Category: Philosophical

In response to ~C4Chaos’s evolving thoughts on Sam Harris, particularly the following [referring to Robert Godwin’s critique]:

I do think that Sam Harris is fighting a good fight here. So instead of taking the dude down and insulting him downright, why not build on top of his arguments? I think building on Sam Harris’ work, like taking what’s partially right and extending his rational arguments into the transational, is a more “integral” way of doing it.

C-

Robert Godwin misses the point by a hundred miles, as do (in my opinion) nearly all the Harris critics I’ve read so far. Religion is just too personal a topic for most people to discuss, I guess. Clear thinking just goes out the window when ones most cherished attachments are challenged.

I was reading the Harris-Sullivan debate the other day and was utterly unable to see how any clear thinking person could see anything but Harris mopping the floor with Sullivan’s arguments. I’m sure this has something to do with my own blind spots, but thus far I’ve not heard a single critique of Harris’s position that rings true to me.

When you say “Let’s build on his ideas” or “extend them into the transrational,” it sounds a little condescending, as if the wider, broader, integral perspective is obviously more appropriate in all situations. I don’t think this is the case, and I think many so-called “integral” critiques fail in this respect. Harris is looking through a particular lens–at a particular level of magnification–when he looks at how we apply reason and rationality to religious beliefs. Just because there is a wider view available doesn’t mean it’s more appropriate to the question at hand. If you want to explore the meaning of facial expressions, the view from your own two eyes is more appropriate than both a microscope and a telescope. Likewise, I think that Harris’s analyses are dead on and appropriate to the specific points he’s making, and while changing the level of magnification to see the bigger, integral picture might be useful when addressing other questions, like how to deal with the problem of religious lunacy, when it comes to establishing the fact of said lunacy, flipping the switch to “integral” can just make things blurry.

–Bob

My friend Julian (over on the II-Zaadz forum) asked for an “Integral critique” of Sam Harris, and I couldn’t resist jumping into the fray:

I have given Sam Harris more than a bit of thought over the past few months:

Rational dialogue and human development
Atheism, meaning and morality
Why won’t God heal amputees
The great divide
Itchy fingers

I have a hard time thinking about what an “Integral” response to ANY issue looks like, to tell you the truth. Most so-called “Integral” analyses strike me as little more than oversimplified, misapplied developmental arguments, usually filtered through the kaleidoscopic lens of Wilber’s Spiral Dynamics Rainbow.

As I said before, I think Harris is quite clear as to what “level” of religion he is criticizing, i.e. the literalist/fundamentalist level. He’s also quick to point out that most of the people who embrace unreasonable, irrational beliefs in the religious sphere, are quite capable of (in fact, they insist on) being rational and reasonable in all other spheres of life. So, it doesn’t make sense to me to say “We need mythic level religion as a conveyor belt for all those pre-rational people out there.” These people are not “pre-rational” in any other area of their lives. They are not six year olds. A truly pre-rational person (i.e. a six year old) would only be confused by a church sermon or a Buddhist Satsang.

What a pre-rational person needs is a proper environment in which to naturally develop to the rational stage. Like I said before, religion is totally unnecessary for this process, as further brain development and Sesame Street take care of this quite nicely.

What Harris is trying to expose and knock down is the taboo against using our given rational capacities in the religious sphere. If Integral Theory applies here, perhaps it is in how the cognitive line relates to the spiritual line. I have too many questions about the concept of a “spiritual line” to take that any further right now.

This whole issue is personal, I think we must all admit. When I was twelve years old or so, it was rational arguments, like the ones Harris provides, that spared me from indoctrination into the world of mythic religion. It was this wholesale rejection of religion that, for me, cleared the way for development of a rational, then transrational spirituality. Rationality was my conveyor belt, and a set of parents who did not reinforce the taboo against criticizing religion. I’ll shut up now.

Everybody’s talking about God! How could there be so much buzz over someone who doesn’t exist?

Coolmel had this to say while I was napping, and I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut (fingers motionless?) about this stuff:

What up C?

