An interview with Sam Harris was posted on Beliefnet a few days ago. I know that I am in the minority in being irritated by his inability to see the big picture of human development. Many people enjoy his continual denigration of organized religion. He constantly urges his followers to disabuse those who believe in one of the traditional religions of their presumed ignorance.
As I have suggested here, here, here, here, and here, Harris's hatred of organized religion reveals his own lack of understanding of human development. The Blue meme cannot be removed from the planet; it cannot be convinced that it is wrong; and it is crucial to controlling the egoic power drives of the Red meme. Harris needs to read a whole lot of integral theory, especially Wilber, Kegan, Beck, and Gebser.
Here is the beginning of the interview:
Sam Harris is not your grandfather's atheist. The award-winning writer practices Zen meditation and believes in the value of mystical experiences. But he's adamant in his belief that religion does more harm than good in the world, and has sparked controversy by suggesting that when it comes to faith-based violence, religious moderates are part of the problem, not the solution. Beliefnet editor Laura Sheahen spoke with him about his provocative book "The End of Faith" and his comments at the World Congress of Secular Humanism, where this interview was conducted.
You've said that nonbelievers must try to convince religious people "of the illegitimacy of their core beliefs." Why are these beliefs dangerous?
On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of our lives. We relax so totally that people believe the most ludicrous propositions, and are willing to organize their lives around them. Propositions like "Jesus is going to come back in the next fifty years and rectify every problem that human beings create"--or, in the Muslim world, "death in the right circumstances leads directly to Paradise." These beliefs are not very contaminated with good evidence.
You're saying we should be part of the human race, not part of any particular religious or national group?
Yeah. It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige of that kind of thinking, we're not going to be able to undermine these divisions in our world.
To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam.
Read the whole interview here.
There really is a lot to like in Harris's views, it's simply his tunnel vision and lack of a larger, integral context that makes him dangerous and ineffectual.
Taking on his major point: we cannot convince those who are firmly entrenched in the Blue meme to give up their worldview. Take Christianity, for example, it has the most potent virus protection there is: eternal suffering in hell. Most other major religions have something equally as dreadful (unending reincarnations in samsara, for example).
Harris implicitly assumes that his rationality can defeat what he sees as the irrationality of religious belief. I wonder how that's working for him. There are many fervent believers who are fully capable of rational thought, and yet they still believe.
Anyway, it's a good interview, so go have a look.
Technorati Tags: Sam Harris, Beliefnet, Atheism, Buddhism, Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics
Del.Icio.Us Tags: Sam Harris, Beliefnet, Atheism, Buddhism, Integral Theory, Spiral Dynamics
5 comments:
I think I understand your point, that folks on the level Harris is concerned with, will not "rationalize" themselves upwards into a world-centric meme, and they cannot be coerced into doing that.
On the other hand, I don't really see how Harris's ideas are dangerous, when put beside fundamentalist Muslims or Christians with nuclear weapons.
It's not like cavemen with clubs.
Has any integral thinker proposed a solution to the deadly problem of fundamentalists with nuclear weapons, including George Bush in America? That seems far more dangerous to me than Sam Harris and his ideas.
I don't think Harris is dangerous in the same way that Islamic fundamentalists are dangerous -- or Christian Bible-thumpers, for that matter. He is not brandishing weapons or proposing oppressive laws.
However, if we were to do away with religion as he proposes, the results would be far more catastropic than anything a bunch of fundamentalists could ever accomplish. Let me try to explain.
When liberals (Green meme) decided that religion was an oppressive institution back in the sixties, they worked to remove faith-based community centers and to reduce the influence of churches in our inner cities. The result was the breakdown of Blue meme structure and the unleashing of Red meme ego drives (the rise of urban gangs). Beck has documented this in a few articles (based on Graves' work as far as I know) and talks about it during SDi trainings.
Now imagine the same loss of Blue meme control and structure on a global scale. Imagine the African continent without Islam or Catholicism. Imagine the Middle East and India/Pakistan without Blue meme religious structures to maintain some semblance of order.
Now Harris might argue that the same control could be maintained with a secular system. Yes, and it's called fascism or communism. They aren't so pretty.
The ugly, painful truth is that we need Blue meme religion. Rather than doing away with it, we should be trying to find ways to help it express itself in a more balanced and healthy way.
As for an integral solution to these problems, I am not aware of any. I know that Beck and his groups are working on it. Wilber wrote something after 9/11 that might offer answers, but it's been too long since I've read it to remember.
On the bright side, no one will ever do away with religion.
Peace,
Bill
I appreciate that insight, Bill, and it seems to me that finding "...ways to help it express itself in a more balanced and healthy way..." IS an integral approach, isn't it?
It helps me think of the problem that exists now in the Anglican church, where the majority are in sub-Saharan Africa and feel that literal Biblical interpretation is the only "faithful" reading, and so the liberal non-literalists in Europe/Canada/USA should either stop honoring same-sex relationships, or get out. Being a member of a progressive Episcopal parish, where same-sex blessings are called "weddings", not "blessings", by vote of the vestry, and being gay myself, I have searched for how to think about this. Now, at least, there is this form to the question, and I can ask how to help them express these strong views in a less divisive way.
Many thanks again for this great contribution you make, from a faithful reader.
Mark
Hi Mark,
You are lucky to be in one of the few denominations progressive enough to accept that all who love each other should be allowed to marry before the law and before God.
I want to add a note of caution on the challenges of getting people to think differently.
How people think and feel about their world is the result of the combined influence of life conditions and innate skills. A person can be smart as hell, but if s/he is living in a thrid world country with very limited education, the thinking will reflect that. However, give that smart person a good education, a more progressive social environment and watch his/her worldview evolve (this assumes no severe psychological wounding).
Spiral Dynamics is a bio-psycho-social system -- fully integral. If you really want to help the Anglican Church evolve, look at the book or do a training. SDi really is the best system I have seen for working with whole organizations to facillitate change.
Peace,
Bill
I wish that religion would be done away with. To believe in it's assertions, one has to go against reason and logic. It is just stupid.
And, to state that a state governed without religion would be fascist or communist is simply stating that religion is a fascist/communist institution under a religious guise.
I think people are just too weak, lack the confidence to believe that they are their own gods, and that the world we live in is the now, not the afterlife. When you die, there's a very good chance nothing will happen, your conscience will cease to exist.
We don't need religion for ethical and moral guidelines. Just reason. Don't kill, don't steal, don't lie...seriously, this is just a part of the social agreement, rather than live in a world of violence, we've agreed to live among one another doing unto others as we would wish for ourselves and vice versa.
Religion is what is holding back the progress of the human race, people are DYING...DYING all over the world because of these stupid ignorant beliefs, when we could be advancing ourselves technologically, outward into space, not some made up heaven in the cloud.
I'd also like to note, that people can NEVER prove their irrational idea, and instead propose that people disprove them. That is perhaps one of the most stupidest things I've ever heard of. Imagine I tell you...prove to me that an invisible, untouchable monster doesn't lurk in the closets of all houses. You'll open the door...well, I'll point to the world, and show you that your god doesn't exist, if he did, then small innocent children wouldn't die..the holocaust wouldn't have happened (I could go on)...and don't give me the whole..they're with god now crap.
- JC
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