Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

[struggle4progress]

By John Gorenfeld, AlterNet. Posted January 5, 2007

... "We know 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? ...

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" ...

He likes that Buddhism will make you relax. And "dial in various mental states," he says. In the classic case, he says, "you see various lights or see bliss." And like a Scientologist cleric promising you the state of Clear, evicting alien ghosts ruining your life, Harris expresses a faith that his own style of pleasurable mental exploration ushers in good deeds. Meditation, he says, will drive out whatever it is "that leads you to lie to people or be intrinsically selfish" ...

So there it is. 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 ...

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

[toddaa]

1. Atheists are for torture

We are all in lock step agreement with Sam Harris on this one. After we're done with Muslims, we're going to round up Christians and Hindus next. It's on the list. Oh, and Jewish atheists will steal your first born and drink their blood.

[struggle4progress]

2. Really? That's a new one on me.

I've known plenty of atheists opposed to torture. When I called myself an atheist, I was opposed to torture, and nowadays, at moments when I call myself a Christian atheist, I still oppose torture.

[toddaa]

6. Sorry, but you were never a real atheist

If you were, you'd support torture of religious people. And you'd hate Noam Chomsky. That's another one of our beliefs. Noam Chomsky is evil. Don't believe me? It's in the Atheist Bible.

[jgraz]

17. Yes, atheist doctrine is cruel, but who are we to question it?

We are commanded by not-god to follow our faith...

[Danger Mouse]

28. ah, the dreaded not-god.

a stern and unforgiving task not-master...
:rofl:

[NMMNG]

31. You know that revealing the Secret Plans is forbidden

Turn in your Atheist Card and your rubber chicken post haste. :P

[CJCRANE]

3. At first I thought Sam Harris

was interesting but the more you delve into his ideas the more prejudiced and extreme they are.

We already have a system of man-made rules and morality that work called civil liberties, human rights and international law.

Let's keep them and forget about the torture, pre-emptive war etc.

[Imperialism Inc.]

45. Every time I hear him talk I like him a little less.

I know a couple people that have End of Faith and I'm going to have to read it some time. Letter to a Christian Nation was OK but I'm curious to see the longer work.

[jgraz]

4. meh -- does nothing to diminish his ideas on atheism

Another form of ad hominem attack -- just show that the speaker holds other, irrelevant beliefs that are somewhat wacky. Much easier than debating the parts of his argument that actually make sense.

[struggle4progress]

8. I find the article informative for two separate reasons. First, because ..

.. SH appears to hold views as irrational and mystical as those he loudly denounces, which is in keeping with my view that essentially everyone holds some irrational and mystical views, though not everyone has the maturity to admit his/her own irrationality.

The more important second point concerns the Abrahamic faiths for which SH has so much disdain: in my view, these religions all begin from the appearance to Abraham of the Divine in human form, and the subsequent progressive development of these faiths has been associated with an increasingly humanist philosophy. From a theological perspective, I consider that one might consider the assertion Loving G-d is shown by loving one's neighbor to be true even if one did not believe in G-d in any conventional sense. This humanist thread forcibly reasserts itself again and again throughout the history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, against various forms of fundamentalist authoritarian nonsens (and is of course also present in many other spiritual or ethical traditions, such as Buddhism).

SH fails completely to understand this matter: he devotes his attention to inessential issues, which he thinks require much debunking, and so misses the core. Thus he misses the mark -- and not only in the Abrahamic religions he despises but also with respect to (say) the Buddhist tradition, where a notion such as reincarnation is not always understood literally but has further interpretations as a psychological metaphor. As he fails to understand the humanist ramifications of what such traditions teach, it is perhaps unsurprising that he advocates torture.

[jgraz]

10. I think he gets the Abrahamic faiths exactly right

In all of these faiths, love of god is paramount. Love thy neighbor may be one way to show your love of god, but so is sacrificing your son on an altar. The main point of these religions is perpetuating their own dogma and reviling (or outright killing) anyone who challenges them.

And maybe I'm wrong, but I don't recall the "Love thy neighbor" stuff coming into play during the legend of Abraham. It was prevalent in many bronze-age philosophies, but it didn't manage to make its way into biblical tradition until much later.

[struggle4progress]

14. G-d says "kill Isaac", an angel then tells Abraham "no", hence the rabbinic gloss:

"Only G-d may tell us to kill another human being, and we must not do it if even the smallest angel tells us to desist." You tell me the story is about Abraham listening to G-d, but I tell you the story is about Abraham having the faith to hear and the courage to listen to the angel.

