--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I've been giving a lot of thought to this discussion. > I wrote a bunch of things that I never posted. We are > seeing Sam's points so differently. I think you are > reading in a lot of emotion into Sam's position that > is from you, not him.
If you mean you think I'm projecting my own emotions onto Harris, I don't see how that could possibly be the case. As you go on to say, quite correctly, my perspective on what he and Sullivan are discussing-- i.e., the nature of the metaphysical reality--is much more in line with Harris than Sullivan. What I'm seeing with Harris is the need to *stamp out* Sullivan's perspective. I don't think there's any way you could attribute such a need to me. I don't share Sullivan's perspective, but I see no need whatsoever to stamp it out; that's what I would argue *against*. I also think you are missing > Sam's whole point if you think he doesn't understand the > nuances of religious faith. Let me put it this way: I see nuances in religious faith that I don't find reflected anywhere in what Harris says. If he does understand them, he seems to have chosen not to use that understanding in what he says to Sullivan. I don't think it's possible to argue effectively against religious belief unless one is first able to empathize with it, see how a reasonable, well- balanced, intelligent person could hold it sincerely. My understanding of his point is that these > differences are not as important as people are making them. > Once you accept beliefs like "Jesus died for our sins" as a > factual statement you are already way over the justifiable > line in his view. Clearly. But making an elaborate case that there's no good reason to have confidence in the miracles attributed to Jesus, as Harris does in his latest response, is addressing beliefs that are way, way, *WAY* farther over that line. It seems as though Harris is spending a lot of effort going after the easy stuff that he has a good argument against, even though Sullivan isn't making an argument *for* that stuff, because he doesn't have a good argument against what Sullivan *is* making a case for. In other words, the case Harris makes against Jesus' miracles is one that Sullivan might well concede, but it wouldn't touch Sullivan's belief that Jesus died for our sins. Harris may want to throw the latter belief in the same hopper with belief in Jesus' miracles, but he ignores one significant difference, that one can believe Jesus died for our sins without believing in the miracles. And I really think these are two significantly different types of belief. "Jesus died for our sins" is a purely metaphysical belief, whereas "Jesus walked on water" is a belief that something specific happened historically. If we could go back in time, we could determine whether or not Jesus actually walked on water, but going back in time wouldn't tell us whether Jesus died for our sins. (Unless you're convinced Jesus didn't die on the cross, or that Jesus never existed, which seems a lot less likely than that he didn't walk on water.) > The reason I haven't posted more on this topic with you is > that I really can't understand how you are looking at it. > It seems to me that your actual belief system has much more > in common with Sam than Andrew. Absolutely, except that I don't see any need to wipe out the type of belief system Sullivan holds. I don't think it's dangerous, and I think it can be very beneficial. What I'm doing, essentially, is being a devil's advocate--so to speak!--for Sullivan's type of belief system, not in the sense that I believe it myself, but that it isn't some kind of grave threat to humankind. > I realize my own limits in understanding where you are > coming from concerning this discussion. Rather than just > spill out my own take on the material, I am trying to > understand how you are seeing this discussion so differently > than I am. Basically, I don't think Harris has made a good enough argument against Sullivan. Harris is arguing against quite a few straw men and has appeared to avoid some of the real ones. As I keep saying, I do think Harris has made some excellent points, but his straw-man arguments weaken his case considerably. > I think Andrew is really interesting and his "Blogger please" > line forever warmed me to him. I don't remember that one. What was it about? But I think it is as impossible for him to > understand where Sam is coming from as it is for me to understand > where you are coming from, for different reasons. Well, I hope I've advanced your understanding of where I'm coming from a little. My sense is that Sullivan *does* understand where Harris is coming from but just doesn't find it convincing. Sullivan, however, as far as I can tell, doesn't really get what Harris says about the value of experiential exploration of the nature of consciousness, something with which I'm obviously very much in sympathy. The whole bit about contingency is clearly a source of misunderstanding between them, but Harris, I think, may have cleared up what he meant in his latest response, and it'll be interesting to see what Sullivan makes of it as clarified. What I find fascinating is that in my case, getting into experiential exploration of consciousness via TM has made me *more* sympathetic, not less, to Sullivan's type of religious belief. I used to think religious belief was beyond the pale, as Harris does, no more than wish fulfillment. I no longer think that; I still think religious belief is *incomplete*, but (at least with Sullivan's type of belief) not flat-out wrong. Anthony Campbell, at the time a lapsed Catholic and a TM practitioner, writes in "Seven States of Consciousness": "As my understanding of Maharishi's ideas began to grow a little...it was an extraordinary experience to see ideas I had rejected as meaningless becuase they had been taught by people who did not themselves fully understand them suddenly catch fire like diamonds in a muddy stream." This is very similar to what I've found, although I had rejected religious ideas from the start. Nor did MMY's teaching or the experience of TM turn me into a religionist. But I now see religious ideas as reflections, distorted though they may be, of real metaphysical principles. Those ideas weren't created in a vacuum; they were originally *based* on experiences of consciousness. Once the metaphysical understanding/experience is well established through some systematic exploration, I don't see any problem with putting it in the context of a particular religious system, if one finds that congenial and appealing. It isn't for me, but I don't see any danger in it. The religious context in that situation would, I think, become far more *abstract*, far less contingent. If I were Harris, I wouldn't even bother making arguments against religious belief as it stands now; I'd put all my energy into urging Sullivan to do some systematic experiential exploration of consciousness and expose himself to the type of metaphysical teaching we have from MMY (i.e., Advaita Vedanta, which is about as contingency- free as it gets). My guess is that if Sullivan were to get into this kind of exploration, his understanding of his religion would change fairly drastically, and the discussion with Harris would take a very different and much more productive course. Ultimately, I don't think religious epistemology informed by experience of consciousness is incompatible with scientific epistemology informed by the same experience. The only difference is that one is subjective and the other objective. The rules for the two epistemologies are not as different as they might at first appear. Ken Wilber makes a great case that the epistemology of subjective exploration (i.e., exploration of consciousness) proceeds by the same fundamental rules as the scientific method, but that's a whole 'nother discussion. Anyway both these > guys are bringing this discussion out and that makes me incredibly > happy. This is an important topic for me.