I threw in my two cents before I noticed your response over here. I just don’t think you can dismiss Harris with a simple developmental-levels argument. I’ve read/listened to/watched several Harris performances in the past few months, and I think he is very clear about which “level of God” he’s arguing against. Harris is repeatedly trying to point out what many of us are refusing to believe might be true–that a huge percentage of the world populace, including many in positions of considerable power and influence, believe that a particular book (i.e. the Bible or the Koran) is the absolute word of God, a God thought of as the omniscient creator of the universe. If this level of religious belief is really as widespread as Harris suggests, then we are all in deep shit, because such beliefs have dangerous implications in today’s world. That there are deeper, more developed conceptions of God and religions is beside the point. Changing “levels” or definitions in mid-debate (like Prager does) is dodging the issue. Maybe Sam is exaggerating or giving us trumped up statistics on just how many Americans believe Jesus is coming back soon to kick ass and take names. But if he’s even in the ballpark on his numbers, we should be very concerned indeed. The deeper articulations of our religious impulses have a place in the discussion, of course, when we are talking about how best to address the problem, but not as subterfuge used to keep us from recognizing it.

I am both fascinated and disturbed to continually discover how fruitless even highly rational dialogue can be. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and generally interpret experiences through whatever perceptual filter they were fitted with by the age of twelve. By no means do I exclude myself here. When I read through the Harris-Prager dialogue, it struck me as so one-sided as to cause me to feel slightly embarrassed for Prager. It seemed to me that Harris not only deftly handled every substantial argument Prager came up, but he made several points which Prager dodged, ignored, or misunderstood. Harris just mopped the floor with Prager. End of story. But wait, hold the presses! It seems some pretty intelligent people (including Matthew Dallman) saw things rather differently:

“[W]henever I read or hear ‘God’, I translate it as something like, ‘that mysterious force of human interaction’. The reason people worship this force is that it is so elusive of intellectual grasp, yet it tantalizes when we are seemingly least prepared to grasp it. Depersonalizing this force into ‘God’ ‘gods’ or the like is a way to worship something more tangible. But, at least as far as Christianity goes, an enormous part of the worship is that towards spirit. Or, put another way — the worship is of a particular kind of state of being, everyday in one’s life. Harris argues of one kind of ‘state of being’; Prager another. Seeing this is important, for clarity.

The other thing I wonder about is the sources of moral authority. Inevitably, these form a kind of dogma in Christianity. But, honestly, so what? Dogma means ‘seems right’. Moral codes based on the notion that following them ‘seems right’ strike me as perfectly acceptable. And, interestingly, when Harris attempts to create his own ‘religion’, what does it use for its tenets but dogma? Its use, like religion, is inescapable for humans.”

That Matthew and I could view the debate so differently interests me as much as the debate itself.

It would be pointless for me to rehash the Harris-Prager dialogue in detail. If Harris’s crystal clear thinking didn’t move you, then my muddled mind is unlikely to enlighten anyone. Yet, I can’t resist making a few points. First, if there is to be any clarity whatsoever in a discussion about God, we must come to an agreement as to what we’re discussing. Clearly, Harris is arguing against a fundamentalist or literalist notion of God as being the author of certain holy books, a notion which can and does lead to consequential beliefs about life and about the world. He’s not talking about God as a transpersonal principle or a label for all that is mysterious, wonderful and ineffable in the universe. There’s nothing unreasonable or dogmatic per se in acknowledging a transpersonal level of reality. But believing either the Bible or the Koran is the perfect, infallible word of the omniscient creator of the universe, and thus should be followed to the letter (according to your own or some authority’s interpretation),–this belief is highly unreasonable and dogmatic. And changing the use of the term “dogmatic” seems to muddy the discussion rather than clarify. Harris eschews dogma because beliefs based on unassailable principles are conversation killers. Dogma is not open for discussion or to revision. This has nothing to do with dogma as something that “seems right.”

If it’s true that something like half of the American populace believes Jesus was literally born of a virgin and is coming back soon to usher us all to heaven or hell, then reasonable people everywhere should be very alarmed. This has nothing to do with deeper, non-literal interpretations of scripture, nor does it have to do with broader definitions of God. If it’s true, then it means something like half of us (you choose which half!) are out of our fucking minds.

