Showing posts with label Sam Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Harris. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
▶ Sam Harris vs Reza Aslan Full Unedited Video - YouTube
▶ Sam harris vs Reza Aslan Full Unedited Video - YouTube
Friday, January 18, 2013
Austin Dacey’s Debate with WLC
What had happen' was.....: The Secular Outpost: Marcus McElhaney on Austin Dacey’s Debate with WLC
Lowder wrote:
Since I believe Dacey’s debate with Craig is one of the better debate performances by an atheist, this caught my eye.
I haven't been able to get this particular comment out of my mind because having seen the whole debate I have no idea why Lowder would come to that conclusion.
I did not think that Dacey's performance was all that great. The best I could say is that it wasn't a complete FacePlant. At least he did better than Sam Harris. I wanted to post the entire debate so that others can make up their own minds. I think that one of the things Dacey said that was particular telling is that he kept saying that he and other atheist are reasonable and God should make Himself known in a way for reasonable people. The issue I have is that the Bible correctly shows us that no one is so reasonable our rational.
The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. - Proverbs 4:19
And without God we are all wicked and would not choose to believe God or serve Him despite that our lives and existence depend on God.
43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. 46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” - John 6:34-51
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Beyond Belief Conference, 2006
Image via WikipediaI like Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is a great astrophysicist and is great at communicating science, history, and philosophy. I don't agree with him on everything but I enjoy listening to him. In 2006, he gave the following speech at the Beyond Belief Conference which was attended by the likes of Dr Sam Harris, Dr Lawrence Krauss, Dr Michael Shermer, and Dr Richard Dawkins. In the speech he describes his feeling that being religious is science stopper. He says that "revelation stops inspiration." I disagree. No doubt that Tyson is correct about Newton's brilliance. But intelligent design is not just to be invoked for when we reach our limits. In my opinion, those pioneers of western science would be the first to credit God for the stroke of insight that allowed them to make their discoveries. Intelligent Design is not meant to make you stop looking into understanding that design. I don't think Newton's religiosity at all undermined Newton. It inspired him. I think the reason he didn't go farther because God didn't give it to him. God gave it to his successors. Thankfully, Dr Tyson does not go as far as Dawkins does underestimating and undervaluing people who believe in God.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Does atheism lead to cult of personality hero worship? | True Freethinker
Does atheism lead to cult of personality hero worship? | True Freethinker
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Debunking Christianity: Sam Harris On the Brain Vs. the Mind
This was from a two-on-two debate with Dr. Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on one side and Rabbis David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit on the topic of what we do and do not know about the afterlife. The full debate can be found at:
I'm not impressed by Dr Sam Harris' rhetoric at all. His basic argument is that there may be conscious life after death but it can't possibly like anything religious texts say and perhaps some time in the future science will be able to confirm or deny an after life. Christopher Hitchens denied the possibility of life after death completely and instead bemoaned the fact some unscrupulous people use the fear of death to control others cloaked in religion - forgetting that the Bible condemns such action.The Bible refers to them as "wolves in sheep's clothing.
As for the Rabbis, I was really disappointed. The only thing they seemed to disagree with the Atheists about is that religious metaphors of an after life are not harmful. They failed to defend the validity of our own scriptures and stand for the sovereignty of God. Instead they seemed way more secularized and often agreed with the atheists.Becuase they failed tto stand for God, Hitchens and Harris won this one hand down.
Debunking Christianity: Sam Harris On the Brain Vs. the Mind
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Facepalm of the Day #78 - Sam Harris on accommodationism - Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape - RichardDawkins.net
The first thing to observe is that Mooney and Kirshenbaum are confused about the nature of the problem. The goal is not to get more Americans to merely accept the truth of evolution (or any other scientific theory); the goal is to get them to value the principles of reasoning and educated discourse that now make a belief in evolution obligatory. Doubt about evolution is merely a symptom of an underlying condition; the condition is faith itself—conviction without sufficient reason, hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, good ideas obscured by bad ones, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation, etc. Mooney and Kirshenbaum seem to imagine that we can get people to value intellectual honesty by lying to them.
I point this out because Dawkins still does not understand what Biblical "faith" is. The Bible does not say that God rewards "conviction without sufficient reason, hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, good ideas obscured by bad ones, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation, etc." When I hear people spewing such ignorance, and refuse to be corrected, I find it nauseating. We have to keep explaining it. Hopefully one day, God will open such people minds so that they will understand Hebrews 11:1-2, finally.
