Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan
Two guys I read and respect a lot are getting into an exchange that should be a good one.
The opening "letter" from atheist Sam to Christian Andrew and links to subsequent responses starts on Beliefnet.com at Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan on Faith, Religious Tolerance, Moderates, Islam, Atheism, Letter to a Christian Nation
posted by Frank @ 7:48 PM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Harris, Dawkins et al. are "rationalists" who apparently don't get the pivotal importance of non-rational knowledge in human consciousnss. As in this comment by de Chardin:
"... I took the lamp, and leaving the zone of everyday occupations and relationships where everything seems clear, I went down into my inmost self, to the deep abyss whence I feel dimly that my power of action emanates. But as I moved further and further away from the conventional certainties by which social life is superficially illuminated, I became aware that I was losing contact with myself. At each step of the descent a new person was disclosed within me of whose name I was no longer sure, and who no longer obeyed me. And when I had to stop my exploration because the path faded from beneath my steps, I found a bottomless abyss at my feet, and out of it came -- arising from I know not where -- the current which I dare to call my life."
which leads to the state of mind described by Shunryu Suzuki:
"Because you think you have body or mind, you have very lonely feelings. But when you realize that everything is just a flashing into the vast universe, then you become very strong and your existence becomes very meaningful." [Zen Mind Beginner's Mind]
The problem with religion is the projections it has collected over the centuries. We find these in "sectarian faith"--the set of terrified projections imprinted by a harsh childhood that introspection encounters on its way to awareness of ultimate ground.
The object of the interiority exercise is to be completely awake. In this condition we know exactly who and what we are, without illusion or deception or fear. It is a fully embodied sense of the ultimate conditions of human existence. I call this knowledge universal faith. It is serene, flexible and tolerant.
What we need today to answer the basic question is different from what they needed a thousand years ago, even a hundred years ago.
"The decline of religion in advanced industrial society is a natural and evolutionary process. It happens whether we comment on it or not. It stems from increased material security and information. With these resources, the self becomes stronger, and so it needs less myth and less sedative to deal with the pain stored in the unconscious.
As the self becomes more mature, it needs less sedation and turns to purer and more direct techniques of contemplation. Thus, paternalism and ritual decline and meditation and equality increase. Religious systems that cling to hierarchy and hypnotic ritual lose constituency, and so a social milieu arises that rejects religious authority. We call this milieu secularism." [Michael H. Ducey, The Secular Spirit]
Harris and Dawkins don't get this, at all. Therefore, all their discussions are beside the point. Humans will continue to seek to engage the ground of their existence.
My little book is available on amazon dot com, barnes and noble dot com, xlibris dot com, or read it for free at www.thesecularspirit.com.
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