Clipmarks | Antara's 'sam harris' clips

New Sam Harris :)

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:57:27 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Sam writes about the recent "belief" surverys he conducted....

Clip Source: newsweek.washingtonpost.com

According to a recent Pew survey, 21 percent of atheists in the United States believe in “God or a universal spirit,” and 8 percent are “absolutely certain” that such a Being exists. One wonders if they were also “absolutely certain” they understood the meaning of the term “atheist.” Claiming to be an atheist who believes in God is like claiming to be a happily married bachelor. Rarely does one discover nonsense in such a pristine state. Still this hasn’t stopped many people from concluding that there is a schism in the atheist community.

Tags: sam harris, atheism, religion, belief, conclusions

Theodicy and the "Holiday in Hellmouth"

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:37:29 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: good read

http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/holiday-in-hellmouth/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

For the lucky few, there is reason to hope that life will be a business of evenly rationed suffering: stern parents perhaps, a few humiliations at school, then a love affair or two gone wrong, maybe a marriage broken. Our parents will die, and farther off, ideally deferred, will come our own steady demise. Plenty of suffering for a life, certainly, but most of us subsist on the plausible expectation that fortune will draw a circle around that personal portion, and that the truly unbearable—murder, rape, dead children, torture, war—will remain outside the cordon. Norman Rush, in his novel “Mortals,” calls this “hellmouth”: “the opening up of the mouth of hell right in front of you, without warning, through no fault of your own.” Without warning, and yet always feared. Job, whom God places into hellmouth to test him, knew that paradox: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.”

Tags: sam harris, the new yorker, atheism, belief, faith, religion, theodicy

Heathen Tv

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:47:05 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: heathen.tv

Tags: heathens, infidels, rabblerousers, interesting

Sam Harris on the FITNA film.

Mon, 05 May 2008 22:43:55 GMT

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

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world's most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna ("strife" in Arabic) over the internet. The film has been deemed offensive because it juxtaposes images of Muslim violence with passages from the Qur'an. Given that the perpetrators of such violence regularly cite these same passages as justification for their actions, merely depicting this connection in a film would seem uncontroversial. Controversial or not, one surely would expect politicians and journalists in every free society to strenuously defend Wilders' right to make such a film. But then one would be living on another planet, a planet where people do not happily repudiate their most basic freedoms in the name of "religious sensitivity."

Tags: religion, islam, fitna film, www.samharris.org

Calling all Christians, Sam Harris needs you :)

Mon, 05 May 2008 08:52:50 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Interesting study and a chance to participate...

Thanks

The surveys are here :http://www.samharris.org/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

Research Volunteers Needed!

We are preparing to run another fMRI study of belief and disbelief, and we need volunteers to help us refine our experimental stimuli. This promises to be the first study of religious faith at the level of the brain. By responding to the four surveys I have posted online, you can make an enormous contribution to this work.

Please answer as many of the surveys as you can. If you only have time to answer one, please choose at random (otherwise, we will have many more responses to the first than to the others).

Feel free to post this message to your blog or to forward the relevant links to your friends. We especially need Christians to respond, as one of the goals of these surveys is to design stimuli that a majority of Christians will find doctrinally sound.

Tags: www.samharris.org

If God is Dead, Who get His house?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:57:31 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: By Sean McManus via Sam Harris.org

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”

The room erupted in loud applause. God had definitely left the building—if he were ever here at all.

Tags: atheism, richard dawkins, faith, religion, samharris.org

For those touched most by 9/11, a turning point in faith

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:14:39 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: rest of article:

Brian Jordan, a Franciscan priest who ministered to rescue and recovery workers, says there were no atheists at Ground Zero — suddenly everyone had a spiritual life, no matter how tortured or confused.

Jay Rosenbaum, a Long Island rabbi, says he was almost overwhelmed when he arrived at Ground Zero on Sept. 12. But later, he conducted a simple prayer service in vestments that included a hard hat, combat boots and a prayer shawl. “Our mission is to look not only at the devastation there,” he said in his impromptu sermon, pointing to the shell of one tower, “but the devotion here” — the dusty, exhausted, rescue workers around him.

“It was one of the most affirming moments of my life,” he says now. “I felt this was something I was worthy of doing.”

To others, 9/11 seems to belie the notion of an all-loving, all-powerful God. Sam Harris began writing The End of Faith, his best-selling attack on religion, the day after the attacks.

Jonathan Miller, who wrote

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The pope’s pilgrimage to the site of the World Trade Center revives a question asked by many of those traumatized by the terrorist attacks, including the faithful, the faithless and those in between: Where was God on Sept. 11, 2001?

On Sunday, two dozen 9/11 survivors, victims’ relatives and rescue workers will accompany Benedict XVI to Ground Zero, “the scene of incredible violence and pain” — in the words of the prayer the pope will recite in the pit where the twin towers stood.

PHOTOS: How 9/11 tested their faith

Many whose lives were changed that day are still coming to terms spiritually with 9/11. Some have taken comfort from their faith; others have found it lacking. Some have a stronger faith, a different faith or no faith at all.

