Sam Harris.org Reader Forum

Is Religion really the biggest of our Irrational Enemies?

2013-05-05T20:19:40+00:00

Dr. Harris and others, convinced that Religion is the cause of conflict, might be forgetting that group conflict predates and, in fact, in no small part generated/guided our Evolving Religions in the first place. Our conflict is, as it always was, over the unequal access to resources and status. Rationality is no panacea here, because the love of “self” and distrust of “other” eventually encountered by our ever-expanding nested identities, is rational (in any non-unified global society) and unfailingly generates the exact same conflicts attributed exclusively in many circles to irrational religious belief. People use group membership to elevate their personal grievances to large-scale conflict. When they can muster Coalitions of Nation States to achieve their goals, they do; when they can only muster the fanatical side of whatever Religion they belong to - then that’s what they work with. Even slight influences of dogma and irrationality in the Nation-State can be more deadly tools than more severe forms in less powerful entities. Group conflict would not resolve in a less-religious world because of a lack of religious irrationality… it would resolve the same way every other conflict resolves - someone would win.
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TLDR: Religions do not cause conflict, people do. Our biggest irrational enemy then is ourselves and our distrust of potential collaborators despite mutual dependency and impending disaster.
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Note: I am fairly new to the writings of Dr. Harris, but I have read several of his books, articles, blogs and listened to most of his debates. Not only do I value his honest and aggressive attack on irrationality and his unfailing championing of science as a tool left unused for edifying our moral and spiritual systems, but I applaud his rhetorical skill and the quality of his argument - which rarely if ever dips to red herring and straw men strategies often thrown at him by detractors.
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Excerpts from Dr. Harris’ “Killing the Buddha”:
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2903&Itemid=244
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“Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades.”
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“Therefore, one of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns—about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering—in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Nothing stands in the way of this project more than the respect we accord religious faith. While there is no guarantee that rational people will always agree, the irrational are certain to be divided by their dogmas.”

The Pope’s resignation and institution wide corruption in the church.

2013-02-26T00:19:06+00:00

I grew up in a very Catholic household in South Florida and have been out of the area for close to a decade. However, my parents, who are still very devout church-going people had been telling me of some scandals going on in the area. With the Pope’s resignation putting media focus on the Church, I think this is a prime opportunity to push for exposure and transparency in what appears to be cover-up scandals that would make Bernie Madoff blush.

I ran across this article:Search Results Click on the gawker article near the top of the results, for some reason the website won’t let me post the link directly. I find the allegations in it to be beyond what even the mainstream media is calling attention to. I’ve emailed Sam about this hoping he uses his influence to get this more widely circulated. At a minimum, I think there needs to be far more transparency within the Church, and if the this article represents a common theme throughout the Church (which there’s certainly reason to suspect given the trends), the organization needs dismantling. Thoughts?

Gun owner responsibility

2013-02-09T17:55:12+00:00

I just read Sam’s comments in the Riddle of the Gun and appreciate his reasoned arguments that add to the needed debate. While there is obviously room for disagreement, I do welcome his support of more effective background checks on gun buyers. It seems likely that action on that issue seems to have a reasonable chance of being enacted this year.

I rarely see another issue addressed that needs some public focus. Those who own guns are the first line of defense when it comes to gun safety and violence. The Newtown murderer lived in a home in which he was apparently encouraged to shoot powerful weapons. This, in spite of the evidence that he was dealing with some significant mental health issues. His mother paid for her lack of good judgement with her life which is obviously tragic and regrettable, but would that have happened if she had not made the guns available to her son?

Why does a parent with a troubled child not see that guns in the home present a lethal threat to the family and others? The current movement toward more effective ways to reduce gun violence should include discussion of the responsibility of gun owners to control their own guns.

The Riddle of the Gun, gang violence and the homicide rate.

2013-02-04T23:28:43+00:00

I read the Riddle of the gun and was curious about the statement that 12% of the gun homicides are gang related.

(Note 1/15/13: However, it would seem that, nationwide, only 12 percent of homicides are gang-related.)

Can you please tell me where this data was obtained?