You tell me that love of neighbor is not present in the legend of Abraham, but I tell you it is a major point:

G-d appeared to Abraham at Mamre as he sat in his tent opening in the heat of the day. He looked up and behold! three strangers!. He ran to greet them and bowing said: Please do not go but bathe your feet in water and rest under a tree. Let me bring you food and then you may continue

And it is precisely in this act of offering hospitality to strangers that Abraham meets G-d

[jgraz]

16. Do you really need that amount of obscure interpretation

just to figure out that it's good to be nice to strangers? If that story didn't exist, do you think that no one would have figured out that hospitality is a better approach when meeting new people?

Once again, your innate, naturally-evolved sense of morality drives your interpretation of the doctrine. For people with a less-developed moral compass, that same legend leads to a much different conclusion.

[struggle4progress]

19. Well, you change the topic. You claimed "love of neighbor" was not ..

.. present in the Abrahamic legend: the story of the appearance at Mamre shows otherwise -- and it seems to me that I provided only the blatantly obvious gloss to the tale.

You now ask whether I needed to hear that story to know that it's good to be kind to strangers or whether I think no one would have been hospitable without first hearing it. But I have never claimed that decency and humanism were found only within the framework of the Abrahamic religions. Nor, in fact, is it natural to be kind to strangers, since (in fact) one does not know them and has no immediate reason to trust them -- and some of them are actually quite willing to kill or steal: kindness to strangers can be a life-and-death gamble.

[jgraz]

21. Not really

My point is that -- like most of the bible -- you can put any "gloss" you want on it based on your own innate tendencies. Having a story that can be interpreted as a "be kind to strangers" morality tale is quite a bit different than Jesus allegedly saying "love your neighbor as yourself".

And there actually is quite a bit of good evidence that kindness to strangers is an evolved trait in humans and other primates (among others). Why do you think we have to teach children not to talk to people they don't know?

[toddaa]

25. Not bad, what do you make of this one

Can you find the "love your neighbor" lesson in Judges 11?

[struggle4progress]

26. The collection contains some pretty sad tales about confused unhappy people IMHO

Whether the story reflects some historical event or whether it is was intended as a fable with an O. Henry twist, I do not, of course, know. But the story presumably survived because it said something to people. Whoever wrote it down, of course, brought to the writing of it particular personal and cultural and class assumptions, which color the telling and suggest possible meanings of the story, and I do not feel obligated to adopt all the scribe's assumptions as my own.

"Modern" people, of course, still sacrifice their children for victory in war -- as, for example, in Iraq today. And although many of our contemporaries will find the end of Judges 11 primitive and barbaric, fewer will consider our foreign policy necropolis equally primitive and barbaric -- though I frankly don't see much real difference between the sad superstition, related in the text you reference, and the sad superstition that led my country to Iraq, except perhaps that the Judges story seems strange (because it involves an ancient tribe whose worldview is unfamiliar to us) whereas our own story will seem natural to many people (simply because it is about us).

[toddaa]

27. Here's my take

Never entire into an agreement with a genocidal deity without a lawyer present.

[struggle4progress]

30. Of course, in this particular story, the fellow makes an unprompted promise

to murder an innocent in exchange for victory in war and after obtaining victory in war finds that his daughter is the innocent he has chosen to murder, at which point he considers keeping his promise more important than anything else -- not very surprising, considering that he has already expressed his intention to murder the innocent.

Although the story indicates that the fellow himself regards the whole thing as an unbreakable contract, and explains it that way to his obedient daughter, who dutifully consents, in this particular story there is really no clear indication that "the Lord" regards the victory as bought with with the promised sacrifice or insists on fulfillment of the promise.

In fact, "the Lord" seems silent throughout the text to which you have pointed, although prior alleged utterances of "the Lord" (associated with the earlier history of the disputed land) are recalled in the course of conversation before the war.

So the real problem seems to be not that this fellow has failed to receive the benefit of counsel, but rather that in fact he is willing to kill the innocent, not merely during the course of hostilities, but even after hostilities cease, in order to maintain his self-image as a man of his word: his misplaced priorities, and the cost inflicted on others as a result, seem clear enough here.

