The recent comments about Sam Harris got me thinking about rereading his signature book The End of Faith. If any one wants to join in the reading, I'd love the company. Reading the first chapter again, I'm struck with the force and flow of Harris' writing. A lot of the chapter concerns religious moderates. Harris thus plunges right in to one of his most controversial points, that there is no good reason to hope that moderates will do anything to calm the extremes, and that moderates are actually part of the overall problem in the religious landscape. This was something I disagreed with before. I think I still do, but Harris makes a strong argument that has me reconsidering.

Another strong point of Harris is that he, unlike the others of the "Big 4", speaks unabashedly of filling people's spiritual needs. I sense that even that can be taboo for the other writers. He says that understanding, such as we might get from science, will never be enough; we are innately meaning-makers, after all. Harris has ideas about serving this need in a post-faith environment. As a neuroscientist, he naturally favors "a mature science of mind" as the candidate for improving on the old and no longer vital regime of religion.

We always discuss how "religion" is an unwieldy term and impossible to generalize about. Harris takes the simple reducing step of specifying "faith-based religion" as the center of the problem. I think that's a helpful distinction.

I am reading that now, actually.

I also find Harris to be a very compelling writer. He describes the problem succinctly.

I agree that it is past time for people to put away their childish beliefs. There is no good reason to cling to a false belief.

Feel free to bounce ideas off of me, if you want.

DWill wrote:The recent comments about Sam Harris got me thinking about rereading his signature book The End of Faith. If any one wants to join in the reading, I'd love the company.

I'll read it. I'll see if I can pick up a copy tomorrow.

geo wrote:

DWill wrote:The recent comments about Sam Harris got me thinking about rereading his signature book The End of Faith. If any one wants to join in the reading, I'd love the company.

I'll read it. I'll see if I can pick up a copy tomorrow.

Cool. Johnson says he's reading it, too.

I may pick up a copy, I think I can get one from the library

DWill wrote:The recent comments about Sam Harris got me thinking about rereading his signature book The End of Faith. If any one wants to join in the reading, I'd love the company. Reading the first chapter again, I'm struck with the force and flow of Harris' writing. A lot of the chapter concerns religious moderates. Harris thus plunges right in to one of his most controversial points, that there is no good reason to hope that moderates will do anything to calm the extremes, and that moderates are actually part of the overall problem in the religious landscape. This was something I disagreed with before. I think I still do, but Harris makes a strong argument that has me reconsidering.

Another strong point of Harris is that he, unlike the others of the "Big 4", speaks unabashedly of filling people's spiritual needs. I sense that even that can be taboo for the other writers. He says that understanding, such as we might get from science, will never be enough; we are innately meaning-makers, after all. Harris has ideas about serving this need in a post-faith environment. As a neuroscientist, he naturally favors "a mature science of mind" as the candidate for improving on the old and no longer vital regime of religion.

We always discuss how "religion" is an unwieldy term and impossible to generalize about. Harris takes the simple reducing step of specifying "faith-based religion" as the center of the problem. I think that's a helpful distinction.

I suppose your invitation comes with the same restriction that TEoG did: That is you can participate if you agree with SH and the party line. Of course you can always establish as 'Spillover' thread to censor dissenting opinion.

If you would like I can pull "The End of Faith" out of the Archive so you can discuss it in the actual forum.