the four horsemen reunite in 2012

at the atheist foundation of australia.


click image to source
'the atheist foundation of australia is excited to announce that the next global atheist convention – ‘a celebration of reason’ will feature headline speakers richard dawkins, daniel dennett, sam harris and christopher hitchens (health permitting).

the global atheist convention will be held once again at the melbourne convention and exhibition centre from 13 - 15 april 2012.'

the atheist movement has made great strides these past few years. i'm curious to this meetup will differ from the first.

sam harris on accommodationism

i like this so much... i'm copy/pasting the quote from sam harris' the moral landscape as it appears on RDFRS:

"
‘many of our secular critics worry that if we oblige people to choose between reason and faith, they will choose faith and cease to support scientific research; if, on the other hand, we ceaselessly reiterate that there is no conflict between religion and science, we might cajole great multitudes into accepting the truth of evolution (as though this were an end in itself). here is a version of this charge that, i fear, most people would accept, taken from journalist chris mooney and marine biologist sheril kirshenbaum’s book unscientific america:

if the goal is to create an america more friendly toward science and reason, the combativeness of the new atheists is strongly counterproductive. if anything, they work in ironic combination with their dire enemies, the anti-science conservative christians who populate the creation science and intelligent design movements, to ensure we’ll continue to be polarized over subjects like the teaching of evolution when we don’t have to be. america is a very religious nation, and if forced to choose between faith and science, vast numbers of americans will select the former. the new atheists err in insisting that such a choice needs to be made. atheism is not the logically inevitable outcome of scientific reasoning, any more than intelligent design is a necessary corollary of religious faith. a great many scientists believe in god with no sense of internal contradiction, just as many religious believers accept evolution as the correct theory to explain the development, diversity, and inter-relatedness of life on earth. the new atheists, like the fundamentalists they so despise, are setting up a false dichotomy that can only damage the cause of scientific literacy for generations to come. it threatens to leave science itself caught in the middle between extremes, unable to find cover in a destructive, seemingly unending, culture war.

the first thing to observe is that mooney and kirshenbaum are confused about the nature of the problem. the goal is not to get more americans to merely accept the truth of evolution (or any other scientific theory); the goal is to get them to value the principles of reasoning and educated discourse that now make a belief in evolution obligatory. doubt about evolution is merely a symptom of an underlying condition; the condition is faith itself—conviction without sufficient reason, hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, good ideas obscured by bad ones, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation, etc. mooney and kirshenbaum seem to imagine that we can get people to value intellectual honesty by lying to them.

while it is invariably advertised as an expression of “respect” for people of faith, the accommodationism that mooney and kirshenbaum recommend is nothing more than naked condescension, motivated by fear. they assure us that people will choose religion over science, no matter how good a case is made against religion. in certain contexts, this fear is probably warranted. i wouldn’t be eager to spell out the irrationality of islam while standing in the great mosque in mecca. but let’s be honest about how mooney and kirshenbaum view public discourse in the united states: watch what you say, or the christian mob will burn down the library of alexandria all over again by comparison, the “combativeness” of the “new atheists” seems quite collegial. we are merely guilty of assuming that our fellow homo sapiens possess the requisite intelligence and emotional maturity to respond to rational argument, satire, and ridicule on the subject of religion—just as they respond to these discursive pressures on all other subjects. of course, we could be wrong. but let’s admit which side in this debate currently views our neighbors as dangerous children and which views them as adults who might prefer not to be completely mistaken about the nature of reality.
"

who says science has nothing to say about morality?

a discussion with sam harris and richard dawkins.



via RDFRS

kickass

dawkins, harris, hitchens -- in a jibjab breakdance.
badass.

sam harris vs william lane craig - april 7 2011

does goodness come from god?

envying peter yang

not just because he's an excellent photographer with a fabulous career -- but because he's taken cool pictures of three of the four horsemen, for wired [previously linked to here].

  

i wish there was some way i could take portraits of all four.

sam harris blogs

sam harris has a blog!

here's a snip from one of his post, but will the dead walk again?, with afterthoughts from a recent debate:

snip

like all such theology, augustine’s account of the resurrection was simply a dark age confabulation. in other words, it was bullshit—a concept that has since been given a much need technical analysis by the philosopher harry frankfurt in his wonderful essay, on bullshit. what is the difference between bullshit and lies? bullshitting often entails lying, of course, but frankfurt shows that they are not the same. when a person is merely lying, he must still keep the truth in view. he must at least give the appearance of intellectual honesty. the bullshitter knows no such constraints. he takes no notice of the truth, or of the reasonable expectations others might have about it. the bullshitter just keeps talking.

and that is what religion has done: it has just kept talking, down through the ages, in utter defiance of common sense.