Tags: 9/11, faith, sam harris.org

Belief, disbelief and uncertainty

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:02:41 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/adams-maxim-and-spinozas-conjecture/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

Adam’s Maxim and Spinoza’s Conjecture

By Michael Shermer
Belief, disbelief and uncertainty generate different neural pathways in the brain

During an early episode of the über-pyrotechnic television series MythBusters, Adam Savage was busted by the camera crew for misremembering his predictions of the probability of an axle being ripped out of a car, à la American Graffiti. When confronted with the unmistakable video evidence of his error, Adam sardonically rejoined: “I reject your reality and substitute my own.”

Tags: sam harris, belief, certainty, neuroscience

Amis and Islam

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:44:34 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Good read about the spat involving Amis over comments he made re: islam

Enjoy

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

By RACHEL DONADIO

March 9, 2008

“I’m a passionate multiracialist and a very poor multiculturalist,” Martin Amis said a few weeks ago. He was on the phone from London, praising his hometown’s ethnic variety — “It’s exhilarating and moving to live in a city with so many races and so many colors” — and denouncing its fissures, particularly over radical Islam. “I don’t think that we can accommodate cultures and ideologies that make life very difficult for half the human race: women.” Amis was explaining his stance in a gloves-off row that’s been raging in the British press since last fall, when the literary theorist Terry Eagleton likened some of Amis’s statements on Muslims to “the ramblings of a British National Party thug.”

Tags: amis, uk, politics, sam harris.org

Arguments by STanley Fish

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:37:42 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Another good read

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

By Stanley Fish

March 9th, 2008

Every once in a while I feel that it might be helpful to readers if I explained what it is I am trying to do in these columns. It is easier to state the negative: For the most part, it is not my purpose in this space to urge positions, or come down on one side or the other of a controversial question. Of course, I do those things occasionally and sometimes inadvertently, but more often than not I am analyzing arguments rather than making them; or, to be more precise, I am making arguments about arguments, especially ones I find incoherent or insufficiently examined.

Tags: sam harris.org

The Reason Project needs Volunteers!

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:06:38 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Sam Says

"For the moment, we are only looking for volunteers to collect archive materials, but there will undoubtedly be many other ways to assist the work of The Reason Project in the future. Our website will offer more information about such opportunities as they arise, as well as provide ways for you to network with like-minded people in your own communities.

All submissions should be sent to the following email address:

archive@reasonproject.org

Many thanks, in advance, for your help"

Best,

Sam Harris and Annaka Harris

Clip Source: www.reasonproject.org

The Reason Project is a charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The Reason Project will draw on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines — science, law, literature, entertainment, information technology, etc. — to encourage critical thinking and wise public policy. It will convene conferences, produce films, sponsor scientific research and opinion polls, award grants to other non-profit organizations, and offer material support to religious dissidents and public intellectuals — all with the purpose of eroding the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world. The Reason Project was founded by Sam Harris and Annaka Harris.

Support the Reason Project: get a paperback copy of Letter to a Christian Nation.

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:06:29 GMT

clipped by: Antara

Clip Source: us.mg1.mail.yahoo.com

Letter to a Christian Nation (Vintage Paperback)

with a New Afterword

The Vintage paperback edition of Letter to a Christian Nation is now available on Amazon. This edition has a new, twenty-page Afterword.

All books purchased through the above link will help support the work of Sam's new foundation, The Reason Project, whose advisory board now includes: Peter Atkins, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Rebecca Goldstein, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Harry Kroto, Steven Pinker, Lee Silver, Ibn Warraq, and Steven Weinberg.

www.samharris.org

email: author@samharris.org

web: http://www.samharris.org/

Tags: sam harris, the reason project

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

Fair Game with Faith Salie

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 02:59:37 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: Sam Harris interview

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/fairgame/.jukebox?action=viewMedia&mediaId=663157&podcastId=2743

Clip Source: www.publicbroadcasting.net

Christmas is over so we can finally talk to atheists again. We have Sam Harris, who helped kick off the atheist publishing craze with his book The End of Faith. He's also a neuroscientist, and is out with a new study about how brains process belief. Or don't. And we'll talk with Andre Royo, who plays the drug-addicted informant, Bubbles on HBO's The Wire. We'll ask him about winning the world's first ever "Street Oscar." Then, on the heels of Huckabee's negative ad against Romney, we present another Great Moment in Presidential Smears. Plus, music from Blitzen Trapper.

Lifechanging experience for Dallas student

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:51:32 GMT

clipped by: Antara
clipper's remarks: I know how he feels- Sam Harris has impacted my life in a big way too

Just a short article:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/dallas-isd-student-picked-to-participate-in-forum-with-world-leaders/

Clip Source: www.samharris.org

For the third year, the Aspen Institute hosted the festival in Aspen, Colo., as a way to engage public high school juniors and educators. According to its Web site, the festival draws speakers from a variety of fields from around the world. The program features four different weeklong tracks and 11 four-day tracks.

“It was humbling, but at the same time, I was star-struck,” Donivon said.

He attended forums on numerous topics. He remembers meeting leaders he is now learning about in government class.

The TAG senior said the most memorable speaker was Sam Harris, a best-selling author and Stanford University graduate.

“I’d never heard a person speak so candidly about religion,” he said. “It’s a touchy subject. I wanted to argue with him. I thought it was honorable for him to speak out.”

Donivon had considered not returning for his final year, Mr. Correa said, but the festival refreshed him.

“It had a big impact on my career path,” he said.