[Danger Mouse]

29. lol...that actually make sense... =)

You're right about that. However, when stuff like that comes out, it makes it harder for him to be heard. For instance, if a man came forward writing a brillaint paper providing a wonderful solution to issues like poverty and joblessness in our country, with all kinds of great insights, he might seem really great. But then we find out he's a shade crazier than Fred Phelps and is a rabid, crazed fundamentalist. The fact that he's a crazed fundie is going to turn people off to his message, making it hard for his other brillaint points to be heard.
A bizarre comparison, i know, but that's me, i'm bizarre =P

[bananas]

5. BWAHAHAHA! 'a mishmash of Buddhism and "Time-Life Mysteries of The Unknown"'

This is great stuff!

'We all need our illusions. But doesn't his, a mishmash of Buddhism and "Time-Life Mysteries of The Unknown," weaken his case against Christians?'

ROFL!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[cosmik debris]

7. So what?

One of the better parts of dis-belief is that I don't have to agree with or defend or justify the beliefs of anybody. The only thing that I have in common with Sam Harris is that theists disagree with us on the god thing.

But since you brought it up, perhaps you would care to justify all the hateful, vicious, bloodthirsty, evil things written by the founders of your BELIEF system before you attack another's dis-belief.

[struggle4progress]

9. Before I "attack another's disbelief"? Whose "disbelief" have I attacked?

I usually consider whether people say they hold or do not hold certain religious beliefs completely irrelevant.

And since, frankly, I rather doubt whether you have any accurate idea of what my beliefs actually are, your claim it is "hateful, vicious, bloodthirsty" seems to me mere name-calling.

[cosmik debris]

12. You have never been able to conceal your hostility

toward atheists. Nor have you been able to conceal you support for Christianity. I don't need a complete accounting of your beliefs to know that much.

[struggle4progress]

15. Perhaps you refer to posts such as these?

Can a Commitment to Secularization be a Religious Duty?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=81818

Atheism and Liberation (Antonio Perez-Escalarin 1974)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=95823

Christian atheism
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=58846

The Gospel of Christian Atheism (Thomas J.J. Altizer / 1966)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=101301

[trotsky]

24. Yes, all of those show your contempt for atheism.

Look at the reaction of atheists in them. You're just pot-stirring again.

[bananas]

11. Woo-Woo!

LOL!
:rofl:

[bananas]

13. Jesus, Gotama, Lao tze - such "hateful, vicious, bloodthirsty, evil" people!

Woo-Woo!
:rofl:

[cosmik debris]

18. .

Recognizing that He had neither the time nor wherewithal to torture and maim all of the countless sinners of the world, Jesus ordered us to torture ourselves by chopping off any body parts that are engaged in sin. Those who practice sexual self-gratification are to chop off their arms. Those who have sexual thoughts for people other than their spouses are to gouge out their eyes (Mark 9:43-47). The wrath of Jesus is no less than the wrath of the Father.

[cosmik debris]

20. ..

Anyone who has read the New Testament knows that if there is one thing God enjoys doing even more than blowing His holy top, it is torturing people. He’s invested an enormous amount of His time constructing the most incredible torture device ever created. It’s called Hell – and He has perfected His ability to burn the skin off of human bodies over and over again while making it always feel like the first time, for all of eternity.

[cosmik debris]

22. ...

When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance of them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord . . . (2 Thessalonians 1: 7-9).

[cosmik debris]

23. ....

Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword” (Deuteronomy13:6-15

[Crunchy Frog]

32. Fascinating article.

Thank you for the link, and I admire your courage in posting it here. I got raked over the coals when I posted something about Sam Harris advocating torture.

I was amazed by this particular line of his:

"Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

If that's not the same mindset as that of the Inqisition, I don't know what is.

I've never quite been able to understand the kind of regard that Harris is held in by some people on this board. I have no problem with atheism, but just think that it could use much better spokespersons than the current crop. I miss Carl Sagan.

[cosmik debris]

33. Sam Harris is not a spokesperson for atheism

Anymore than Pat Robertson is a spokesperson for Christianity.

Sam Harris speaks for himself.

Please do not try to pin Mr. Harris' beliefs on any other atheists.

[Crunchy Frog]

34. That's a relief.

I wish more people on this site shared that view.

[cosmik debris]

35. I haven't observed anyone in this group

That believes Sam Harris is a spokesperson for Atheism except the virulent anti-atheists. I suspected you of that, but I may have been hasty in my judgment.