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
No where does it say that it is wishful thinking, or hope in lieu of knowledge. Why constantly argue and debate against a position that Christians do not hold? Silly me, of course, the definition of faith Dawkins gives is the only one he understands.
Sam Harris on accommodationism - Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape - RichardDawkins.net
Thursday, April 28, 2011
William Lane Craig v Sam Harris: The Animation | MandM
William Lane Craig v Sam Harris: The Animation | MandM
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Sam Harris, Norman Geisler, and the Non-Denominational Denomination, on Today's DL
Sam Harris, Norman Geisler, and the Non-Denominational Denomination, on Today's DL
Debunking Christianity: Goodness Without God is Good Enough: William Lane Craig vs Paul Kurtz
A couple of atheist have been through dredging up old debates Dr. William Lane Craig has done in the past on Morality. I think it's to make up for the Sam Harris. For example, John Loftus posted the following: This debate took place in 2001. Bill Craig has been debating this topic for a long time. Link. A book came out in 2009 with a transcript of this debate along with other essays: Is Goodness without God Good Enough?: A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics.Check it out. I am.
I realize that the truth is that all of the debates and comments that I have heard from Dr. Craig are the same regarding Morality. Anyone who debates him should know what his arguments are going to be and if they have had any decent rebuttal and alternatives they should have brought them. I appreciate Loftus posting links to the following debate. I don't agree with Dr. Craig on every single point of his theology but we do agree that God is the basis for morality. Without God objective morality is not possible. I'll update this post when I decide if I think Paul Kurtz did better than Sam Harris.
Debunking Christianity: Goodness Without God is Good Enough: William Lane Craig vs Paul Kurtz
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Thinking God's Thoughts: The Aftermath of Craig Destroys Harris
Thinking God's Thoughts: The Aftermath of Craig Destroys Harris
Today on a DeadCast DL
Deadcast, i.e., once again, though we had perfect connectivity all weekend, 50 minutes before the program, BOOM, network outages. Rich has spent the four hours since the program working on stuff, and, for the moment, we are back up and seemingly operational. For now. In any case, started off with the announcement of the 2012 Apologetics Cruise out of Galveston, TX, headed for the Caribbean. Mike O'Fallon, my dear brother who founded Sovereign Christian Cruises as a result of running our first few cruises way back when, joined me to talk about the event, which you can read about by clicking on the banner ad that Hacim, Son of Ramalah, King of Graphics, produced for us in record time. My topics are already listed, and we are looking into expanding the cruise with a possible debate. That is all up to the Lord. In any case, there is a special, and really low, price available only this week, so please take the time to look at the information and see if you might wish to join us! After talking to Mike I spent the rest of the program interacting with the William Lane Craig/Sam Harris debate. I was shocked at Harris' approach and presentation, and did not even finish his 12 minute rebuttal (I will conclude the examination on Thursday's program). Hopefully our phones and internet will be working then, and if so, I would like to hear your thoughts as well! Here's the program.
Today on a DeadCast DL
Sunday, April 10, 2011
William Lane Craig and the Ontological Foundation of Morality
Let's take a moment and look as Wes Morriston's premises in this quote. Why should the reasons why God gives his commands be superior to God? He made and set up those reasons also. He is not playing by anyone else's rules. God made up the rules, the environment, and is in complete control. Therefore divine command theory is far from rebutted. If one does not like the way Dr. Craig establishes the ontological foundation of morality, maybe one may prefer this quote Brian Auten posted this morning.
Since [Dr. William Lane] Craig made a big deal of this in his debate with Sam Harris, here is Wes Morriston's critique of it. Link. Here's a quote:
Either God has good reasons for his commands or he does not. If he does, then those reasons (and not God's commands) are the ultimate ground of moral obligation. If he does not have good reasons, then his commands are completely arbitrary and may be disregarded. Either way, the divine command theory is false.
