--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > The "middle-way" readers have it right, IMO. > What is going on is two people -- who see the > world completely differently, wearing two > completely different states of attention, > each bringing to the table completely different > sets of assumptions -- trying to have a discussion > and failing miserably.
The problem isn't that Harris doesn't have any good points, the problem is that he's trying to smash Sullivan with them--at least as of his most recent post--instead of having a discussion. Sullivan, in contrast, *is* trying to have a discussion. Sullivan can be as intractable and snotty as anybody, but in this case, for whatever reason, that tendency hasn't shown up, at least not yet. As a nonreligionist whose assumptions don't jibe with those of either of these guys, I don't think Harris knows as much as he thinks he does about the scriptural texts and religious perspectives he's dumping on, so in many cases he's attacking his own straw men. Maybe Harris's most stubborn assumption is that if science is valid, then religion isn't. He insists on judging religion by the standards of science, which really makes no sense. Sullivan, on the other hand, assumes that one doesn't somehow negate the other, which seems to me a much more reasonable position. Or to put it another way, Harris is threatened by religion, but Sullivan isn't threatened by science. > *Both*, IMO, are so attached to their assumptions > that they cannot possibly challenge them. Thing is, only if Harris's assumption about science negating religion is correct should Sullivan *need* to challenge his own. Sullivan isn't trying to negate science. So it isn't symmetrical. Instead, > they argue for the assumptions' correctness, > using the most persuasive arguments they can come > up with, trying to "win," to convince the other > of their position's correctness. And they're both > surprised and confounded when the other person is > *not* persuaded by these arguments, which seem to > them self-evident, beyond refute. > > I think it's a situation we're familiar with here > on Fairfield Life. :-) One thing you've never understood, Barry, is that by making the most persuasive arguments possible for one's perspective and defending it against challenge, one can be mounting one's *own* challenge to that perspective--at least if the challenger is arguing in good faith and doesn't crap out when the going gets tough.
