Sam Harris talks with Bart D. Ehrman, writer and professor of religious studies at University of North Carolina. I found this talk to be very interesting and informative, not the usual “religious debate” we’ve heard a hundred times. Whatever beliefs you adhere to, I highly recommend it.

 

https://samharris.org/podcasts/what-is-christianity/

 

Long, but good!

Im a christian,but i hate religion. Feel free to question me lol.Everytime i say that they look at me like an Alien.
Ill listen to that,thanks <3

Interesting talk, 1 point

christainy, 2 points

sam harris. 3 points

 

 

You have a budget of three points. Spend wisely.

I take it you don’t find Sam Harris very interesting?

 

I can see why someone wouldn’t, but I myself find his slow, but well-phrased speech and dry humor appealing . But more importantly, he discusses a wide variety of topics on his podcast, which I’m usually very interested in.

I take it you don’t find Sam Harris very interesting?

 

I can see why someone wouldn’t, but I myself find his slow, but well-phrased speech and dry humor appealing . But more importantly, he discusses a wide variety of topics on his podcast, which I’m usually very interested in.

 

Sam Harris is a hack and a fraud, an absolute joke of a scientist who bought his Phd. He's a race science promoting, self aggrandizing, triballist prick. When he does say anything interesting, he's almost universally plagiarizing (sorry, popularizing without attribution) from someone more qualified than he is, more often he prefers to wallow in his own ignorance and mouth off about topics he has no grounding or expertise in. He's a shithead who has on more than one occasion proposed preemptively nuking the middle east would be a great idea. He supports fuckwiit anti science wingnuts like Ben Carson, he's the kind of atheist who things that christians should be prefered to muslims and that we should encourage Christians to proselytize in order to erase islam as a religion and that america should institute religious tests for immigration and refugee claims. And of course recently he's devoted a nice chunk of effort towards sucking off Jordan Peterson and oh fuck that. 

 

Him and the rest of his little metoos are why I've checked so goddamn hard out of the secularist movement because apparently they can't go 6 months without delving into eugenics nonsense, race science and other such bullshit. Of the rest of the new atheists, Dawkins at least has the decency to be a semi competent scientist, Dennett an actually competent philosopher, and Hitchens, for all his faults was at least intelligent and entertaining. Sam harris shares none of those virtues 

 

Basically fuck him. 

Basically, none of what you just said is true, but it seems pointless to try and convince you.

 

It does explain why you like Buzzfeed’s “investigative journalism” though.

Basically, none of what you just said is true, but it seems pointless to try and convince you.

 

It does explain why you like Buzzfeed’s “investigative journalism” though.

 

 

Raise your hand if you've dealt with sam harris personally.

 

*looks around*

 

Now i could get into the couple of times i've met him, and the times he's said some of that shit to my face, but let's just take a fairly recent public quote

 

 

 

"People don’t want to hear that a person's intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person's intelligence even in childhood."

 

"People" (which here, he's defacto defining as anyone in the fields of education or the study of cognition) don't want to hear it because it's absolute and utter bullshit that was discredited before sam harris was even born.  

 

he is absolutely full of shit. He's such a joke of a scientist that Dennent has on more than one occasion trashed his work. He's a neuroscientist in that he bought his Phd (and yea he did, writing the thesis and defending it halfway competently is the easy bit. The hard bit is finding a topic worth researching so you can get funding, which isn't a problem when your own charity provides you the grants), and managed to publish two whole papers? Most of which are considered absolutely shit by anyone with a background in either neuroscience or statistics. THere's a couple good bits of writing ripping his thesis to shreds out there, go find them. 

 

 

I mean, at least Sam Harris hasn't molested anyone I know, so I'll take him over some of the other alternatives I could name, but you know, low bar. 

 

Raise your hand if you've dealt with sam harris personally.

 

*looks around*

 

Now i could get into the couple of times i've met him, and the times he's said some of that shit to my face, but let's just take a fairly recent public quote

 

 

Haven’t met him personally, but I did watch him debate numerous topics. His arguments are logical and consistent. As four your meeting not going well with him... that’s pretty anecdotal man. I’m sure there were many people that met him and liked him.

 

 

 

 

 

"People don’t want to hear that a person's intelligence is in large measure due to his or her genes and there seems to be very little we can do environmentally to increase a person's intelligence even in childhood."

 

"People" (which here, he's defacto defining as anyone in the fields of education or the study of cognition) don't want to hear it because it's absolute and utter bullshit that was discredited before sam harris was even born. 

 

Or maybe by “people” he’s referring to the general public who are fed the bullshit that any dullard kid can be the next John von Neumann if only they tried hard enough. Or maybe he is referring to the experts, because the truth is that there is absolutely no consensus on just how much intelligence is defined by genetic VS epigenetic factors. There are those that claim it’s almost 100% determined by genetics and there are those that say it’s almost 100% nurture. I think it’s about 60-40% in favor of genetics, but the verdict is still out on that. Of course you also need to take a long hard look at how you actually measure intelligence, because various testing methods can bring widely different results.

 

Also, one sentence? Without any context?