/snip

the blog: sam harris

is there an afterlife? a debate

at the jewish tv network:


click image to view debate at source
on the panel: sam harris, christopher hitchens, david wolpe and bradley artson.

i've just started listening to this and the first argument from the first speaker, david wolpe, has started with a dull thud.

to the question, if he expects to go to heaven, he argues that part of the problem of the idea of an afterlife is that we take it more literally than it needs to be and that makes it ridiculous. he says that before we entered this world, we could not have imagined mountains and tunafish and teeth and ideas -- of course not. it is unimaginable. but we expect to be able to imagine the other world, reducing it to nonsense.

except that i didn't exist before being born, therefore i don't remember trying to imagine any of it. if i existed, i have no recollection of it at all, and it has no discernible effect on my present life... so it's completely irrelevant. and why, if there's so much talk about an afterlife, is there no curiosity about a prelife? this is nonsense.

i sincerely hope i hear something interesting from the theists by the time this finishes.

EDIT:  harris started of well.  relaying his fear that this debate would bore the audience, he quoted his wife as saying, 'nothing hitchens does is ever boring'.
EDIT again:  hitchens can quote literature and scripture too -- specifically, star wars.
EDIT yet again:  very enjoyable... great points from all around.

the world and the universe through the eyes of non-believers

what we believe



music and lyrics by colony 5 - future:

tragedies and suffering 
i hear them scream 
screaming for help 
the prophets preach 
the end of the world 
only fools believe their words 

we want to love 
we want to breathe 
we want to be 
rebuild the world 
with the knowledge 
we retrieve 

we want to feel 
we want to live 
we want to see 
seek the wisdom 
from the future 
and believe

no truth without evidence 
it's easy to lie 
who can seek the answers 
who can see through the sky 
such a great temptation 
who can carry such a quest 
and gain that information 
we don't need no god 

we don't need no god no more 
we don't need a tyrant 

we want to love 
we want to breathe 
we want to be 
rebuild the world 
with the knowledge 
we retrieve 

we want to feel 
we want to live 
we want to see 
seek the wisdom 
from the future 
and believe

sam harris: a new year's resolution for the rich

sam harris is consistently re-emerging as a hero for me.

in 2006, when i started this blog, i heard people refer to him as the world's most prominent atheist. as i read the end of faith, i came to realize how important and urgent it is for people to turn to reason-based action and to free themselves from the chains of superstition.

letter to a christian nation was a succinct encore.

last month, the moral landscape helped me to better understand questions of ethical and moral existence.

i'm repeatedly impressed by harris' ability to concisely focus and shine stark light on the most complex issues we face today.

in his latest essay, harris again faces taboo issues head-on by proposing actions by the wealthiest among us to alleviate the tragic inequality our societies face.  i could quote all of it... but

snip

we now live in a country in which the bottom 40 percent (120 million people) owns just 0.3 percent of the wealth. data of this kind make one feel that one is participating in a vast psychological experiment: just how much inequality can free people endure?

/snip

harris refers to the u.s. economy, but, in my mind, it can be expanded to encompass the globe.

the entire piece, a new year's resolution for the rich, is on the huffington post.

sam harris: can science determine human values?

on fora.tv

the level of humility in scientific discourse

i finished listening to sam harris' the moral landscape audiobook last week. this bit really stuck in my memory and i'm glad butterlies and wheels is quoting it... so i'm adding it here for future reference:

“while it is a standard rhetorical move in such debates to accuse scientists of being ‘arrogant,’ the level of humility in scientific discourse is, in fact, one of its most striking characteristics. in my experience, arrogance is about as common at a scientific conference as nudity. at any scientific meeting you will find presenter after presenter couching his or her remarks with caveats and apologies. when asked to comment on something that lies to either side of the very knife edge of their special expertise, even nobel laureates will say things like, “well, this isn’t really my area, but i would suspect that x is…” or “i’m sure there are several people in this room who know more about this than i do, but as far as i know, x is…” the totality of scientific knowledge nowdoubles every few years. given how much there is to know, all scientists live with the constant awareness that whenever they open their mouths in the presence of other scientists, they are guaranteed to be speaking to someone who knows more about a specific topic than they do.” [p 124]

a wave of reason

from the symphony of science

sam harris on religious fundamentalism

on MSNBC, posted on youtube:

TSN: the great debate

at the science network:



'on november 6th, 2010 a panel of renowned scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals gathered to discuss what impact evolutionary theory and advances in neuroscience might have on traditional concepts of morality. if human morality is an evolutionary adaptation and if neuroscientists can identify specific brain circuitry governing moral judgment, can scientists determine what is, in fact, right and wrong? the panelists were psychologist steven pinker, author sam harris, philosopher patricia churchland, physicist lawrence krauss, philosopher simon blackburn, bioethicist peter singer and the science network’s roger bingham.'

can science shape human values?

and should it? .... on NPR

with lawrence krauss, simon blackburn, sam harris and steven pinker.



description with transcript

sam harris - robert wright debate

october 9, 2010 at the council for secular humanism

sam harris on the daily show

with jon stewart

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sam Harris
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

discussing his new book, the moral landscape.

sam harris' 'the moral landscape'

how science can determine human values

sam harris: why we should ditch religion

on cnn: