Sam Harris

Salt Creek - 23 August 2008 07:37 PM

Your paranoia: Being told to keep it to yourself. But do me (and yourself) a favor, and keep it to yourself. It’s not anyone else’s business if you have an invisible Friend. My paranoia: Your subjective “value in the eye of the beholder” could really permit you to do anything. It did with Ahmed Ressam. Or cite “freedom of expression” and have done with pretending that there is anything out there for us to consider.

There is a cure for both kinds of paranoia - more lunches with Pinot Noir and the entree of choice. I can keep it to myself, and you will eventually see that my subjective “value in the eye of the beholder” does not permit me to do just anything.

Bruce Burleson - 23 August 2008 09:31 PM

There is a cure for both kinds of paranoia - more lunches with Pinot Noir and the entree of choice. I can keep it to myself, and you will eventually see that my subjective “value in the eye of the beholder” does not permit me to do just anything.

I think you’re more than likely right. I’d just like to see you come to terms with it.

You overcome the religious potentials that SC is rightly concerned about precisely because your positive and cooperative human nature overcomes the Dark Side of your human nature. In other words the better angels of your nature overcome the religious aspects. SC is seeing the compromise to your intellectual integrity and perception, and its potential implications for how solid a grasp your better angels really have on your behavior without the religion filter that makes it shiny and pretty and happy-looking. (What happens when those better angels are challenged?) He’s seeing what’s there, not just what the cultural/religious filters allow through.

Byron

SkepticX - 23 August 2008 10:00 PM

He’s seeing what’s there, not just what the cultural/religious filters allow through.

He’s seeing what he thinks is there, what his paranoia tells him is there. You and he both say I see everything through religious filters. I say you and he both see things through paranoid filters. But again, actual personal contact goes a long way toward correcting all misconceptions on all sides. It’s just something that cannot be duplicated by any form of electronic communication - we are wired for personal contact.

SkepticX - 23 August 2008 10:00 PM

You overcome the religious potentials that SC is rightly concerned about precisely because your positive and cooperative human nature overcomes the Dark Side of your human nature. In other words the better angels of your nature overcome the religious aspects. SC is seeing the compromise to your intellectual integrity and perception, and its potential implications for how solid a grasp your better angels really have on your behavior without the religion filter that makes it shiny and pretty and happy-looking. (What happens when those better angels are challenged?) He’s seeing what’s there, not just what the cultural/religious filters allow through.

Byron

At the risk of sounding unpleasant…...as much as I like Bruce, and I do, a plague bearer of bad memes is still a plague bearer, though he himself may be immune to the disease this will only be laudable to the extend that he has passed the stage of being contagious.

I think he has passed that stage, but I would do great damage to my reputation if I would admit this, so I won’t.

Sander - 23 August 2008 10:30 PM

At the risk of sounding unpleasant…...as much as I like Bruce, and I do, a plague bearer of bad memes is still a plague bearer, though he himself may be immune to the disease this will only be laudable to the extend that he has passed the stage of being contagious.

I think he has passed that stage, but I would do great damage to my reputation if I would admit this, so I won’t.

You make me feel so dirty, Sander, but I’m probably not the first. So far, I haven’t seemed to infect anyone around here, but neither has any other Christian who has come around. So, in this crowd, apparently we are all immune to each other.

Sander - 23 August 2008 10:30 PM

the stage of being contagious.

The only alternative is to blame the victim.