I know, I know… I dropped the “F-Bomb,” betraying the fact that I too must be an “angry atheist.” Well, first of all, I don’t deny being triggered (for personal reasons) by certain notions of “God,” as I discussed in a previous post. Secondly, if the prospect (or perhaps present reality) of a mass, cultural psychosis doesn’t make you say “Fuck!”, then what will? Finally, I have to admit that Prager really ruffled my feathers with this shot at non-believers:

“And secular Europe, like secular America, doesn’t even reproduce itself. Secularism either makes people too selfish to have more than one child and/or shatters any belief in sustaining one’s society and culture.”

When I read that, my ears slammed closed. I would expect the antagonistic rhetoric of Harris and Dawkins to have a similar effect on the ears of the faithful.

And so here we are, with our ears slammed shut, shouting past one another, the divide ever widening.

Sam Harris is popping up everywhere these days, and he’s putting forth some very challenging arguments advocating for saner discourse in matters of faith and religion. This makes a lot of sense to me:

“The point is not that all religious people are bad; it is not that all bad things are done in the name of religion; and it is not that scientists are never bad, or wrong, or self-deceived. The point is this: intellectual honesty is better (more enlightened, more useful, less dangerous, more in touch with reality, etc. ) than dogmatism. The degree to which science is committed to the former, and religion to the latter remains one of the most salient and appalling disparities to be found in human discourse.”

I remember being in high school and getting into these kinds of debates with religious-minded people on a regular basis. Once, I invited a Jehovah’s Witness into my living room and assailed him with challenging questions for a half-hour. He left me with a smile and a copy of “The Watchtower” as I sat there shaking my head, convinced the guy was a complete moron.

I grew up with a lot of anger toward the notion of a loving God who could intervene in human affairs. My younger brother Jimmy was profoundly disabled by an allergic reaction to the pertussis vaccine. I simply wouldn’t stand for any talk of a fair and just Lord of Lords. “Fuck God!” was often heard coming from my lips. Armed with rage and reason, I would attack any belief system that didn’t account for my brother’s condition to my satisfaction. Thinking about it now, I can see how the struggle to make sense of Jimmy’s situation led to my interest in both psychology and spirituality. Hmmm… Maybe that was all part of God’s plan? NOT!!!

Skimming through a Harris article, I saw a reference to a website dedicated to answering the question: Why won’t God heal amputees? Put that question on a T-shirt back in 1986, and I would’ve owned one in every color. Not that I’m trying to minimize the basic arguments by characterizing them as adolescent. As far as Harris goes, I agree with every argument I heard so far. It’s just that there’s so much further to go.

Let me get this straight. People are actually reading these little screeds of mine? Shit, I’m not gonna have to start checking my facts and proofreading and all that, am I? Okay, so I’m a little self-conscious now, but a thoughtful comment deserves a thoughtful response. Tom over at Blogmandu said:

I think the obstacle to converting God believers en masse to atheism is “meaning.” If their God and religion are taken from them — or if they, themselves, discard it all — what meaning are they left for living their lives? Also, many believe that without religion there is no basis for moral actions. Would it open the door to much greater crime, corruption and murder if religion did not play a part in society?

Hmm… Well, here’s the deal. I don’t consider myself an atheist, nor do I profess a belief in God, because both notions lend themselves to confusion and misunderstanding. Of course, it all depends on what we mean by “God,” so belief and disbelief are really beside the point unless you’re engaged in fairly substantial dialogue with someone. Sam Harris, I know, is a firm believer in the reality and value of spiritual experience, as he has spent years exploring and practicing various meditative practices. He’s only an atheist with respect to the various characterizations of God depicted in religious texts. If “God” is taken to mean “a transpersonal reality,” then you can count both Sam and myself as believers. Speaking for myself, this belief is not an act of faith. I believe in a transcendent order because such a notion makes sense in light of the experiences, evidence and perspectives I have explored thus far in my life. I’m only an atheist when God is a matter of dogma or faith divorced from reason.

As for Tom’s concerns about meaning and morality, I can say that, for me, life became far more meaningful when I dropped preconceived ideas of God and Heaven in favor of open-ended inquiry, dialogue and direct exploration of experience. Meaning tastes best when made, discovered, revealed—not when it’s prefabricated and spoon-fed. And as for religion being the basis for positive moral values, I just don’t think this holds up under scrutiny. Harris points out that predominantly atheistic countries like Norway and The Netherlands rate far better than the God-fearing United States in terms of crime and caring for the poor. Then there are the seemingly endless examples, today and throughout history, of atrocities committed in the name of one religion or another. It could also be argued that moral advances have occurred in spite of religion and not because of it. A strict reading of the Bible, for instance, prescribes acts–such as killing people for working on the Sabbath or for having premarital sex or for mouthing off to their parents–that are considered reprehensible by today’s moral standards. The fact that atheists can be (and usually are) caring and loving people should be enough evidence to shoot down the notion that morality is a faith-based deal.

