Sam Harris 'The End of Faith'

[Tobias March]

Has anyone read this? My boss is going to lend it to me tomorrow, but it sounds interesting.

He read out this one quote to me:

"Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the contraints of terrestrial discourse--constraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility and candor."

[Tages]

I read it.

He makes about an equal number of good points and bad points. and makes a few very obvious errors a good editor should have caught (he thinks that Papal Infallibility means that the Pope should know what Jesus looks like).

It's also quite funny to read the amount of hate mail he's received from atheists who call the book New Age propaganda because near the end of the book he says a few complimentary things about Buddhism and Jainism and he falls on the Chalmers/Nagel side of the Hard Problem of Consciousness debate.

[Biggbuttmcgruff!!!!]

I haven't read the book but I think it's always good to read something just to know a person's point of view. Sam Harris is a rising author. His second book , entitled Letter to a Christian Nation was/is a best seller.
Now, as a Christian, I completely dissagreew with him. I also find that he tends to cast a pretty wide net in terms of using words like "faith' and 'religion'.

[Tobias March]

Well Dawkins has taken him on as a protege of sorts. And as Elaine Pagels has said in this interview Dawkins wants to be seen as the 'Village atheist', so I'm sure they enjoy one another's company.

Pagels' book is also one I'm curious to read. I find her idea of Judas being vilified in order to introduce the idea of martyrdom via betrayal into Christian theology fascinating.

[Biggbuttmcgruff!!!!]

You know, I had noticed that Dawkins and Harris seemed to be spending a lot of time together. They have things about the other on their respective websites,they were in that Wired magazine article together. It seemed to happen relatively quick too.

[Tobias March]

I'm neck deep in the book at the moment. He has a gift for coming up with witty summations for his points/arguments, but seriously....

STRAWMANALERT STRAWMANALERT STRAWMANALERT

For a philosophy graduate he can't argue at all - but he certainly injects a lot of force into his invective.

[Roquefort Raider]

Although I read Dawkins' "the God delusion" and just bought Stenger's "God: the failed hypothesis", I think I will pass on Harris' book. (His second one, in which he answers part of the hate-mail he received, might be more interesting to me).

I must say that Harris' speeches can be quite amusing, though. I've seen one on the web and he did good stand-up work. I particularly liked a point he made by insisting that he knew, deep inside, that he was the fastest sprinter in the world. That knowledge made him feel good about himself and about others, brought him inner peace, and did not need to be demonstrated because he knew it to be true.