Many atheists agree with Mr. Harris' view on some things, but atheism has NO spokesperson. The accusation is mildly offensive just as it would be offensive to Christians to say the Pat Robertson is their spokesperson.

Please remember that the ONLY thing atheists have in common is that theists disagree with us.

[Crunchy Frog]

36. A simple search of this forum using the keyword "Sam Harris"

will reveal that he is at least extremely popular and frequently cited and defended by many of the atheists that post here. From what I've seen of his own activities, he seems to be trying to set himself up as a self-styled spokesman for atheism.

I'm not even close to being a virulent anti-atheist, though you may come to a conclusion that differs from my own self description, which you are free to do. I will say that some of the atheists who post on this forum have left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I basically dislike intolerance and doctrinaire attitudes, whichever direction they're coming from.

One of my favorite people ever was Carl Sagan, and he was an atheist.

As an addendum, I hope you will pardon the low quality of my current posts, as I've been sick all weekend. I don't have any good excuses for the low quality of my other posts. :)

[shrike]

37. Doesn't it bother anyone on DU

that another American with some notoriety is (apparently) saying it's okay to torture and even kill Muslims? Or that

Harris apparently has a rebuttal out on the above article, calling it a hit piece, and I guess I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Although I've read an earlier piece, penned BY him, where he seems to state that when it comes to Muslims, the far-right "gets it" and the left doesn't: that "tolerance" is not the way to go and that Islam is the menace. ("Gee, Martha. This Harris fella ain't so bad! There's hope for this one. He ain't one of them damned pussy leftists that wanna go play footsie with the ragheads. He wants to kill 'em! Now that's my kind of atheist. Gosh dern it, once we get those A-rabs out of the way we're gonna go help Mr. Harris find his way to the light of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Savior . . ." Sorry, I got carried away a little.)

I sincerely hope Mr. Harris has been misquoted or that the writer had a severe mendacity attack. The more this kind of thing is said in public the more acceptable it becomes to SAY it. Let's put religious and political leaders aside: what if Oprah said something like this? Or, I don't know, somebody else in popular culture? We at DU would be getting a posse together about now.

[charlie]

38. It bothers everyone

Do a search, you'll see the appalled reactions when it first came to light here.

For the record, he's not about torturing Muslims. His Bruckheimer-movie-of-the-week hypothetical would put the thumbscrews to any poor sod whom gov't agents thought had the key to the ticking time bomb.

[shrike]

39. That's a relief

This is the first time I've seen this article anyplace, and the blase reactions in this thread concerned me. Though I don't know if I like the idea of thumbscrewing any poor sod, either.
We've got enough to worry about with Bush, Cheney and company. We don't need a longer list.

[greyl]

48. It would be more accurate to say that Harris

has offered an ethical argument concerning the use of effective torture of one or a few people as preference to the relatively indiscriminate human suffering caused by a bombing campaign or ground war. Emotionally and intellectually, it's a very unpleasant ethical dilemma. It's similar to a thought experiment about choosing between the life of ones only child and the lives of a family of 12 strangers.

As far as I know, Harris doesn't suggest that a Muslim terrorist withholding lifesaving information would deserve harsher treatment than would an atheist or Christian terrorist.

[shrike]

50. Unfortunately, in light of some of Mr. Harris' other comments,

which he has made in self-penned missives, now is not a good time for such speculation. Although that's certainly not MY call. I've been alarmed before by some of the statements Harris has penned: some of them may not be too far off from what a neocon may say in private.
Mr. Harris is entitled to his opinion, ANY opinion, just as you or I are. And I'm sure you know as well as I do that a hypothetical ethical dilemma may be one thing, but the real world is another.
That said, I'm happy to give Mr. Harris the benefit of the doubt; that he knows the difference between a real world situation and ethical speculation as well as anyone.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[varkam]

41. Hit piece

This was pointed out in the A&A group, but I thought I would mention it here since the article was posted here. This article might not be all that "fair and balanced". See here.

[struggle4progress]

42. "there are certain .. circumstances in which I believe that torture may not only be ethically

justifiable, but ethically necessary ... While there have been many frauds in the history of parapsychology, I believe that this field of study has been unfairly stigmatized ... "
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/

The link I provide is SH's response from his own website. He cites the "ticking-bomb" to justify torture, and does not want to dismiss claims "toddlers occasionally start speaking in ancient languages" the same way he "can dismiss the claims of religious dogmatists."

