Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Finally! Sam Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan [UPDATED]

UPDATE: My POLYSEMY colleague, Matthew Dallman, is as skeptical of the atheist position as I am -- in case you are new to IOC, I have been waging my own private war with Sam Harris for more than a year now (search his name within this blog). MD put up a nice post last night after seeing this one. Go check out what he has to say (there are links to previous posts), and the quote he offers from Peter Robinson (The Corner).

***

I stole this from Truthdig because it's too interesting to pass up.
Posted on Jan 17, 2007
Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan


Ladies and gentleman, the main event: The nation’s most prominent atheist dukes it out with one of America’s most eloquent defenders of faith. Check out the opening salvos in their “blogalogue” at Beliefnet or AndrewSullivan.com.

From Sam Harris:

Where I think we disagree is on the nature of faith itself. I think that faith is, in principle, in conflict with reason (and, therefore, that religion is necessarily in conflict with science), while you do not. Perhaps I should acknowledge at the outset that people use the term “faith” in a variety of ways. My use of the word is meant to capture belief in specific religious propositions without sufficient evidence—prayer can heal the sick, there is a Supreme Being listening to our thoughts, we will be reunited with our loved ones after death, etc. I am not criticizing faith as a positive attitude in the face of uncertainty, of the sort indicated by phrases like, “have faith in yourself.” There’s nothing wrong with that type of “faith.”

From Andrew Sullivan:

I’m struck, in other words, by the difference between Christianity as it can be and Christianity as it is expressed by fundamentalists. You are struck by the similarity between my doubt-filled, sacramental, faith-in-forgiveness and fundamentalism. We Christians are all as nutty as one another, I think you’d say. And my prettifying up religion as something not-so-crazy or unreasonable therefore may be more irritating to you than even the profundities of Rick Warren or Monsignor Escriva. At least, that’s where I predict you will aim your next rhetorical fire. I’m braced.

Beliefnet has both posts (so far), so that may be the best venue to pull up a chair, get some popcorn, and watch the (expected) slugfest.


1 comment:

~C4Chaos said...

yawn. where is Wyatt Earpy when you need him :P

~C