"If there is no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong. By absolute we mean that which always applies, that which provides a final or ultimate standard. There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values. If there is no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there is no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgements conflict. We are merely left with conflicting opinions."1
- Francis Schaeffer
Debunking Christianity: William Lane Craig and the Ontological Foundation of Morality
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Truthbomb Apologetics: Dr. William Lane Craig Goes Head-to-Head with The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism
Image via WikipediaChad has compiled a nice little summary of links collecting the links for resources of materials that show William Lane Craig's interactions with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Samuel Harris, and Daniel Dennet - "The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism". Follow the link belowTruthbomb Apologetics: Dr. William Lane Craig Goes Head-to-Head with The Four Horsemen of the New Atheism
Thursday, April 7, 2011
William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris Debate Audio - Apologetics 315
William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris Debate Audio - Apologetics 315
Brennon posted his thoughts on the debate here.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
FistBump of the Day to "Thinking God's Thoughts"
On the origin of morality
Many atheists, when trying to ground moral values, appeal to something like human well being as a guide for morality. This seems to be patently insufficient of a ground for morals, because it itself is simply a moral judgment. It is good to promote human well being and bad to stifle it is a moral value itself, and therefore can't be the ground of moral values. As I said to one commenter on Sam Harris' attempt to use this as a ground, "Saying that well-being of some sort is good is simply another moral claim, so it hasn't reached any sort of ontological base at all. If this is Harris' base, then he seems to have stopped short of a true ground for morality and settled for a branch. [In other words] you can't say that a moral value is itself the ground of moral value."On Science and Teleology
This is why most attempts at ethics today are silly little exercises in futility.
So I'm picking on my ethics teacher again, which may turn into quite a habit for the next 12 weeks or so. This statement (the title of this post) was one of the supposed problems with Thomas Aquinas' natural law theory. My teacher really didn't argue for this assertion. How has Science done this?I admit that I don't agree with everything he writes but I really like these posts. Thanks, Brennon! All I can say is "Amen and amen."
Is it because it can now explain how things work? What does that have to do with whether they have an end they were designed for?
It seems to me that this is just an assumption that flows from, at least, methodological naturalism. But even if you accept that science can't access the reason for which something was created, but can only tell us how it was created/works, it certainly doesn't follow that it wasn't created for some reason.
Not to mention that this seems to be patently untrue anyway. Certain fields of science seem to make their living on detecting teleology. Archaeologists do this often.
Thinking God's Thoughts: Settling for a Branch
Thinking God's Thoughts: Modern Science Rejects Teleology
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Watching Sam Harris Hurt Himself - Thinking Christian
Watching Sam Harris Hurt Himself - Thinking Christian
Saturday, January 15, 2011
FacePalm of the Day #48 - Debunking Christianity: The Mind/Brain Problem
Okay, Okay, I've been participating in a guilty pleasure by visiting Victor Reppert's Blog lately. Vic argued
I am suggesting on principled grounds that a careful reflection on the nature of mind and matter will invariably reveal that there is a logical gap between them that in principle cannot be bridged without fudging categories.I'm glad Loftus has been reading Reppert's blog, maybe God can use it to reach him.
My responses so far:
You're arguing that we cannot get to a mind from the fact that there is only a brain.
So, let's talk about the mind. If there is a mind can we get to a brain? Think about this. You have merely reversed the argumentation but it leads to the same conclusion. I maintain that there is no logical connection between the mind and the brain. If we presume there is a mind then how does it tell the brain what signals to send to the arm such that it moves? Logically, unless there is a point of contact between them, the mind cannot interact with the brain. You know the problem.
Loftus does not say why this must be true he merely asserts it. I think a good analogy are computers. The hardware - the processor - is like our brain. In this analogy the mind is like the operating system/software that runs the computer. The analogy breaks down quickly but let's ride it for a moments as far as it can carry us. How is the software connected to the processor? It's not in the same way the hardware is connected. I think it's here where the analogy starts to go off the rails. I don't know how the mind and brain are connected. No one really does. Are they connected? Yes. Is the brain all there is? I don't think so? We do have people who have had near-death experiences and while they were brain-dead for few moments, they still reported consciousness.
Would you please define a mind for me? If that definition does not include material properties then how is this not a logical problem? What's your solution?
The mind is our desires, personalities, memories, emotions, consciousness - it's the sum total of everything that makes you who you are. This is more than what you are. When you talk to someone you are interacting with their mind not their brain.
Let's say you have none, or at least, let's say I'm not persuaded. Then we are at a logical impasse.
What to do then?
I'd like to know why does John Loftus think that his persuasion would make it true. Something can be true even if he doesn't think it is.
