Clipmarks | Antara's 'sam harris' clips

Your Nose, Your Brain, Your Faith

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:02:56 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Sam Harris article....very interesting!

Rest of article:

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/my-nose-my-brain-my-faith/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

By DAVID VAN BIEMA
Jan. 10, 2008

Your nose is one of the less complicated parts of your body, and yet we credit it with considerable intelligence in the area of truth vs. falsehood. We “sniff out a lie.” We say “something smells fishy.” Now studies suggest that something more than metaphor may be at work here--specifically, brain science. The same research may also shed unexpected light on religious faith.

Believing or disbelieving something is always as much about feeling as fact. Sam Harris, a doctoral candidate at UCLA, wanted to see what that means in physiological terms. To many readers, Harris is best known for his antireligious book The End of Faith. But he is also a neuroscientist. In a study reported in the Annals of Neurology, Harris presented 14 people with 360 statements designed to elicit belief, disbelief or uncertainty. He tracked their brain response with a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI) and got some very revealing results.

Tags: sam harris, neuroscience, faith, religion

The Atheists wrong turn

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:03:04 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/atheisms-wrong-turn/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

In the penultimate chapter of his best-selling book The God Delusion, biologist and world-renowned atheist Richard Dawkins presents his view of religious education, which he explains by way of an anecdote. Following a lecture in Dublin, he recalls, “I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.” Lest his readers misunderstand him, or dismiss this rather shocking statement as mere off-the-cuff hyperbole, Dawkins goes on to clarify his position. “I am persuaded,” he explains, “that the phrase ‘child abuse’ is no exaggeration when used to describe what teachers and priests are doing to children whom they encourage to believe in something like the punishment of unshriven mortal sins in an eternal hell.”

Tags: sam harris, richard dawkins, damon linker, atheism, religion

Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:05:05 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: New Sam !

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

Sam Harris
Sameer A. Sheth, MD, PhD
Mark S. Cohen, PhD

Objective: The difference between believing and disbelieving a proposition is one of the most potent regulators of human behavior and emotion. When we accept a statement as true, it becomes the basis for further thought and action; rejected as false, it remains a string of words. The purpose of this study was to differentiate belief, disbelief, and uncertainty at the level of the brain.

Tags: neuroscience, sam harris, belief

Mind, Matter or God?

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:51:47 GMT

clipped by: Antara

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

Mind, Matter, or God?

By Barry Boyce

Dec 2007 / Jan 2008

As the so-called new atheists go toe-to-toe with religious literalists, where do Buddhists and other contemplative practitioners stand?

Mind, Matter, or God?

« Back

Tags: sam harris, buddhism, religion, dialogue

Christian and Atheist join forces to keep Ayaan alive :)

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:16:10 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

It’s a matter of life and death to Ali, who has needed protection since Theo van Gogh—her collaborator on a documentary about the repression of women under Islam—was murdered in 2004. Reached in Paris last week, Ali said she was “deeply grateful” to Harris and others who have come to her defense. (The cost of her protection is secret, but it’s believed to exceed $2 million a year.) She’s working on a new book, “Shortcut to Enlightenment,” in which the Prophet Muhammad comes back to tour New York City and debate modern (although dead) philosophers John Stuart Mill and Friedrich von Hayek—not a subject likely to calm Islamist anger. She awaits the day, she says, “when there are no longer people who believe they can get to heaven by killing me"—or when her dissent from Islam has gathered enough adherents “that it won’t pay to kill one or two of us.” Until then, says Harris, those who believe in freedom of thought have an obligation to try to keep her alive.

Tags: rick warren, sam harris, ayaan hirsi ali

Rational Mysticism

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:19:18 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Just a brilliant piece from 2005.

My experience with meditation would be of much the type Sam describes. It is just plain good for all of us, and religion has no monopoly on "spiritual experience" ....only some don't seem to know that yet, lol.

Clip Source: www.secularhumanism.org

Meditation, in the sense that I use the term, is nothing more than a method of paying extraordinarily close attention to one’s moment-to-moment experience of the world. There is nothing irrational about doing this (and Flynn admits as much). In fact, such a practice constitutes the only rational basis for making detailed (first-person) claims about the nature of human subjectivity. Difficulties arise for secularists like Flynn, however, once we begin speaking about the kinds of experiences that diligent practitioners of meditation are apt to have. It is an empirical fact that sustained meditation can result in a variety of insights that intelligent people regularly find intellectually credible and personally transformative. The problem, however, is that these insights are almost always sought and expressed in a religious context.

Tags: sam harris, meditation, mysticism

Sam Harris blasts Nature Magazine

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:02:25 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Sam is pissed at nature magazine for their positive review of Dr. Francis Collins book " The Language of God: A Scientist presents evidence for belief", amongst other things......

Clip Source: www.nature.com

At a time when Muslim doctors and engineers stand accused of attempting atrocities in the expectation of supernatural reward, when the Catholic Church still preaches the sinfulness of condom use in villages devastated by AIDS, when the president of the United States repeatedly vetoes the most promising medical research for religious reasons, much depends on the scientific community presenting a united front against the forces of unreason.

There are bridges and there are gangplanks, and it is the business of journals such as Nature to know the difference.

Tags: sam harris, nature magazine, religion and science, sanity

On Secularism: A Round Table

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:18:57 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: What is the role of secularism in contemporary politics, and what does it mean to be tolerant towards others’ religious or non-religious views? Micromega is presenting a two-week long round-table to discuss these issues, with Roberta De Monticelli, Daniel Dennett, Paolo Flores d’Arcais, Marcel Gauchet, Sam Harris, Avishai Margalit, Thomas Nagel, Fernando Savater, Dan Sperber

Clip Source: www.interdisciplines.org

Some Questions about Secularism
Paolo Flores D'Arcais
How is it possible to maintain the neutrality between State and religion if political decisions include references to God? Such an inclusion, in fact, not only leads to the usual problems: which God? who is the authorized interpreter? how can one resolve the conflict between various and incompatible notions of “God’s will”? Even if these problems were resolvable, there would remain the issue of discrimination against those who do not believe in God and who become second-class citizens. Paolo Flores D'Arcais presents a series of questions to launch the debate on the role of secularism in contemporary democracies. Click on the title to visualize the text and the forum in a new page.
Date of publication: 10 October 2007

New message posted 8/11/07 04:26 UT

Tags: sam harris, secularism, dialogue

Sam Harris : The Problem with Atheism (part 1)

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:33:58 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Brave and very comprehensive talk by the brilliant Sam Harris.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: sam harris, atheism, religion, politics