Anyway, these are good questions and I’m happy to be in dialogue with you fine folks. Hopefully, there is more meaning to be discovered. Good night.

Continuing the conversation with Sean regarding Atheists and Development:

Sam Harris is an advocate for the power of conversation, for rational dialogue, and this, more than anything, is what irks him about religious faith: Faith is a real conversation killer. Harris also does a nice job of exposing (then breaking) the taboo of criticizing religious faith. Why give religion a pass, Harris asks, when we demand a basic standard of reasonableness is every other area of our lives? I couldn’t agree more. I also agree with the notion, put forth eloquently by Ken Wilber, that many disagreements and impasses in communication between humans come down to issues of development. Anyone who deals with children or adolescents on a regular basis understands how crucial an understanding of development is for facilitating change. The situation gets trickier, however, when we talk about worldviews and mores and adult human development.

Hec, the majority of Developmental Psychology departments in American universities don’t even discuss adult development, and the few programs in “Life Span Development” posit no quantum changes in human cognition beyond rationality. And although Wilber may be right that development continues in a fundamental way throughout the lifespan, the question remains “How do we best facilitate change?” – whether we’re talking about changing someone’s mind (a change within the bounds of a rational developmental stage) or moving from one developmental stage to another.

Harris argues that certain beliefs eventually become marginalized in a culture when those beliefs are shown to be inconsistent or incompatible with the prevailing evidence. While there is still an active “Flat Earth Society” out there, espousing ludicrous conspiratorial arguments against the “hypothesis” of a round earth, most reasonable people not only refuse to take flat-earthers seriously, we also wouldn’t hesitate to point out the ridiculous, irrational nature of their lame arguments, thus keeping such beliefs on the fringes of society. So, why couldn’t this happen in regard to religious faith? Harris thinks it can, and I agree. And while we can think of the issue in terms of development, such a theoretical pirouette doesn’t weaken the argument that rational, evidence-based, open-ended dialogue is the best catalyst for change we have available to us.

I need only recall my own personal development to understand this. How did I change my mind about religious faith? Or if you prefer, How did I develop to a more inclusive worldview? The answer to both questions is the same in my case: I was exposed, over time, to series of thoughtful, rational, evidence-based perspectives that eventually made utterly transparent the silliness, ignorance, and self-limiting nature of religious dogma. And until integral or developmental theorists can demonstrate a more effective approach to this problem, or any other for that matter, I will have to go with what’s worked for me.

My friend Shawn raised a concern over on his blog that big-picture theorist Ken Wilber is being a wee bit disingenuous about the allegedly empirical basis of his ideas. I’m concerned too, but this kind of philosophical sleight of hand is not unique to Wilber. On the contrary, it’s positively pandemic, as the phrase “research shows” is fast becoming the secular version of “the Bible says.”

I’ve read most of Wilber’s work, and it seems to me that his theories are based on his own brilliant creative intuition and not — as he would like us to believe — on research of any kind. The theory comes first, then any relevant research is brought in to buttress his ideas. Nothing wrong with that approach, if one is honest about it. But because “empiricism” is such a fundamental aspect of the theory itself, I think Wilber feels pressure to ground his ideas in empirical data, even when the ground is pretty shaky. But just as reason itself can be twisted to fit just about any agenda, so too can so-called “research” be cited to support any number of bogus claims. In fact, the way research itself is presently conducted in our profit-driven culture –with political and economic concerns coloring the process at every stage– one would have to be naive in the extreme to accept any claim on face value. Consider this Washington Post article from earlier this year, in which we learn that: “Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses…”

So, it’s no small wonder that “research shows” depression and other mood disorders to be chemical imbalances best treated with certain drugs. Gimme a freakin’ break. Every day, thousands of publications fill their pages with bogus conclusions drawn from this or that bogus study, and every day millions of ignorant people mistake these fictions for facts.

