Sam Harris: The God Fraud

6 Jan, 2010 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Humour, Religious Values, Science Values, Values, War

God May Be Dead But Damned if I Am

 

I n her recent outing in Foreign Policy Magazine, noted apologist, Karen Armstrong, says Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins:

  “  … are wrong … about human nature.

Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus.

As soon as we became recognizably human, men and women started to create religions. We are meaning-seeking creatures.

While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives.

Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues.

So God isn’t going anywhere.

And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults.

Whether we like it or not, God is here to stay, and it’s time we found a way to live with him in a balanced, compassionate manner.

Or in other words, god may be dead but don’t let’s upset the natives – they’ve got guns and bombs and exploding underwear and if you’re unkind to them they might set them off.

So let’s pretend for the sake of a peaceful life that he’s not dead, okay? And after all, the human diddums is fragile and if we tell her there is no objective meaning “out there” diddums might cry.

I don’t know about you but when you read her article do you get the awful feeling of sly inauthenticity and wheedling manipulation all for the sake of her desperation for … what? Her own frantic need for a sense of her own meaning, probably. The fact that people may naturally, in a search for meaning, have conjured up an imaginary friend doesn’t make the imaginary friend either real, or worthy of respect or protection.

If there are no gods then there are no gods – end of story. No point in the prolonging the fantasy. And, by the way, there is no evidence that there is one.

Anyway, we can’t respond to the Armstrong nonsense nearly as neatly as Sam Harris’s reply:

“  In her article (“Think Again: God,” November 2009), Karen Armstrong discovers that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and I have mistaken “fundamentalism” for the totality of religion. (Sorry about that.) But do Richard and Christopher really hold religion responsible for “all human cruelty”? That is a surprise. I hadn’t realized that they were idiots.

In any case, I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).

[ … ]

But in Kenya elderly men and women are still burned alive for casting malicious spells. In Angola, unlucky boys and girls have been blinded, injected with battery acid, and killed outright in an effort to purge them of demons. In Tanzania, there is a growing criminal trade in the body parts of albino human beings — as it is widely believed that their flesh has magical properties.

I hope that Armstrong will soon apply her capacious understanding of human nature to these phenomena.

[ … ]

People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway — and who among us hasn’t wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my “new atheist” colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here.

Read his whole reply here.

[Armstrong’s response to Harris is upsettingly whining, disingenuous, special pleading, illogical and just nonsense. She seems to want a “dialogue” about the existence or not of a god but the existence is not open to question.] 

 

R’Amen (and may his noodley appendage be upon you)

 

 

Thank you for reading this far!  You might think producing a post like this takes a bit of work. 
It does! If you’ve appreciated it you might consider encouraging me. ( We all like validation! )   

Buy Me A Coffee

All posts

Categories

You might also like:

Trust Me…I’m From the Feds…

  Wha..!? I woun’t not of never of dun nuffink so bad like wot you say!   ederal agent Bruce Pegg, who interviewed Mr Ul-Haque in prison, told NSW Supreme Court judge Michael Adams he had done nothing improper by questioning Mr Ul-Haque...

Australian Refujesus Exhibition

Minister von Rock Opens Australian Refujesus Exhibition 15 October, 2006 The Australian Minister for Pacific Island Guano Getaways and Internment (PIGGI), Mistress von Rock, has opened a very tasteful photographic exhibition of pathetically grateful boat people to...

The Whoredom of Philip Ruddock

An Unfinished Canvas hey had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them… Between rim and robe naught was there to see, save only a deadly gleam of eyes… And they became forever invisible and they entered...

Just a Question

   When menace lurks behind every door    f the Israelis approached civilian craft in international waters with the intention to – and in fact did – board, take control of and then tow, or with armed force cause, those craft to land in an...

The Devil Rides Again

  es, Dick ("Dick") Cheney has thrown off the coffin-lid; with a sulphurous emanation he has emerged from the flames of his hell; and he has spoken to a human – Martha Raddatz of American ABC News – about the War in Iraq and of his deathly dominion...

Disembowel the Leader

Lord Water Cunntiham in High Spirits!   We have received news from our Dear Leader, Lord Water Cunntiham, that he is in high spirits today. Very high spirits indeed! There is a definite spring in his trackie-suited step today! Yes, girls and boys, the Labor Party...

Lynton Crosby Outed

  . . . as Dutton’s Mews Muse (probably)   ir Roger has it on authority from multiple sources that the “Dead Cat on the Table” ploy, most recently fed to and trotted out by Peter Dutton, is the signature work of one Lynton Crosby....

Not Fade Away

Howard tries to remember something before it (or he) fades away....   rime Minister John Howard will call the Federal Election this week¹, probably Wednesday, according to pundits, Canberra insiders and the entrails of the Apec monster which...

Realty Reality

It's All Upside Down (and we know it) MC Escher understood the madness. Up is down, inside out is outside in, right is left and theft is might and nothing is what it seems, though that is all we have, and we try to make sense of a world that is incomprehensible.  And...