The famous saying applies to the reply: "what is good is not original, and what is original is not good"

[varkam]

43. Agree with him or not...

his position(s) was(were) not characterized correctly in the alternet piece. That's all I'm sayin'. :)

[struggle4progress]

44. Frankly, I find his argumentation so juvenile, and so free of any political ..

.. or historical insight, that I can barely read enough of what he says to argue with you on this point.

Given his tendency to mischaracterize the positions of others, I don't feel terribly sympathetic when he complains he himself has been misrepresented or misunderstood. In his book, he tells makes all sorts of nonsensical claims such as: .... It is no accident that people of faith often want to curtail the private freedoms of others .... Anyone who believes that God is watching us from beyond the stars will feel that punishing peaceful men and women for their private pleasure is perfectly reasonable .... Faith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering .... Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time .... Such claim, made in sweeping generality, represent nothing but offensive stereotypes.

His discussion of torture, in the same book, completely misses the mark: ... it seems obvious that the misapplication of torture should be far less troubling to us than collateral damage: there are, after all, no infants interned at Guantanamo Bay, just rather scrofulous young men, many of whom were caught in the very act of trying to kill our soldiers. Torture need not even impose a significant risk of death or permanent injury on its victims; while the collaterally damaged are, almost by definition, crippled or killed. The ethical divide that seems to be opening up here suggests that those who are willing to drop bombs might want to abduct the nearest and dearest of suspected terrorists-their wives, mothers, and daughters-and torture them as well, assuming anything profitable to our side might come of it. Admittedly, this would be a ghastly result to have reached by logical argument, and we will want to find some way of escaping it ... Here, not only does he repeat the dishonest rightwing claim that the Guantanamo detainees were caught .. trying to kill our soldiers but with it he echoes the Administration's philosophy that torture need not even impose a significant risk of death or permanent injury on its victims and then, without any real grasp of the current events, wonders whether those .. willing to drop bombs .. abduct the nearest and dearest of suspected terrorists -- their wives, mothers, and daughters -- and torture them as well, having apparently never bothered to spend five minutes googling John Yoo or other torture apologists who advocate precisely this. Harris there is arguing that if one is willing to bomb people, then one should be willing to torture as well; he is apparently making this argument without the slightest historical consciousness and without the slightest sense of why anyone might want in such circumstances to continue to advocate for the importance of respecting human dignity or any understanding that the loss of such respect can only increase the craven indifference with which populations are otherwise terrorized by (say) death squads.

As person who has very little use for miracles ("It is a wicked generation that asks for a sign"), I nevertheless find it peculiar that he while ridiculing the some religious beliefs in paranormal events, he is willing to contemplate others.

In short, it is not at all clear to me that the OP significantly misrepresents his views.

[varkam]

46. I refuse to be dragged into an argument about Harris.

I am being intentionally mum on Harris' views because it has been my experience that I should just stay about of such discussions. Again, all I intended to point out is that the AN article wasn't exactly fair with Harris.

[struggle4progress]

47. This from a famous debunker of paranormal claims: SAM HARRIS ALERT

SAM HARRIS ALERT
Dr. Michael Eslea, Department of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, alerts me to a startling – and disturbing – fact ...
...Harris .. veers into woo-woo territory ... in his introductory chapter (page 41) he states that "There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science." Turn to note 18 on page 232 to see his justification for this statement, and you will find an astonishing paragraph citing books by Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake as evidence. Harris also notes that Ian Stevenson's work (on children supposedly born with memories of past lives) "may be credible evidence for reincarnation."
Only now do I understand a certain coolness I’ve experienced in Sam’s attitude toward me, and I now think that it can be entirely explained by his romance with woo-woo ...
http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-09/092206bad.html#i8

If you poke around a bit, you will see quite a few people have noticed this, not only in his book but in videos of SH and elsewhere. There is similarly a substantial amount of info available on his torture apologetics. That suggests to me that the OP is not necessarily unfair or a hit piece, as you have claimed.

[bananas]

49. LOL! James Randi calls him "woo-woo"!

Makes me wonder about Dawkins...
:rofl:

[varkam]

51. You don't have to agree with my claim.

All I did was submit it to point it out. If I were to discuss the merits of such a claim, then it would inevitably lead to a discussion on Harris' claims - which again, I refuse to do for my own reasons.