Trust the sciences. Science repeatedly disconfirms that there is a mind. Drugs, strokes, electromagnetic probing, and a nail through the brain can and does change a person's emotions, ideas, thinking patterns, and a man's personality itself.
Science does no such thing. If a computer's hardware is damaged or changed, don't you think it would change the software? Saying that mind and brain are not the same thing is not the same thing as asserting that they are not connected. Some people get brain damaged or head trauma or even lobotomies and experienced no change in who they are. Just because a person's emotions, ideas, thinking patterns, and personality are affected by changing the brain does not mean there is no mind. I don't know why anyone would expect the mind and body to be totally separate. Making a distinction does not mean making a separation.In fact, as neurologist Sam Harris has said, if there is a mind there is no reason for God to have created us with brains. If the mind tells the brain what signals to send to the arm then it can by-pass the brain altogether and simply send signals to the arm.
Sam Harris sure likes making assertions that he can't prove. If the mind is your intentions and thoughts then you want to move your arm and the brain sends the signal. To argue that either the brain or mind is unnecessary is a really silly idea and no reason can be found for that.
The brain ends up being unnecessary on the hypothesis there is a God who created the mind. Or you could perhaps give me one function of the brain that could not be performed by the mind if there was one.
Just one.
That is not what theists argue. God created mind and brain - in fact all of reality. We don't understand ourselves or the universe to determined what is unnecessary just yet. As for one function of the brain that could not be performed the mind is the wrong question. The question that Loftus and people like him are afraid of is the question: Where does consciousness come from? I think computers again help us here. Is anyone really willing to argue that if we made a computer with enough circuits and connection (like the human brain) consciousness would result? I don't think so. I don't think consciousness comes form the brain. However research is currently being done that will prove it as our computers become more sophisticated.
I also maintain that on the supposition of a creator god that the vastness and age of the universe isn't necessary. He could have created a world on a flat disk for this. The question at that point is why did god create unnecessary things? The burden of proof is on the theist to show why unnecessary things were created.
I think that Loftus is seriously mistakenly. He failed to show the mind or anything is unnecessary. He first has to prove that the mind is unnecessary.
To the Christian objection that we need our senses and the brain as a storage unit to process the senses I argue that you theists do not take your theology very seriously at all. If there is a mind then it can sense the empirical world on your own assumptions. If there is a mind we do not need our senses. Get it? If there is a mind that can interact with the brain then it can control the brain. If it can control the brain then it knows what the brain is doing. How it does this is left unexplained, but if we take that position seriously it can. Now if it can sense the brain then it can sense the outside world and so we do not need the five senses.
I don't know anyone who thinks that the mind can sense the empirical world. He offers no proof or explanation that the mind and brain are related to one another the way he says it is. It is silly conclude that if the mind can sense the outside world we don't need the five senses. Our five senses organs are like hardware on a modern computer. Microphone of ears. Speakers for mouth. Cameras for eyes. We even have peripherals that sense force so it is like touch. Without software to make sense of analyze the input, all those senses are useless. Same thing with brain and mind. The brain processes the data but the mind makes of the data and determines its values and importance.
You people need to be more consistent here. Consistency, that's all I ever ask.
I'll be happy when Loftus offers such consistence.
But let's assume God created us with senses anyway. The mind supposedly has the characteristics of memory storage, critical thinking, decision-making and so on. What need then of a brain? I simply don't see it based on theistic grounds.
I wouldn't say that the mind store memory. Memory storage is a function of the brain. I believe science has been able to show that. But when it comes to thinking and consciousness there has been no proof that it's only the brain responsible for that.
Why is it that atheists like Loftus Harris are invested in denying the existence of the human mind? Simple. They know that if there is no mind and if all that means that all that there is (to them) is a material world and you can't have a consciousness without a body which (to them) would mean that there in no way could be a god as described in the body. They are trying to get around the scripture, and perhaps not even consciously.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
- Acts 17:24-31
Debunking Christianity: The Mind/Brain Problem
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Responses to Notable Skeptics - Apologetics 315
Responses to Notable Skeptics - Apologetics 315
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Sam Harris “The Moral Landscape” aka “The End of Morality”, part 2 of 2 | True Freethinker
Image via WikipediaI've been waiting for the final part of Mariano's essay regarding Sam Harris' book the "The Moral Landscape". Follow the link to read it.
Sam Harris “The Moral Landscape” aka “The End of Morality”, part 2 of 2 | True Freethinker
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