[Religion] And now for something truly inflammatory
I have been listening to this interview with Sam Harris, an author (and current neuroscience graduate student) talking about his new book 'The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.' (It's about 1/4th way into the podcast.) He proposes secular people practice a form of religious intolernace, an intellectual intolerance of the ideas that found religions and the pervasive idea that without religion our society would be savage.
The point I like the most is how religion has been given an intellectual carte blanche. We cannot question the rationality or validity of these beliefs, but in every other sector of thought we have the freedom to question other ideas. Faith is off limits and has consequently set back society.
Harris has some interesting ideas and interpretations. I just may take his book to Paris.
3 comments:
Eye for an eye and we all go blind. Practicing intolerance against those who are intolerant will only hurt.
Sam Harris is a crackpot who thinks he is a scientist.
Don't confuse the actions of fundamentalist with those who have spirituality as a whole. Fundamentalists have created a stereotype that unfortunately painted all those of faith or spirituality in a bad light.
Some of the most interesting, tolerant, intellectual people I have met in my life were very spiritual as well.
The issue as I see it is not religion, or belief, or faith, but ignorance. We can have both. People have just not or will not figure that out yet. You can have religion and science. Both are questing for the truth of existence. Different methods, similar results.
I myself lean towards the side of empirical evidence and hard facts, but if you live solely in that world, life loses its mystery. In some things, such as health I trust medicine more than prayer, but what does prayer hurt if used with medicine? If someone wants to pray for me, I will not stop them.
Intolerance in any form is not helpful.
Again, I will have to read the book before I decide whether or not to defend Harris.
I agree religion has a place in society. Like you say, GeistX, it is a means to answer the big questions in life. But it doesn't remain in those boundaries. It has been adulterated to propagate the ultimate problem, ignorance and intolerance. A number of major religious texts have been used to validate slavery, the oppression of women, and the condemnation of those who do not believe. To me, that is not peaceful coexistence.
I guess it's more a line in the sand for me. I cannot keep redrawing my personal boundaries simply to appear tolerant. If so, then I lose myself.
I never really could name my spirituality until I came to medical school. There is something sacred about putting your hands to a patient and helping them heal. Being allowed to walk with people during their most vulnerable moments from birth to death is my personal sacrament.
So, GeistX, my problem is not with religion or spirituality, per se. It's with how it's been allowed free reign often to the detriment of others.
Intolerance in any form is not helpful.
I am reading a great, and rather short, book right now that has wonderful things to say on this.
Carl Jung's "The Undiscovered Self" is just as timely as it was when he wrote it. And, as it advocates religion, it questions the modern conception of religion in a way that saves it from the reactionary form it has taken as it tries to defend itself from attacks by science. (Or as it tried to reconcile itself with science and loses its own soul.) Yes, science too has been overstepping its bounds just as religion has and the result is a perverted form of both.
I agree: I trust science with my health care but even that is going too far sometimes. I want to live my life and die when it is my time. I don’t want to live always thinking of what is best for my health and to fight death so hard that I lose my quality of life in the end.
I also agree that always redrawing your boundaries to be seen as tolerant put you individuality, even your very soul—your essence—, at risk. Tolerance should mean that you listen as much as you can and that you don’t react violently—unless violently attacked or severely and systematically oppressed. Tolerance should not mean opening up your mind and soul up so much that both become empty.
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