Platt said: Lest we forget, the worst genocides in history were committed by atheists.
dmb says: Yea, Sam Harris gets that one all the time. It's a classic. Or a cliche', if you prefer. It's one of the reasons he doesn't like the label "atheist". For one thing, it doesn't make sense to identify yourself in terms of what you DON'T believe. It is way too narrow, like calling yourself a non-astrologer, he says. What he DOES believe is that no belief is immune to criticism, that all beliefs have to play with the same rules of evidence and reason. His attack on faith is not just an attack on the churches, but an attack on any belief held without reason or evidence. Obviously, genocidal maniacs are not playing by any such rules. In fact, Hitler believed all sorts of occultish and psuedo-scientific nonsense. Stalin certainly wasn't motivated or justified by evidence or reason. These are spectacular examples of unreasonable beliefs in action, which is exactly the problem that bothers Sam so much. He's saying that our beliefs should be measured in terms of their intellectual quality. And he asserts this for moral reasons. I wonder if there ever was a disaster caused by an excessively reasonable person. When was hate or death ever supported by evidence? Sam is only saying that reasonable beliefs lead to reasonable actions. And unreasonable beliefs lead elsewhere. Atheism is only consistent with this broader position, not equal to it, he says. But he couldn't think a good name for his view either. I call him a MOQer. _________________________________________________________________ Need to know the score, the latest news, or you need your Hotmail®-get your "fix". http://www.msnmobilefix.com/Default.aspx Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
