7 ms·
his caricature of religion was awful. i think most religious people in an educated audience like a ted talk would think of it more as encoding communal priorit
by andrewcooke 17y ago
his caricature of religion was awful. i think most religious people in an educated audience like a ted talk would think of it more as encoding communal priorities than delivered over a phone line from a guy with a beard...
...and an emergent system that can encode ideas in persistent forms cannot be decoupled from its history. you are pretty much going to have some kind of activity close to religion. if you listen to the talk, where he's arguing for universal truths, and domain experts in morality, it's surprising just how close he is to arguing for a rather traditional religious approach...
- ThomPete 17y agoI don't agree. From what I know of Harris having followed quite a few of his debates his point simply is that to the extent that you can talk about right or wrong moral systems, science actually allow you to back up your claims. This is in grave contrast to the moral systems that base their logic on premises that have no merit at all. I would much rather live in a society where moral claims can be accessed and debated than in one where it can't. Not to because I believe that science leads us to a more correct version of morals but because it's accessible to everyone. Religious moral systems aren't hindering bad moral behavior, people are. So studying people would in my mind give us a much better basis to discuss morals than consulting 2000+ year old books.