Chateau Quelquechose

  Gone out the window   e were on the train this morning and for the first time in a long time noticed the truly stuffed in our society and how comprehensively invisible they are to most of us. “Stuffed” in the bad way, not 'stuffed' like...

Three Stooges

Howard's 3 Stooges   redictably enough, the rightwing’s stooges are being wheeled out to divert the taint of almost inevitable defeat away from John Howard. Downer “Larry” Downer is a self-deluding fop and a dandy. He’s a joke. But as long as...

Lolcats With a Vengeance

Sir Roger is despondent   fter all the hard work of so many people Australian politics is looking like Howard Lite, iSuck 2.0 déjà vu all over again. Boat people – “Aaaaarrrggghh! Foreigners! Tough on Queue-jumpers [but not on the causes of...

Swallowing Bullshit Whole

Buying the War - Bill Moyers How did the mainstream press get it so wrong about Iraq?   his may be the most “important” video you will see this year. It’s a special program from Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Buying the War is a careful,...

A Moron in a Hurry – Part 1

Send out the Pages WARNING: POLITICAL DISCUSSION PROTECTED BY SECTIONS 7 AND 24 OF THE AUSTRALIAN CONSTITUTION.    S ir Roger (or at least his amanuensis) was harried recently by the legal department of a minor university which happens to accommodate a “controlled...

Jefferson Says – Reboot

President Kennedy told a gathering of Nobel Prize winners at the White House, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas...

Disaster Capitalism

  In other news… Better the devil you know?   oward’s appeal on 60 Minutes tonight fits right into the well-worn Disaster Strategy.   On the one hand: “you’ve never had it so good” but on the other: “these are savage, uncertain and...

Bankruptcy & Lies

Paedophile Bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe Pope Shocked. Shocked!   wish I had written this, because I agree wholeheartedly with what she says. I wish I had written what she wrote but thank goodness she did. Joan Smith’s whole article in...

DIC to the Rescue!

Life-Hack: How to satisfy yourself!    e reported yesterday [Black Breath of the Nazgûl] that the terrorist legislation implicitly requires you to satisfy yourself that anyone to whom you provide a service, item or product of any kind —  which...

Lord Roger Migently?

Back to the Regency Future   ir Roger Migently, as you must surely realise, has been quite unwell. He has been managed like an unlucky skier in an induced coma these many months since September 2013, when the floor of the Migently Mansions...

Costello and Iran

Peter Costello reaching out to his future subjects Our loyal visitors,   anting to know how to react to Peter Costello’s decision to disappear up his own arse at long last, may have been waiting with bated breath to hear Sir Roger’s wisdom on...

Trump – Can He Lose?

Snake Oil & Fury  T here's no argument amongst Trump's enemies, his grovelling enablers, and even among millions of his supporters, that Trump is a professional liar, and that"liar"  defines almost the entirety of Trump's persona. It is not possible to listen...

Oliver Sacks and “Soul Murder”

 After:  Oliver Sacks  by Luigi Novi  9.13.09 . . . the arms that long for love   ir Roger was listening to the ABC Science Show today. It was Robyn Williams’ homage to Oliver Sacks (Awakenings, The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat, Seeing...

Thomas Paine on David Hicks

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.”

Pardon Us – We Missed the Logic

We’re just a bit confused    r Haneef has been charged with recklessly providing resources to a terrorist organisation (to wit, a sim card). The alleged recklessness occurred in the UK. It did not take place in Australia. There is no...

$20 A Barrel!

  The Murdoch interview with Max Walsh   The way we were n Wednesday, February 12, 2003, Max Walsh conducted an exclusive interview with Rupert Murdoch.    Max Walsh: Let’s start with Iraq and the war because that...

Brave Role Models – Leading from Behind

Pressing Personal Reasons   hose who believe so strongly that Australia ought to be in Iraq and ought to stay there “until the job is done” (leaving aside the problem that no-one has ever explained exactly what “the job” is, or how we will be...

Joan Sutherland and Me

  Vale Saint Joan    ir Roger wishes to make a special personal note of his sadness at the death, of La Stupenda, Dame Joan Sutherland; the loss of one of the truly greats. Her career properly began when “she won a two-year scholarship for...

Haneef “Not Uninnocent”

  The materials available to me While there are inferences that are available from the material I have, I am of the view that they are not sufficiently strong to exclude reasonable hypotheses consistent with innocence.” – Damien Bugg, DPP Did...

Realty Reality

It's All Upside Down (and we know it) MC Escher understood the madness. Up is down, inside out is outside in, right is left and theft is might and nothing is what it seems, though that is all we have, and we try to make sense of a world that is incomprehensible.  And...

We Are Humbled…

…and yet proud…  o have some of our work considered worthy of inclusion amongst the writings of the doyens of the ozblogosphere in the Top 40 collection at OnlineOpinion. The piece the judges have chosen is “The Nation That Hangs Together”. We have...

0 Comments