Sam Harris: ‘God’s Rottweiler’ Barks

[Freedom_from_Chains]

AP/ Jens Meyer
Pope Benedict XVI turns back to wave to the pilgrims as he climbs the stairs of a stage prior to celebrating a public mass at the fair ground in Munich, southern Germany, on Sunday morning, Sept. 10, 2006. German-born Pope Benedict XVI pays a six-day visit to his Bavarian homeland from Sept. 9 to Sept. 14, 2006.

[greyl]

1. Wow, great piece.

I like the conclusion.

The West is endangered, primarily, by the religious fragmentation of the human community, by religious impediments to clear thinking, and by the religious willingness of millions to sacrifice the real possibility of happiness in this world for a fantasy of a world to come. We are living in a world where untold millions of grown men and women can rationalize the violent sacrifice of their own children by recourse to fairy tales. We are living in world where millions of Muslims believe that there is nothing better than to be killed in defense of Islam. We are living in a world in which millions of American Christians hope to soon be raptured into the sky by Jesus so that they can safely enjoy the holy genocide that will inaugurate the end of human history. We are living in a world in which a silly old priest, by merely giving voice to his religious inanities, could conceivably start a war with 1.4 billion Muslims who take their own inanities in deadly earnest. These are real dangers. And they are not dangers for which more “Biblical faith” is a remedy.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

2. Sam always writes some real good stuff, very clear. n/t

[NAO]

3. Sam Harris: ‘God’s Rottweiler’ (aka Pope Joey Ratz) Barks

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060916_sam_harris_rottweiler_barks

excerpt:

The world is still talking about the pope’s recent speech—a speech so boring, convoluted and oblique to the real concerns of humanity that it could well have been intended as a weapon of war. It might start a war, in fact, given that it contained a stupendously derogatory appraisal of Islam. For some reason, the Holy Father found it necessary to quote the Emperor Manual II Paleologos, who said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman....” Now the Muslim world is buzzing with pious rage. It’s a pity that Pope Benedict doesn’t also draw cartoons. Joining a craven chorus of terrified supplicants, The New York Times has urged him to muster a “deep and persuasive’’ apology. He now appears to be mincing his way toward the performance of just such a feat.

While the pope succeeded in enraging millions of Muslims, the main purpose of his speech was to chastise scientists and secularists for being, well, too reasonable. It seems that nonbelievers still (perversely) demand too much empirical evidence and logical support for their worldview. Believing that he was cutting to the quick of the human dilemma, the pope reminded an expectant world that science cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps: It cannot, for instance, explain why the universe is comprehensible at all. It turns out that this is a job for… (wait for it) … Christianity. Why is the world susceptible to rational understanding? Because God made it that way. While the pope is not much of a conjurer, many intelligent and well-intentioned people imagined they actually glimpsed a rabbit in this old hat. Andrew Sullivan, for instance, praised the pope’s “deep and complicated” address for its “clarity and openness.” Here is the heart of the pope’s argument, excerpted from his concluding remarks. I have added my own commentary throughout...

“I likewise profess that in the Mass a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice is offered to God on behalf of the living and the dead, and that the Body and the Blood, together with the soul and the divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly, really, and substantially present in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, and there is a change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into Blood; and this change the Catholic Mass calls transubstantiation. I also profess that the whole and entire Christ and a true sacrament is received under each separate species.” - Joey Ratz (whose previous job was Grand Inquisitor)

While one can always find a Catholic who is reluctant to admit that cannibalism lies at the heart of the faith, there is no question whatsoever that the Church intends the above passage to be read literally. The real presence of the body and blood of Christ at the Mass is to be understood as a material fact. As such, this is a claim about the physical world. It is, as it happens, a perfectly ludicrous claim about the physical world. (Unlike most religious claims, however, the doctrine of Transubstantiation is actually falsifiable. It just happens to be false.) Despite the pope’s solemn ruminations on the subject, reason is not so elastic as to encompass the favorite dogmas of Catholicism. Needless to say, the virgin birth of Jesus, the physical resurrection of the dead, the entrance of an immortal soul into the zygote at the moment of conception, and almost every other article of the Catholic faith will land in the same, ill-dignified bin. These are beliefs that Catholics hold without sufficient reason. They are, therefore, unreasonable. There is no broadening of the purview of 21st-century rationality that can, or should, embrace them.

full post here:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060916_sam_harris_rottweiler_barks/

[autorank]

4. What's with pissing everybody off (Scientists, Moslems...)

I simply don't understand this approach. Is he in a "smiting" mood.

The previous Pope was very conservative in doctrine but he want out of his way to reconcile with
Jews and Moslems...really amazing efforts, at least as I read about them.

Strange days!

[NAO]

6. Remember, this Pope was the Grand Inquisitor. Really.

Most people are aware of his shenanigans as a Hitler Youth, but few realize that he is the "Torquemada of Our Time" and that his job prior to becoming Pope was Grand Inquisitor.

Sure, they changed the name of the Inquisition to something more polite sounding - "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" but it is the same body as the Medieval Inquisition. By the same sort of "Apostolic Succession" that they use to claim that the current Pope is ordained by Jesus thru Peter and and unbroken chain...so Joey Ratz has claim to "Inquisitorial Succession" from Torquemada to himself, prior to being made Pope.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Sam Harris nails it in one sentence:

It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as ‘evil’ and ‘inhuman’ before 250,000 onlookers and the world press, is now talking about a ‘genuine dialogue of cultures.’

Now while plenty of people here will no doubt make the argument that Sam isn't going to win any prizes for being Mr. Congeniality either, it's almost impossible to argue with him on this point.

[NAO]

7. Harris: "It’s a pity that Pope Benedict doesn’t also draw cartoons."

Now THAT was funny.

[beam me up scottie]

8. The dinosaur in a prom dress, as onager likes to call him, is putting

the final nails in his mighty Church's coffin.

From what I've seen, American catholics are not going to let him drag them back to the dark ages. I only hope the rest of the world's educated catholics join them and decide to evict the current residents of the Vatican.

Just think about how all of that art, history and wealth could benefit society if it were in the right hands.

[papau]

9. Sam's book "Letter to a Christian Nation" is a 9/06 release - wish he'd

finish up that PHD he has been working on for so long that he says will prove that religious belief is just bad DNA that has produced brain wiring with less logic than that in the superior humans that he hangs with.

LOL! :-)

BUT HE DOES BELIEVE STRONGLY - AND I LIKE A FELLOW THAT BELIEVES STRONGLY.

And he writes well.

:-)

[Freedom_from_Chains]

10. He is very clear in his writing, much clearer than I could ever hope

to be but he says the same things I have known for years. I am still working through "The End of Faith." It is taking me so long because I research his cites and they are all dead on.

[papau]

11. He is clear - and the cites are legitimate - but IMHO they do not prove

his case for just about anything. But then as a believer, I see those like Sam as similar to the blind, not able to see either the truth that is so obvious to believers, nor the rational (rationality is a much broader term than logic, as it includes "uncertain but sensible" arguments based on probability, expectation, personal experience and the like) thought that is behind that belief. So I doubt that we will ever agree on anything religious... :-)

But he writes from a point of view, and writes well in presenting that point of view, being especially good at speaking to those that already believe as he does.

[smirkymonkey]

12. Hey, don't insult Rottweilers!

They happen to be one of my favorite dog breeds. Come on, who's cuter?

Him?



Or Him?