 

 

 

he is absolutely full of shit. He's such a joke of a scientist that Dennent has on more than one occasion trashed his work. He's a neuroscientist in that he bought his Phd (and yea he did, writing the thesis and defending it halfway competently is the easy bit. The hard bit is finding a topic worth researching so you can get funding, which isn't a problem when your own charity provides you the grants), and managed to publish two whole papers? Most of which are considered absolutely shit by anyone with a background in either neuroscience or statistics. THere's a couple good bits of writing ripping his thesis to shreds out there, go find them. 

 

Because EVEREY person with a PhD HAS to be a researcher, right? Well guess what, I know multiple people with PhDs and none of them are doing research. You know, their interests could lie elsewhere, like working for multinationals, or NGOs, or doing podcasts on a variety of interesting topics.

 

 

 

I mean, at least Sam Harris hasn't molested anyone I know, but you know so I'll take him over some of the other alternatives I could name, but you know, low bar. 

 

Krauss’ conduct was certainly inappropriate and sometimes abusive, there is enough evidence to establish that, even if they were presented in a horribly biased fashion by your investigative champions of truth. That said, he didn’t rape anyone, didn’t actually hurt anyone, besides creating some awkward and uncomfortable situations. He’s no Harvey Weinstain, no matter how badly you want to paint him like that.

Haven’t met him personally, but I did watch him debate numerous topics. His arguments are logical and consistent. As four your meeting not going well with him... that’s pretty anecdotal man. I’m sure there were many people that met him and liked him.

 

Oh it has nothing to do with disliking him personally, although I certainly don't like him either (although he is at least personable enough). He has however and to my face decried the fact it's taboo to discuss genetic differences in the discussion of racial disparity in the USA, has repeatedly gone into how all muslims are extremists (because the ones who aren't, aren't true muslims!), and for some reason likes fringe possibilities that result in us needing to take extreme violent action in the middle east (I recall at least two "plausible" excuses for why we should seriously consider one day having to nuke the middle east, including, and I shit you not, Al Qaeda developing ICBMs). He's walked the latter of that back over the last few years (including retroactively editing some of his articles from the early and mid oughts to make it seem more reasonable), but his motivations are god damn transparent. He's every bit a much a fundamentalist bigot as the religious fundamentalists . 

 

Because EVEREY person with a PhD HAS to be a researcher, right? Well guess what, I know multiple people with PhDs and none of them are doing research. You know, their interests could lie elsewhere, like working for multinationals, or NGOs, or doing podcasts on a variety of interesting topics.

 And if he didn't tout himself as a neuroscientist or use that as a crutch to justify his positions, I might not care. But when he's done a minimum of such work, and his phd thesis was something he funed out of his own charity with a specific goal in mind and includes such headdesk worthy things as

 

While gradations of belief are certainly worth investigating, our experiment sought to characterize belief and disbelief in their purest form. It was, therefore, essential that we exclude subjects who could not consistently respond “true” or “false” with conviction. Our decision to exclude data from subjects whose answers were not consistent with our pre-screening criteria was part of our original design and was not made based on any evaluation of the scanning data (the fMRI data from these subjects were never analyzed). While we adopted the criteria of excluding anyone who responded to one category of statements with less than 90% predictability, the 7 subjects who were excluded on this basis had responses that ranged from 22% to 43% discord with the expected responses. (For instance, one subject who passed our initial screening as a nonbeliever actually agreed with 43% of the religious Christian statements once inside the scanner.)

 

 

That's "we chose to exclude data that we figured was not consistent with our thesis" if you didn't catch that. 

 

I have zero patience for it. He managed to earn a Phd in neuroscience . This makes him about as qualified as a scientist as Deepak Chopra.

 

 

even if they were presented in a horribly biased fashion by your investigative champions of truth.

 

 

Now not only did I not mention krauss, so no need to defend him, you appear to have misread my comment. 

 

I mean, at least Sam Harris hasn't molested anyone I know, so I'll take him over some of the other alternatives I could name, but you know, low bar. 

 

That is not "anyone to my knowledge", I'm referring to a specific incident involving a fairly prominent member of the "skeptics" community and a good friend of mine and what he did to her as well as the bullshit that was spread publicly afterwards. I've not dealt with Krauss personally, nor to my knowledge anyone i know other than perhaps some passing acquaintances. That said, the allegations about krauss are something I've known about for close onto a decade now.  

 

 

There is a reason why I noped so hard out of this shit in the last decade. I got out of the stupid religious bullshit  pseudo cult using religion as a justification for their own bigoted bullshit, found what was at the time  a welcoming community, that over time has gotten taken over by a stupid bullshit pseudo cult using "rationalism" as a justification for their own bigoted bullshit. Sam harris was and is a big part of this. 

I think Random should tell us how he really feels. I'm not a religious man... but my eldest daughter is, and she happens to be infatuated with this guy. I like the movies, but there is more to this guy than most know.

To my dearest daughter, and my very first born... you have my approval to marry him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=EihqXHqxri0

Im a christian,but i hate religion. Feel free to question me lol.Everytime i say that they look at me like an Alien.

Ill listen to that,thanks <3

Elaborate.

