Sam Harris and Spiituality

[Baruch]

So atheism doesn't have to be crass materialism ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxzAQRYYqlk

[SGOS]

Watching  the video is a better experience than reading his book.  I just bought the book, Waking Up, in an effort to round out my exposure to the modern day atheist spokespersons.  I am about a quarter of the way through, and it’s a grind.  I may not finish it.  This is not atypical for my experience with the big names.  While I agree with 90% of their conclusions, they lose me in long and unnecessary ramblings as they try to drive home the points.  I’ve always loved hearing Harris speak.  Reading his words, apparently not so much. 

From what I gather from the book, by spirituality he means introspection, which for some reasons he refers to as spirituality,  and he spends a good time in both the interview and more in his book talking about eastern religion, which I gather he sees as a more scientific approach to spirituality (introspection).  To me, that would be a gross misuse of semantics, and which he half heartedly acknowledges in the book.  He treats eastern religion as a closely guarded secret kept from the west, as if this aspect of spirituality is unavailable to western societies.  I don’t agree.  While the eastern mystic would observe, “Ahhh, you don’t understand,  Grasshopper,” I would respond, “Fuck off.”

Harris is a very good speaker.  It’s his medium, and he should stick with it.  I suppose there’s more money in selling books.  I think so far, the thrust of the book implies that there is a thing called spirituality, but it doesn't require believing in nonsense to get it.  I would agree with that except that I still think it takes liberties with definitions.

[SGOS]

Somewhere around 19:10 in the clip there is a cut of some guy ragging on Sam Harris and atheism as such fundamentalist zealots.  Somebody had taken the "little hand" cursor, and kept scribbling on the guys face.  When the clip was over, the hand went away.  That made me laugh.  Not proud of that, but I did laugh.

[GSOgymrat]

That interview is a good representation of where Sam Harris is coming from. I enjoyed "Waking Up" and his take on psychology, spirituality, reason and religion. Some atheist writers seem to focus solely on dismantling God and religion and I appreciate that Harris goes beyond that and addresses consciousness, self-transcendence and the nature of the mind. As I've mentioned before, I like Harris's reasoning and even if you don't agree with his conclusions his thought process is systematic.

[SGOS]

I like Harris's reasoning and even if you don't agree with his conclusions his thought process is systematic.

Systematic is a good description, and I agree with him almost all the time.  I may have been unnecessarily nit picky in what I wrote, searching hard for areas of disagreement, just so that I would have something to write about.  There's a lot of value in his observations and conclusions.

[GSOgymrat]

The use of hallucinogens makes me leery. Because I see psychotic people every day, some of whom are in substance-induced psychosis, I would never role the dice with my neurons like that. I'll take other people's word that MDMA and LSD can completely change one's perception. BTW, there is renewed study in the use of hallucinogens for treating depression.

[SGOS]

The use of hallucinogens makes me leery. Because I see psychotic people every day, some of whom are in substance-induced psychosis, I would never role the dice with my neurons like that.

I cringed during that part of the interview.  As you say it's a roll of the dice.  Yeah, it's possible to have a spiritual experience (loosely defined), an insight of some sort, or a psychotic break on LSD.  If the same factors that lead you to a psychotic break could lead you to a spiritual experience,  how reliable would such and experience be?   It might be reliable, or it may be nothing more than a break from reality.  In fact, for me, religious experiences are pretty much just breaks with reality.  They may be uplifting.  They may be safe, but still breaks from reality. 

[Baruch]

My prejudice strongly supports the idea of looking at religion and philosophy from the psychological POV.  The patient may or may not have seen a pink elephant, but that isn't the problem, the problem is that they have experienced something disturbing to them.

[aitm]

Humans, even those that know better and that understand genetics and chromosomes and how all life comes about still find themselves in want of something more that separates them from the squirrel and the squid. We understand at the larger scale we are a human or elephant or tree or ant, but   at the microscopic scale we are but a few ticks off from being one another.

I for one cannot find that we should be privy to some special spirituality know matter how it came to be, if we do not, cannot or will not grant that same spirituality to the tree and mouse for they are just as much we as we are them. We humans find fire to be immensely relaxing, and near spiritual while a dog nor most animals will spend more than a fleeting glance it it to make sure it is not moving.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Humans, even those that know better and that understand genetics and chromosomes and how all life comes about still find themselves in want of something more that separates them from the squirrel and the squid. We understand at the larger scale we are a human or elephant or tree or ant, but   at the microscopic scale we are but a few ticks off from being one another.

I for one cannot find that we should be privy to some special spirituality know matter how it came to be, if we do not, cannot or will not grant that same spirituality to the tree and mouse for they are just as much we as we are them. We humans find fire to be immensely relaxing, and near spiritual while a dog nor most animals will spend more than a fleeting glance it it to make sure it is not moving.

As best that I can tell we're the only species that invented the boogie man, so yeah aitm.. There really is no difference aside from the ability to invent boogie men among other things.

[Shiranu]

The use of hallucinogens makes me leery. Because I see psychotic people every day, some of whom are in substance-induced psychosis, I would never role the dice with my neurons like that. I'll take other people's word that MDMA and LDS can completely change one's perception. BTW, there is renewed study in the use of hallucinogens for treating depression.

This is one problem I have with (some) people who have done those drugs; just because it was the right road for one person does not mean it's the right road for everyone else. I am glad for my experiences on shrooms and would love to try even stronger psychoactives, but I'm not going to judge anyone who thinks that's a bad idea and I am certainly not going to imply that someone who is not ready to take them or has no desire to is missing out.


I don't have 30 minutes to watch the original video right now, but I will say I have never been overly interested with Harris's take on spirituality, from the admittedly very little I have heard of it. I rather hear it from the "master's" voice then come to my own conclusion.

[SGOS]

My prejudice strongly supports the idea of looking at religion and philosophy from the psychological POV.  The patient may or may not have seen a pink elephant, but that isn't the problem, the problem is that they have experienced something disturbing to them.

Perhaps the most important contribution of psychology is its use in explaining perplexing human behavior, self destructive behavior that is rationalized and justified.  When I first started learning of psychology, first by picking up bits and pieces here and there, I would relate it first to myself and admit that some of those less than charming irrational aspects of human behavior were actually a part of me.  The other thing I would relate it to was my religious training, training that flew in the face of what I knew, and in the very face of logic itself.  Religion might be after all, the epitome of perplexing human behavior.

Talk about fertile ground to use as examples of the stranger psychological behaviors investigated by researchers.  For me, religion was one of the first things I would look to for examples of psychological concepts, be they full blown disorders or simple defense mechanisms.  Religion is a  stew of unexplainable human behavior that one can finally make sense out of in the light of a study of human psychology.

[Baruch]

A human personality is the sum of all the neuroses induced in an individual ;-)