Hi Marsha, I didn't mean to suggest that his review was worthless. I thought it was interesting. Thanks for the link.
Regards, Steve On Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 09:00AM, "MarshaV" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >Stephen, > >Liking Ayn Rand doesn't make his review totally bogus. He both >praised and criticized the book. I thought it worth >consideration. I call myself an atheist, not because I have a >feeling of affection for the word. I use the word because it's not >wishy-washy. Such deeply embedded dogma needs more than wishy-washy >platitudes to challenge it. Whether god exists is as interesting to >me as whether Tinkerbell exists. It's too silly for >consideration. But the doctrine and dogma warrant a noisy challenge >from all who would dare to. > >Marsha > >At 10:04 AM 1/22/2008, you wrote: >>Hi Marsha, >> >>This guy seems to be a big Ayn Rand fan and dismisses mystical >>experience out of hand. Harris has gotten a lot of flack from >>atheists for his openness to mysticism. >> >>In a lot of this guy's critiques he seems to miss what Harris is saying. >> >>He wants The End of Faith to be a philosophy book, and I can relate >>to his wanting a more systematic philosophy. Reading the book >>through the lens of the moq, I think it holds up well. >> >>One of his main critiques is one suggested by Platt that reason >>requires a leap of faith. >> >>He says, "A grave weakness of this book is that it neither >>summarizes nor points its reader to an adequate defense of reason as >>a means of gaining valid knowledge. Rather, the book seems to either >>assume that the reader agrees with the validity of reason, that no >>such validation is necessary, or worst, that no such validation is >>possible. As a result, the book is vulnerable to the charge that its >>author is asking us to accept -- on faith -- the validity of reason! >>As I have already said, the book is quite sloppy philosophically..." >> >>Harris doesn't say that reason is how we "gain" knowledge, he just >>says that our knowledge should stand to reason. In MOQ terms reason >>is just a synonym for intellectual quality. >> >>In evaluating whether faith is a good or bad thing we don't need to >>define what intellectual quality is or prove the "validity of >>reason." We only need to say that it is bad to believe things that >>are of low intellectual quality which in MOQ terms is obvious. >> >>When people appeal to faith in religion while they appeal to reason >>and evidence in every other area of their lives, they are admitting >>that what they are claiming is of low intellectual quality and then >>patting themselves on the back for believing it anyway. >> >>Regards, >>Steve >> >> >>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/ > > >************* >DEFINITION of Marsha, I, me, self, & etc.: Ever-changing >collection of overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological, >social and intellectual, static patterns of value. > > > >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/ > > 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/
