- Joined
- Sep 28, 2011
- Messages
- 28,400
- Reaction score
- 0
First of all, Sam Harris isn't nearly as clever as he thinks he is. His arguments are often simplistic and facile. He gets way outside of his lane and his worst sin is when he doesn't realize that his grasp has exceeded his intellectual reach, such as the time he got himself way over his head with Noam Chomsky but had no idea how out of his element he truly was. As an atheist, I find myself embarrassed to be associated with his brand of public intellectualism.
In a number of ways, a church or a religious gathering of both the physical locale or the social grouping is a natural and inevitable emergent phenomenon of the human social animal. Putting aside the supernatural trappings of religion, local churches perform extremely useful and absolutely integral functions of the community. Churches exist to provide a place for all community members to gather in one place, engendering a sense of community. Before modern times and government social safety nets, churches were often the first and only line of welfare in times of crises or need, especially for newcomers. In day to day life, they provided a way to organize community events that require group effort, from barn raising to family picnics.
Whether it be singing together as a group or discussing interpretations of shared stories to performing weddings or helping a family whose home has just burned down, churches do much more and are much more than a method of control by which to spread religion.
The last thing that the poorest of churches that exist among the poorest of people is to take from them. This is most obvious in the fact the poorest and least economically privileged of communities are net receivers of moneys from larger, wealthier congregations, whether it be through mainline or evangelical Protestant denominations or the Catholic church. The poorest tithe little or nothing and both the clergy and church buildings are supported by wealthier congregations.
And that's not even getting into the role of clergymen in the past half century in speaking out against injustice and oppression, from liberation theologist Catholics of Latin America, passive resistance black church leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr to the Buddhist monks of Burma.
Buk, do yourself a favor and stop listening to Sam Harris so much. His attitudes are as much harmful as they are helpful.
Sam Harris is beyond his intellectual reach on every subject. He picks the low hanging fruit, as that is all him and his followers can reach.
Him and Bukowski's enemies also fit with the places America is continually bombing the fuck out of. Which is more a dangerous and destructive ideology than Islam imo. Chomsky drilled a hole in Harris's ass over that. It has become a vehicle for people of mediocre intelligence to feel smarter and ethical than people. Lazily. It is a labor saving device. Like conspiracy theories. The topics that Sam Harris covers -- nobody should read Sam Harris on. He adds nothing to them. He writes philosophy "booklets".
They also obviously have an emotional connection to religion. They orbit it. They think about religion, and it consumes their life, more than most religious people. They are chained to it, in a reactionary pattern. It still controls them, and they shadow it. Follow its motion.
Insipid writer, you pretend to draw for your readers
The portraits of your 3 impostors;
How is it that, witlessly, you have become the fourth?
Why, poor enemy of the supreme essence,
Do you confuse Mohammed and the Creator,
And the deeds of man with God, his author?...
Criticize the servant, but respect the master.
God should not suffer for the stupidity of the priest:
Let us recognize this God, although he is poorly served.
My lodging is filled with lizards and rats;
But the architect exists, and anyone who denies it
Is touched with madness under the guise of wisdom.
Consult Zoroaster, and Minos, and Solon,
And the martyr Socrates, and the great Cicero:
They all adored a master, a judge, a father.
This sublime system is necessary to man.
It is the sacred tie that binds society,
The first foundation of holy equity,
The bridle to the wicked, the hope of the just.
If the heavens, stripped of his noble imprint,
Could ever cease to attest to his being,
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Let the wise man announce him and kings fear him.
Kings, if you oppress me, if your eminencies disdain
The tears of the innocent that you cause to flow,
My avenger is in the heavens: learn to tremble.
-Voltaire