1. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107796 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 5, 2008 at 11:29 am

Here's a little review I found on jewishjournal.com. It seems the religious have a different take on who "won" than most of the pundits here:


Rabbi David Wolpe and Sam Harris:
Can something like "faith" unproved by science be real? The only event of the fest to sell out, Rabbi Wolpe's hometown cheerleaders came out in full force to hear their beloved rabbi obliterate Sam Harris's scientific claims against God and religion. Being that neither side believes the other has a cogent argument, it's a difficult debate to have, but Wolpe did it much better with Stephen J. Gould back in '99. Harris was just uninteresting. It was the end of faith in science and religion being treated in the same realm - they are simply categorically different!

2. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107634 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 9:43 pm

Etny,

I don't know much about buddhism, but I have read the End of Faith, where Sam writes about this and is very clear on where he stands. The point is, there's no convenient label for that place yet. He advocates a sort of rational spirituality, which as a concept is pretty new. The reason he might seem somewhat stuck on the subject, from your point of view, is that he's one of very few atheists open to this idea and so he's always alone in having to defend and explain it.

3. Can Atheists Be Parents?

Comment #107577 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm

ChrisMcL, calm down.

It's a case from 1970. It has longsince been overturned. (38 years ago is still too close for comfort, mind you)

4. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107568 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 6:57 pm

@ 45. Comment #107550 by Darkhorse

I hate D'Souza. His only tactic (very succesful) is to disperse so much BS in so few words, that it would take forever to refute ALL of it. Plus, he's a claimer. He's a guy who will claim anything and everything for Christianity. I've seen him claim that civilisation itself was a christian invention. This is something the rabbi was also driving at, saying pre-monotheistic societies were barbaric. Never mind the Greeks or the Romans... or the Chinese...
..or the Egyptians....

5. Can Atheists Be Parents?

Comment #107513 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Considering the fact that "In God we Trust" was lobbied onto US currency, that "under God" was bullied into the Pledge of Alliagence (completely ruining the rithm by the way), all while under the supposed protection off the seperation of church and state, it seems obvious that we need to stay vigilant.

I wonder why religious moderates don't understand that the wall of seperation is there also for their benefit. Maybe we should point this out in public more often.

6. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #107502 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 4:22 pm

I'm with Janus on this one. You shouldn't need 18 posts to say how depressed you are and how you don't trust humanity. We get it. It's not a constructive mode of conversation.

Diacanu should try reading some science fiction by Iain M. Banks. And if that doesn't work, try religion, that might cheer you up.

If I want a discussion with people who think humanity is wretched and not to be trusted, I'll go to a church.

7. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107474 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 3:15 pm

@ 22. Comment #107466 by troyreynolds86

Troy, I think Sam took a whack at it here, but there's only so much you can say in response to obscurantist mumbojumbo. Maybe he should have called the rabbi out on that, but it would have been risky considering how skillfully Wolpe made his BS sound plausible.

8. Huckabee: Guns, God and rock'n'roll

Comment #107471 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 3:09 pm

The scary thing is, Huckabee is a nice guy. If it wasn't for most of his politics, his affiliation to a political party that's out to destroy government itself, or the fact that he obviously cannot be trusted to accurately observe reality, I could actually see myself voting for him. (not that I'm an American or anything)

9. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107462 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 2:54 pm

I had not seen this before. And yes, Sam is my favorite horseman (so to speak). He's less dry dan RD and very clearheaded and convincing. Dennett is good, but sometimes to difficult/technical for the average moderately religious doubter. And I like Hitchens, but he can be harsh and uninviting, and he sometimes use the kind of debate-trickery I detest so much.

Anyway, I do think Sam missed a couple of oppertunities here. The rabbi kinda got away with claiming God as a non-scientific hypothesis, which is wrong. Sam should have pressed him on stemcell research. If the soul is a non-scientific entity, then how can it influence our real-world scientific view on stemcell research? And if it can, does the soul then not fall within the grasp of science by way of inference?

And with the whole Stalin/Hitler thing, he could have indeed mentioned the US, Sweden, The Netherlands etc. Every succesful prosperous democracy on our planet has embraced the values of the Enlightenment. He did well in that argument regardless, I think.

10. Can Atheists Be Parents?

Comment #107355 by BlessedCheesemaker on January 4, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Anybody read the supreme court ruling? There's an dissenting opinion of one of the judges, saying he agrees with the overturning, but disagrees with the court ruling because it justifies the inquiry into Burke's beliefs in the first place.

Seems like there are actual standards to be met if you want to be a **supreme** court judge. Although, there's always Scalia to testify to the contrary.