[Vision2020] Sam Harris, Buddhism, and Atheism

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Hi Ted,
 
Thanks for the additional information on Sam Harris.  I have only read "The End of Faith," but this extra reading simply confirms my opinion that his blanket condemnation of religious faith is not a constructive position at all.
 
With regard to calling him an atheist, I submit that the fact that Harris wrote "An Atheist Manifesto" for Truthdig justifies my use of the term. In "The Sun" interview you provided he then admits that atheism "an unnecessary term."  OK, where does he stand, then?
 
Pew Research is a pretty sober outfit, so I'll join them in calling this gang "secular fundamentalists." Perhaps you did not read to the end of my essay, so here is the conclusion with one word change:

"At the turn of the 20th Century many conservative Christians urged the return to the "fundamentals" of biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ.  Our atheists want everyone to use science and empirical tests as the "fundamentals" for their lives. I certainly prefer the latter to the former, but it is still far from being the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

With regard to Buddhism, I'm very happy that Harris chooses not to call himself a Buddhist, because he disses the entire tradition.  Here are some examples, the first one from your own source:

"And, in any case, 99 percent of Buddhists practice Buddhism as a religion, and therefore are part of the same egregious discourse."

"There are millions of Buddhist who do not seem to know this [that Buddhism is not a religion], and they can be found in temples throughout Southeast Asia, and even the in West, praying to Buddha as though he were a numinous incarnation of Santa Claus" ("End of Faith," p. 283).

On page 284, he strongly implies that the Dalai Lama practices bad faith when he meets with other religious leaders, something that all his admirers would be offended by.

And for someone who has been through the philosophy program at Stanford, I'm amazed at his uncritical acceptance of a dense and impenetrable Buddhist text as "a rigorous empirical document" (ibid., p. 217).  Misusing the term "mysticism," he says that this text expresses mystical truth, which is real non-dualistic truth as opposed to the "dualisms" of superstitious traditional religions.

The following statement would make any scholar of religion frown: "Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. . . . [Mysticism] would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns.  It would also be the end of faith" (ibid., p. 221).  I believe that this is just as much gibberish as some of the religious doctrine that he condemns.

I could go on with comments about what a bad book "The End of Faith" is.  For example, he is very confused and wrong on many examples of religiously motivated violence. And quoting violent passages from scripture doesn't mean that people who believe in that scripture will necessarily be violent. 

We should judge the hundreds of millions of Muslims in moderate Muslim countries by their actions not their alleged beliefs.

 Nick Gier 


At 03:00 PM 6/11/2007, you wrote:
 
Nick et. al.
 
Sam Harris is open to the value in religious traditions, but not the demands for irrational superstitious beliefs for which the evidence is weak.  To emphasize basing beliefs on reason makes someone a "secular fundamentalist?"  This seems a misuse of the word "fundamentalist."  Harris will listen to reason and evidence if it contradicts his views.  A "fundamentalist" will not. 
 
Perhaps you would like to reconsider labeling Sam Harris in this manner, along with including him as a member of the "Atheist Brigade," that, as your phrased it, "seems to forget that we are emotional beings..." 
 
Let's let Sam Harris speak for himself to articulate his arguments regarding the dangers and harm irrational religious belief, even among so called religious moderates, poses in a world posed to destroy itself with weapons of mass destruction. Also read Harris's comments on Buddhism, which he has studied and practiced, a "religion" he recognizes as having value in its traditions.  He even indicates he is open to the evidence for "re-birth."  The whole piece in readable at the link immediately below, and the second link leads to another interview where Harris mentions Jainism as a peaceful religion, along with more discussion of Buddhism: 
 
http://www.truthdig.com/interview/print/20060403_sam_harris_interview/
 
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/369_Harris.pdf
 

You write passionately in your book about the spirituality of Buddhism. How do you describe yourself in terms of your spirituality? 

I don't call myself a Buddhist. I recently wrote an article in the Shambhala Sun, which is one of the more widely read Buddhist magazines, entitled "Killing the Buddha." I essentially argued that that the wisdom of the Buddha is trapped in the religion of Buddhism. The teachings of the Buddha, taken as a whole, probably represent the richest source of contemplative wisdom that we have, but anyone who values these teachings should get out of the religion business. It's the wrong message. And, in any case, 99 percent of Buddhists practice Buddhism as a religion, and therefore are part of the same egregious discourse. 

I think there really is something worth extracting from our contemplative traditions in general, and from Buddhism in particular. It's a phenomenology of meditative experience—what people do and realize when they go into a cave for a year or 10 years and practice meditation. There really is a landscape there that has been brilliantly articulated in Buddhism, and not so brilliantly articulated in some of our other contemplative traditions. And so I think all of this is worth talking about and studying. 

But I don't call myself a Buddhist.  and yet, if you asked me how you should learn to meditate, what books you should read, etc., I'd point you in the direction of Buddhist techniques of meditation, and to the Buddhist literature on the subject. 

So you don't need any recourse to the supernatural in Buddhism? 

The core truths of Buddhism, the truth of selflessness, for instance.  It's simply a fact that it is possible to realize that the ego, as you presently feel it and conceive of it, is an illusion. You can experience the continuum of consciousness without the sense of self.  This experience can be had without believing anything on insufficient evidence. You can simply be taught to look closely enough at your experience, to de-construct the sense of self, and then discover what the consequences are of that happening. And the consequences turn out to be very positive. There's a whole discourse in Buddhism about the relief of psychological suffering, the transcendence of self, and the nature of positive human emotions like compassion and loving kindness. These phenomena have been mapped out with incredible rigor in Buddhism, and one doesn't need to swallow any mumbo jumbo to find this discourse useful. 

And yet, much that people believe under the guise of Buddhism is dubious: certainties about re-birth, the idea that one's teacher in the Tibetan tradition is absolutely the reincarnation of some previous historical personality—all of this stuff is held rather dogmatically by most Buddhists, and I think we should be skeptical of it. If people present evidence of it,—and there's certainly been some interesting studies on the subject of rebirth—we should look at the evidence.  As someone once said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." 
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