Of course, there is solid research out there, and empiricism — in the broad sense of basing our knowledge on experiment, direct experience and clear thinking — might be the best tool we have to test our intuitions. And we can all learn to separate the wheat from the chaff for ourselves, if we care to take the time.

I’ve always been baffled by the differing ways people use the terms attention, consciousness and awareness. In conversations having to do with psychology or spirituality, one gets the impression that consciousness (and/or awareness) is the summum bonum. What I’m curious about right now though, is the biological/neurological basis of attending. I read somewhere that attention is an exclusionary biological function, whereby there is an active inhibition of sensory and motor neurons in all areas other than the area (let’s say, my tongue) to which I’m attending. Whatever the case, I wonder how the basic neuroscience fits with all the psychospiritual yahoo about the primacy of attention/consciousness/awareness. Here’s how I’m understanding the distinctions at the moment. Attention is a function of the central nervous system, an everything-but-this inhibitory process that leads to greater sensory awareness and motor control. Consciousness is the total functional repertoire of which we can be aware, at any given moment. Or is it the other way around… we can be conscious of that which we pay attention to… we are aware of the…

Wait a minute….E = mc2? No, hold on now…I think therefore I am? No no…I am that I am.

I am what I am and that’s all that i am! Got it.

I have many opportunities each day to interact with my kids (the eighteen patients on the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit) in ways that are, hopefully, mutually enriching. In particular, I sit down with them every evening for a one-hour discussion group. Last night, the topic was “beliefs” — how they influence our attitudes and actions in the world and how, if at all, they change in response to the continual influx of life experience. I’ve been into Sam Harris as of late, so I’ve been fascinated by the notion that all our beliefs have natural consequences, and that if we look deeply into our behavior and attitudes, we can infer what our core beliefs really are (our explicit life-philosophies notwithstanding).

So, the 9-11 hijackers acted in perfect accordance with their beliefs, just as most of the drug-ravaged kids I work with have certain beliefs about drug use and life in general that play out in their self-destructive behavior. This week the kids and I are going to unpack this idea and see if we can come up with anything useful to help us discover a better way to live. Should be interesting at the very least.

My friend Georg wrote in his blog yesterday about his struggle to justify and maintain a consistent meditation practice. I can whole-heartedly sympathize, as I too have been an on-again/off-again meditator for years. The bottom line, it seems, is that we’re just not convinced that meditation is the “Royal Road to Enlightenment” that Ken Wilber [pictured above] says it is. If we truly believed it, we’d be meditating our asses off. Now, Ken Wilber undoubtedly does believe this, as is evidenced by decades of highly disciplined meditation. He believes it because, unlike Georg and I, he has experienced the results first-hand. And because Wilber states his case so eloquently, along with the fact that so many others have experienced similar results, it seems that both Georg and I are still open to the idea enough to give daily meditation further consideration.

Ken Wilber is certainly a man who acts in full accordance with his core beliefs. Consider this statement, recently posted on his blog:

“This is truly the beginning of the Integral Age, which has all the signs of being one of the five or six major transformations in the history of the human race. It is a rare opportunity indeed to be living in such extraordinary times, with all the promise and peril therein. We all know the aspects of today’s world that are horrifying—from ecological despoliation and its aesthetic insult to the Kosmos, to terrorism of every imaginable variety (including political, cultural, and academic), to natural resource depletion, which might reduce human civilization to a new Middle Ages. But alongside all of those negatives, there are the extraordinary boons and benefits of a new rising culture, that of the Integral Age, of which each and every one of you here [at an Integral Institute-sponsored seminar] is a charter member.”

Sounds pretty grandiose, huh. Well, consider the fact that this guy is getting up at 12:30am every day, writing for five or six hours, then beginning a long, hyper-productive day heading his Integral Institute. Clearly, this cat believes he’s engaged in something extremely important. He actions make that very clear. Me, I’m not sure what I believe, but I have always envied people who have strong convictions and live by them. This blog is, in part, an attempt to explore and examine my beliefs, both explicit and implicit, and to hold them up in the light of an honest account of my day to day thoughts and actions. I’m digging it so far. Who knows what I will “come to believe,” as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous.

This was a longer rant than I anticipated, which is cool because I have an eighteen-hour day at work tomorrow and, unlike Ken Wilber, I will not be getting up in the middle of the night for any reason other than to pee.