I wrote here on current media-darling Sam Harris, author of two books condeming "religion". America's counterpart to Britain's Richard Dawkins, the two live to do nothing less than seek to destroy religion as a part of human life. I find that so hysterically funny, it almost doesn't bear thinking about. Never mind the hubris and lack of serious understanding of religion as a social phenomenon, their own fanaticism and lack of clarity or self-awareness almost boggles the mind. As I felt I had said all I wanted or needed to say concerning Harris (an earlier post dealt with Dawkins), I wanted to leave him alone but I ran across this piece over at Alternet.org, in which it is revealed that Harris accepts ESP, reincarnation, and the torture of an entire religious group of people. While in the interview he seems to backpedal on his earlier defense of ESP and reincarnation, in othe rplaces he has argued not that the jury is still out on paranormal phenomena, but that there are social and professional pressures against the study of such phenomena, or reviewing their findings. I find this disingenuous at best. Why be such a chicek-heart? If you believe people can read minds, say so! If you believe Ravi Shankar is the reincarnation of a murdered two-year-old, say so! If you believe reports of people speaking languages they could not possibly know, say so! You certainly say torture is OK, as long as it is torture of Muslims; you even say it's OK if a few innocents get tortured. They're religious (although it just appears they are of the wrong religion; he would have a problem torturing, it seems, Buddhists, who are nothing but peaceful, peace-loving, compassionate people) after all, and religions are evil, so we aren't doing anything inherently bad.
This man has gone from seriously silly and unserious to seriously deranged and (dare I say it? Sure, why not) hypocritical.
He is now to be ignored completely. It should be obvious that he simply has no idea what he is talking about, on any level, and has no moral compass whatsoever, rational or otherwise. His concern is not with the damage religion has done to humanity, because it is quite clear he doesn't care about real people - why advocate torture if he cares about human life and well-being? No, he cares about Sam Harris. He is, it would seem, an unthinking, unreflective, ignorant self-promoter, basking in the limelight provided by outrageous and unsubstantiated claims and argument with neither merit nor support in evidence. He is now revealed as a believer in some of the silliest ideas imaginable, ideas with no more (or less) support in "evidence" than the resurrection of Jesus, the divine authority of the Mosaic law, or the divine authorship of the Q'uran. I am not saying that ESP and reincarnation do not exist (actually, I am; I believe in neither, and the fact that both are matters of "belief" should already lead us well on the way to questioning the basis of Harris' attacks on religion), but rather that they are no more supported by evidence than any other wild claim. They are matter of belief, not verifiable evidence. I suppose consistency is too much to ask of some people, but I am unsurprised by the fact that, rather than the deep, serious thinker he claims to be, Harris is now outed as a shallow, unserious person in love with his new celebrity status. The fact that he tries to distance himself from his own beliefs in interviews show that he is a celebrity, not an intellectual.
I would prefer atheists had more balls than that. You know, like Christians who would rather die than deny Christ? Or Jews who would rather die than be baptized? Like Muslims who would rather die than foreswear the five pillars of Islam? Not much strength in his own beliefs if he is willing to sell them short and not defend them (except for the torture of an entire religious group, apparently) because they might be a sign of inconcsistency.
