fans. Slavery and equality are issues that civilized people come to consensus over. The anti-religiosity of Dawkins et. al is self-serving and serves no clear public good. Your pollution analogy falls far short of the mark.
Comment by Bradford — January 8, 2007 @ 2:26 am
January 8th, 2007 at 2:56 am
You think it isn't dangerous to attack religion? Tell that to Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, or the Danish cartoonists.
The End of Faith was rejected by fifteen publishers before Norton finally accepted it. Harris had no idea that it would do so well.
Will you be denouncing MikeGene if The Design Matrix sells well?
Let's hope rationality is one of the next.
Comment by keiths — January 8, 2007 @ 2:56 am
January 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Keiths, you quote Harris as saying:
Do you accept that reasoning? Because to me it is total tripe. The argument as put is incoherent; does he mean that "collateral torture" is morally equivalent to "collateral damage" Is he thereby claiming that those who oppose torture only do so because you might get the wrong man? Can you make some sense out of the argument as put?
In any event he is quite simply wrong. I oppose torture in and of itself because deliberately inflicting harm on another human being is a wrong. Such an act may in certain circumstances be justified – as for example in self-defence. Bombing Osama bin Laden in an attempt to kill him is clearly an act of collective self-defence. While he is at liberty he is capable of inflicting harm on me and my associates, and he has expressed a settled intention of doing so. The fact that innocent others may be killed by the bomb doesn't change the morality of the attempt to kill bin Laden as such; it will however require the bomber to do everything he can to avoid such deaths, even perhaps to the extent of not bombing – not because it is immoral to kill bin Laden, but because it is immoral to kill innocents.
There is on the other hand no rational justification for torture per se. Almost by definition, the victim is entirely in the torturers' power; so there can be no argument from, for example, self-defence. Even if, as argued by Harris, it is used to force the victim to give information (a kind of secondary self-defence argument) that is not a rational justification; that is because it is simply not an effective way of obtaining trustworthy information – and the "ticking-bomb" scenario relied upon by Harris is exactly the scenario in which it would be least effective.
Comment by Robin Levett — January 8, 2007 @ 10:29 am
January 8th, 2007 at 11:54 am
keiths:
My goodness, keith. Did we wake up on the grumpy side of the bed this morning? I ASKED if you were sure because I'm not sure and I'm not Harris. I don't know you from a hole in the ground, yet you are making assertions about someone else's beliefs. Which is why I also asked if you are Sam Harris.
LOL!!! Make up your mind! I asked a general question you don't like. Tough titty.
Why are your knickers in such a knot? Oops… I'm not supposed to wonder or ask questions. …naw. That's ridiculous. I'll ask all I like. Why are you so defensive of Sam Harris?
It's a little difficult to tell whether you're talking about questions or assertions. Since I usually qualify assertions with words such as those listed at the top of that last post (taken from a single previous post), it's not at all clear that you are using the right word to characterize that post.
That said, I do reserve the right to be incorrect. There's not a lot you can do about that either, so you'd probably be better off appealing to Harris himself to clarify the confusion he has deliberately sown about himself. I'm just confused, which is just what he wants me to be.
Since when is my (or anyone's) belief system equivalent to slavery or women-as-chattel? Heck, here you are berating me for being confused by Harris' confusing mishmash of beliefs, while at the very same time pretending you know enough about what I believe to liken it to paternalism and slave-trading!
Give it a rest, keith. You're in over your head.
I am most certainly NOT going to pay Sam Harris for the dubious 'privilege' of slogging through rotten prose with hip-waders just to try and figure out what his hybrid mishmash of beliefs are. I simply don't care that much about what he believes, which is a favor he is NOT willing to return to me.
I'm just semi-amused by him, his resemblance to Ben Stiller (who I love, and I remember his talented parents very well too), his eager apprenticeship to Doctor Who, and that garbled bit of heresy he claims (or maybe not) as a belief system. I'm sure he'll get rich. But not from me.
Oh, and by the way… I am against torture. If Osama bin Laden were alive (which I doubt) and I had him chained to some cave wall (never happen), I'd read him his rights. I would NOT torture him. Sam might want to re-think that one before people start paying attention to their Creep-o-Meters (we have those, you know) and write him off as potentially felonious.
Comment by Joy — January 8, 2007 @ 11:54 am
January 8th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Hi Robin,
I also disagree with Harris on the issue of torture (although my reasons differ in some cases from yours). My main reason for posting his argument was to discredit Joy's ridiculous assertion that his position is a case of "discordant bloodlust from a 'New Atheist' pot-stirrer."
Since this thread is about Harris, I'll try to represent his position as fairly as I can, based on my reading of him.
You ask:
Yes. Harris is arguing from a consequentialist position, while yours is more of a deontological stance. For Harris, the morality of an act is judged by its expected consequences. Bombing almost always hurts or kills innocents, so when deciding to bomb, we need to take full account of this moral cost and weigh it against the moral benefits. Most people would be willing to see a dozen innocent civilians killed or maimed in a bombing run, if the result is that London is saved from a nuclear attack. Harris is arguing that if we are willing to undertake an action which is almost certain to kill or maim innocents because of the large moral benefit of protecting the city of London, we should be willing to torture one man for the same reason.
No, he believes our aversion to torture stems from its up close and personal nature. He comments:
Robin:
Again, a consequentialist would ask: How low does the probability of "collateral damage" (a phrase I hate) have to be in order to justify the bombing? And don't the stakes have relevance too?
If the city of London is at stake, and there is a 1% chance of killing an innocent civilian in a particular bombing raid, but an 80% chance of averting the attack on London, is it moral to bomb? It's an interesting exercise to vary both probabilities, including the extreme cases, to find the contours of your own morality.
Robin:
Harris addresses this issue:
Comment by keiths — January 8, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
January 8th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
You think it isn't dangerous to attack religion? Tell that to Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, or the Danish cartoonists.
Harris, Dawkins and the gang had their bile flowing long before these incidents took place. For them it's about the OT and the NT. IOW, it is doctrine they dislike- very mundane, ordinary stuff.
Will you be denouncing MikeGene if The Design Matrix sells well?
I would not denounce him or Harris for their books. I'm just not going to make them appear heroic through analogy.
Comment by Bradford — January 8, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
January 8th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
keiths:
What's so ridiculous about my impression of Harris' position? There are only three words in the quote you could object to, and none of them qualifies as "ridiculous."
discordant – adj.
1. Being at variance; disagreeing; incongruous: discordant opinions.
2. Disagreeable to the ear; dissonant; harsh.
3. [geology] (of strata) structurally unconformable.
bloodlust – noun
A desire for bloodshed.
pot-stirrer – no definition.
I consider Harris' opinions on torture and spirituality to be doscordant because they seem very much at variance with the political and religious positions of most left-leaning atheists I've encountered. Which I presume Harris to be, though maybe I'm wrong and he's really a Libertarian 'patriot' or a hard-right Republican.
I do not see how it could be "ridiculous" for me to consider his opinions discordant on those terms. Harris is the one who has publicized his opinions for all to see, not me. Because he has put them forward in public for the public (that would be me) to try and parse, he cannot then complain that the public comes to the conclusion that his opinions are discordant. You can disagree, but disagreement does not make my opinion "ridiculous."
I also consider his support for torture – and his advice to let interrogators know they CAN torture prisoners even though US, military and international law forbids the practice – to betray a certain bloodlust. And I don't buy his excuse that torture is 'better' than collateral bomb damage, since he elsewhere has suggested that doing away with Muslims altogether may be necessary. Thus the number of Muslim men, women and children who get killed by being unlucky enough to live in a war zone when the bombs start falling would seem logically to be of minimal significance to his worldview.
You can of course disagree with that opinion too. But it's not the least bit "ridiculous." It follows quite logically from Harris' own written position and opinions. The only thing that surprises me is that he hasn't yet been summarily booted out of the "New Atheist" club for advocating political/ideological violence – up close and personal.
As for "'New Atheist' pot-stirrer," that's a description of Harris' self-alignment with the "New Atheist" movement and his contributions (in two books and a lot of pot-stirring articles) to the furtherance of that movement. You can of course deny that Harris is one of the leaders of "New Atheism," and that his words do not serve to stir the public pot. But that would indeed be ridiculous given the facts of the matter.
It really was (in my opinion, which I'm entitled to) only a matter of time before some hotheaded young'un took the next step in the public discourse. Dawkins had to back away from his support of coercive laws against religious freedoms because he got caught jumping his own gun. I don't believe for a moment that he doesn't really support coercion, he's just wise enough to know – because he was told by Ed Brayton in no uncertain terms – that coercion won't fly for even a few seconds in the United States. And Dawkins needs American atheists to enrich his foundation (and himself) as well as to coordinate US activities to push his agenda.
I don't know if Brayton and the gang have yet attempted to get Harris to temper his temper. I don't even know if they would particularly disapprove of his advocacy of torture. Maybe they see it as a 'moral' thing to do too. But it would honestly surprise me if they did. And it would certainly give Americans who have firm moral values another reason to be highly suspicious of the agenda that support for torture and coercive anti-religious laws suggests.
War is hell, and should never be an option of convenience. The American public has had quite enough of Bush's convenient adventure in Iraq, and our chosen leaders are right now attempting to do something about it. Torture is immoral, ineffective, and makes moral monsters of people. Is it done? Yes, it is. In homes, jails, prisons, orphanages, state hospitals and other places every day right here in the US of A. That doesn't make it 'moral', it just makes torturers immoral (as well as criminal).
That torture should be extended illegally to prisoners of illegal wars is just taking that next policy step toward the moral abyss we were already speeding toward in Thelma's convertible. If "New Atheists" are going to support coercive laws and torture in their quest to remake humanity in their image they've got a much bigger fight on their hands than what they bargained for.
Comment by Joy — January 8, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
February 26th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
joy,
I wouldn't say Sam Harris gives any indication of having "bloodlust". A very advanced case of the irrationals, perhaps, but not bloodlust.
Comment by Douglas — February 26, 2007 @ 7:47 pm