 

I actually complete agree with you.

Oh it has nothing to do with disliking him personally, although I certainly don't like him either (although he is at least personable enough). He has however and to my face decried the fact it's taboo to discuss genetic differences in the discussion of racial disparity in the USA, has repeatedly gone into how all muslims are extremists (because the ones who aren't, aren't true muslims!), and for some reason likes fringe possibilities that result in us needing to take extreme violent action in the middle east (I recall at least two "plausible" excuses for why we should seriously consider one day having to nuke the middle east, including, and I shit you not, Al Qaeda developing ICBMs). He's walked the latter of that back over the last few years (including retroactively editing some of his articles from the early and mid oughts to make it seem more reasonable), but his motivations are god damn transparent. He's every bit a much a fundamentalist bigot as the religious fundamentalists .

 

1, Wait, so now, you are claiming that he is aversive in discussing the genetic differences in racial disparity within the US, and yet, you accuse him in promoting race science? I believe he made his position clear that while he finds it objectionable that authors like Charles Murray are witch-hunted by the left on a purely ideological basis, and without actually addressing the validity of his research on scientific grounds, he himself is uninterested in the topic and questions whether inquiries in this field and especially a public debate can be fruitful at this time. I don’t see how that point of view is so horrendous.

 

2, Not going into the Muslim thing, there was a time when I made long topics on it, and I feel like I debated the thing to death. It all goes down to how you define “true” Muslims, but the fact is that claiming to be one doesn’t mean one qualifies. With Islam you pretty much HAVE to live a life as prescribed in the Quran, and it turns out, that’s not how most Muslims actually live (thank goodness!)

 

3, Nuking the Middle East. I don’t even know where you got this one. I have never seen any evidence of him even hinting at this.

 

And if he didn't tout himself as a neuroscientist or use that as a crutch to justify his positions, I might not care. But when he's done a minimum of such work, and his phd thesis was something he funed out of his own charity with a specific goal in mind and includes such headdesk worthy things as

 

 

While gradations of belief are certainly worth investigating, our experiment sought to characterize belief and disbelief in their purest form. It was, therefore, essential that we exclude subjects who could not consistently respond “true” or “false” with conviction. Our decision to exclude data from subjects whose answers were not consistent with our pre-screening criteria was part of our original design and was not made based on any evaluation of the scanning data (the fMRI data from these subjects were never analyzed). While we adopted the criteria of excluding anyone who responded to one category of statements with less than 90% predictability, the 7 subjects who were excluded on this basis had responses that ranged from 22% to 43% discord with the expected responses. (For instance, one subject who passed our initial screening as a nonbeliever actually agreed with 43% of the religious Christian statements once inside the scanner.)

 

 

That's "we chose to exclude data that we figured was not consistent with our thesis" if you didn't catch that.

 

I have zero patience for it. He managed to earn a Phd in neuroscience . This makes him about as qualified as a scientist as Deepak Chopra.

If you have a PhD in Neuroscience, that - by definition - makes you a Neuroscientist. You might not make a living by doing research, it doesnt automatically mean that you are absolute top authority in the field, but it does mean that you are fairly competent in the field

 

I have not read the original thesis, but it seems like he’s making the necessary delimitations to a study, which is an absolute prerequisite of any experiment. In fact eliminating the “outliers” is routine procedure in almost all scientific examinations. As long as the researcher:

 

1, Notes and explains why certain subjects where excluded

2, Draws conclusions with the understanding and within the scope of their own critera

3, Suggests new avenues of research to nuance his findings

 

It’s all good. Seems to me like Harris is just doing his homework. I suspect that you are someone who understands how scientific research is conducted, the fact that you find that quote problematic, hints at an ideological bias. Pity.

 

 

That is not "anyone to my knowledge", I'm referring to a specific incident involving a fairly prominent member of the "skeptics" community and a good friend of mine and what he did to her as well as the bullshit that was spread publicly afterwards. I've not dealt with Krauss personally, nor to my knowledge anyone i know other than perhaps some passing acquaintances. That said, the allegations about krauss are something I've known about for close onto a decade now.

Sorry, then I don’t really know what you’re hinting at. It seems like some sort of personal grievance which I’m always careful to take at face value.

 

There is a reason why I noped so hard out of this shit in the last decade. I got out of the stupid religious bullshit pseudo cult using religion as a justification for their own bigoted bullshit, found what was at the time a welcoming community, that over time has gotten taken over by a stupid bullshit pseudo cult using "rationalism" as a justification for their own bigoted bullshit. Sam harris was and is a big part of this.

It seems to me like the New Atheist movement stopped functioning as a movement some time after the death of Hitchens. I think this is to a large part because the topics it was driving at the time have entered mainstream discussion. Since this was one of the main goals all along, everyone kind of set off to pursue their own interests, which isn’n necessarily bad. Among Harris’ listeners you find a wide variety of people from classical liberal Atheists to moderate conservative Christians. The two groups he consistently pisses off are the Alt-right and the the Regressive Left. If one can do that, I find it to be a good indicator of being on the right path.

 

Side note: doing quote tags on an iPad is a serious pain in the ass