If we consider Chicago, this CBS article Gang wars at the root of Chicago’s high murder rate, we find this statement:

Chicago police Superintendent Gary McCarthy believes most of the violent crime in the city is “absolutely” gang-related. He said the problem has a lot to do with drugs, guns and gang wars. The city’s largest gang is having an internal war. Chicago has the largest gang population in the country, with approximately 100,000 members who commit 75 to 80 percent of the city’s homicides.

I have read a similar statement from Chief Logan of Detroit, he also estimates that 75-80% of the gun violence there is related to gang activity.

Background Checks for Private Gun Sales

2013-02-02T22:54:50+00:00

Many cite the impossibility of effective background checks when private gun sales or other transfers are involved. A simple process would mandate that parties to the transaction go to a gun store so the recipient of the gun can undergo an instant background check before the sale or other transfer is affected. This procedure would be enacted into law as a requirement. Accompanying legislation would provide for criminal penalties for the person selling or transferring the gun if the transferred firearm is used during a crime or other violation of the law and the recipient has not been background checked. The gun store could charge a reasonable fee for the background check. This procedure could be followed at gun shows because licensed dealers currently employ background checks at these shows and could do the same for a private sale or transfer. I believe a procedure like this could reduce the number of persons obtaining guns without background checks.

Dawkins “evolutionary stable strategy”

2013-01-27T17:34:22+00:00

Iirc In the selfish gene aggression is represented as part of an ess. Is this bunk? Are we destined to aggress or are computer models of social dynamics flawed? I have posted in this forum because i like the study of complex adaptive systems and the likes. Knowledge is power, no?

gun control and suicide

2013-01-26T17:40:37+00:00

I understand that many people will react emotionally to this, but I’m really interested in any rational counter-arguments that come up, because I haven’t seen anyone make these arguments before.

People advocating gun control often talk about suicide statistics, and people who oppose gun control often respond that someone who is determined can find another way. But this exchange seems to miss a fundamental point when it occurs in a secular community. I understand that Christians believe suicide has significant repercussions for one’s afterlife, but such religiously motivations should be irrelevant to a secularist. Is there a non-religious moral argument why a person who believes that their future will involve mostly suffering (physical or psychological) should not commit suicide? In such a circumstance wouldn’t a suicide result in a world with higher overall well-being that it would have otherwise?

And in the case of mass shooters, I think suicide might be a potential solution.

Three steps are required for a mass shooting to occur: 1) some number of people have the desire to commit random violence 2) some subset of those people choose to act on that desire and plan such an atrocity, and 3) some subset of those people acquire the tools required and attempt to execute their plans. Proposed solutions aim to lower the number of people who pass one of these steps: ideas involving media or video game violence, or increased mental health coverage aim to limit the number of people making it to step 1, while gun control or armed guards aim at step 3.

I haven’t seen any solutions aimed at step 2, with the possible exception of psychological help. I’m skeptical that mental health professionals can treat someone who’s a violent ticking time bomb, and turn them into a non-threatening member of society. I propose encouraging people planning an act of random violence to kill themselves first. It’s an easy moral argument to make. Also, I’ve read that many shooters are motivated by fame; if some public figure promised to publicly call someone a hero if they died leaving a suicide note detailing what they had been planning, or if some media organization announced that they would occasionally report the names of such individuals in a positive way, perhaps potential shooters would prefer that form of fame.

Why aren’t the neo-cons being brought to justice?

2013-01-26T01:34:27+00:00

There was talk as the Bush administration neared its end that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the neo-cons would be brought to justice. That they were allowed to quietly sleaze away into the shadows from whence they came, without so much as a single hearing into their evil agenda, is probably the most insulting act of the 21st century so far. Bush and Blair’s getting off scot-free is tantamount to spitting in the face of Western society and getting away with it.

The Straussian movement itself should have come under scrutiny from every thinking person in the so-called free world, but the intellectual world has been disturbingly silent on this affront to civilised society.

There were a few rumblings about bringing the neo-cons up on charges, but they seem to have gone away. There are still countries and organisations willing to press charges, but the neo-cons tend to stay at home these days, traveling only to “friendly” countries and countries with no extradition agreements where war criminals are concerned.

The lack of will to deal with these monsters is disturbing, to say the least.

The before-last paragraph of FAQ on violence illustrates the difference between US and Europe.

2013-01-09T10:02:05+00:00

Disclaimer: I’m European.

>“From a self-defense point of view, interviews like this are very instructive. Here, I will simply observe that men like Steve and Nev make the ethical case for putting weapons in the hands of good people better than a philosopher ever could.”

So am I to believe that an American really thinks that they are justified in killing Steve or Nev in such a situation? Honest question; I don’t think many Europeans think like this. Rather, I think that, lying in the hospital after having been assaulted like that, I would think: ‘I’m glad I didn’t have a gun, because I would have killed them if I had.’

>“Given how they operate, and the fact that they live in a gun-free society, Steve and Nev know that they can assault virtually anyone they want. Reader’s may detect further odors of NRA propaganda here, but I would rather that these brutes be obliged to worry that their next victim might have a gun.”

To me, this sounds like treating a disease symptom by cutting off a limb but leaving the disease in the rest of the body. The areas that people like Steve and Nev live in have big socio-economic and cultural issues to deal with. That’s why they behave like they do. Noone should think that guns could ever contribute to solving these issues. They would probably only make them worse.

>“I wouldn’t want Steve and Nev to have guns, of course—and gun control advocates will insist on the impossibility of arming good people without simultaneously arming the thugs. But I’m not entirely sure this is true.”

He’s not entirely sure. If you think there’s a chance that they might fall in the wrong hands, then you say it’s a bad idea, right? Unsure means don’t do it.

>”(What if the penalty for selling or possessing a firearm illegally were life in prison?)”

Another very American idea. Which might have contributed to your prisons being full. In Western Europe, governments (I know, dirty word) try to prevent crime by making people not want to/need to/be forced to commit crimes, not so much by scare tactics.

Overall, it seems to me that in America, people have given up hope that they can cure the disease, so they resolve to only treating symptoms, whereas in Europe, we have so far prevented wide-spread infection and are really trying to keep it that way.

Sam’s Riddle of the Gun Article

2013-01-03T23:45:09+00:00

Although Sam is generally correct, statistically speaking, about gun violence in the US, this article misses a few things.

Sam only obliquely addresses mental illness and other issues, yet this is one area where the NRA is steadfast. They don’t want any background checks on gun ownership. This, I believe, is part of that paranoid fear that the jack-boots from the government will come for us, and only one’s stash of weapons (that the government doesn’t know about) prevents the rise of tyranny. Felons and the mentally ill should not be allowed to obtain guns, and we should be doing background checks to prevent that.

Having guards in schools might help protect children, but what about the rest of us? What about office buildings, Post offices, government buildings, parks, etc. Children aren’t the only ones that suffer from such attacks. Are we to have armed guards everywhere? His suggestion that more armed citizens protecting each other seems like a fantasy, and there are are few data to support the efficacy of such an approach. Rather, the opposite is true. Societies with fewer guns suffer fewer violent deaths.

Comparing gun deaths to death by infections is hospitals is a specious argument. Because gun deaths are less numerous, does that mean we should do nothing about them? Yes, we need to address hospital cleanliness protocols too, but using that as an argument against gun control or diminishing its priority is misleading. Similarly, noting increases in knife attacks in China is a distraction too. While I would not want to be stabbed, I’d prefer to take my chances against a knife-wielder than a gun-wielder. At the very least, if I can run faster than a person with a gun, I’m not in danger.

Saying that there are so many guns in circulation doesn’t mean that many can’t be taken out of circulation over time, so that can’t be used as a reason not to reduce availability.

While I agree with Sam that we are unlikely to be able to eliminate guns entirely, nor should we, I think there are a few steps that should be taken:

- Anyone wishing to own a gun should be subject to thorough background checks.
- Anyone wishing to own a gun must demonstrate that they have been trained to use (and store them) safely.
- Get rid of most non-violent incarcerations like drug and prostitution offenses, and increase penalties for violent offenses, especially those using guns.
- Close purchase loopholes like gun show purchases, that make it easy to avoid registration and checks.