The End of Faith- How Sam Harris defined it.

by nvrgnbk 26 Replies latest jw friends

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  nvrgnbk

  I don't think spirituality is rational, although I am only now gathering information about it.

  I think you are beginning to experience spirituality purps, based on your recent posts.

  Our challenge as ex-JWs is to understand the definition of that word. Our association with the Witnesses really distorted our view of it.

  I appreciate the comments about the difficulty of finding commonality in human experience, yet I feel we all have more in common than we realize. Birth, death, love, hate, longing, emptiness, all of these experiences and feelings are real and universal. Myths written in ancient scripts are not based in reality and when taken as more than allegory or metaphor have led to oppression and slaughter.
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  LiveLife

  Birth, death, love, hate, longing, emptiness, all of these experiences and feelings are real and universal.

  I submit that if these feelings were truly universally experienced (in the sense that we all experience the same feelings, the same responses, etc.) poets would have nothing to write about, no one would have reason to read their writings, no one would be moved by them. Painters would have nothing to paint about, no one would care to look at the variations between expression, all senses of the experience would already exist within us all.

  No one experiences love the same way as anyone else. The same goes for the rest of the items on the list.

  Science seeks to thingify reality, but much of reality stubbornly resists their conceited attempt. The driving reason behind the scientific quest to thingify reality is simple: Science can only study the tangible. It is a limitation in the perspective of the scientific model that leaves anything intangible as a scientific blind-spot. Not that science is lacking for practical usefulness, but the scientific model cannot be truly applied outside tangibility.

  Love is not a thing. No attempts to label it and define it by what it is not will ever change that simple fact. I agree that it is real, but it is intangible reality. Therefore, it is automatically outside the bounds of the scientific method. It is untestable, in and of itself. Only its effects can be tested.

  Live Life
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  nvrgnbk

  Firstly, LiveLife, I think we're misunderstanding one another if we're talking about subjecting every human emotion and experience to a cold battery of scientific tests to examine what is real or imagined.

  No one experiences love the same way as anyone else. The same goes for the rest of the items on the list.

  Ironically, I think it is the commonality of experience that makes a piece of music or a poem or a cinematic work so amazing in reach and power to move. Ever heard a song and ask yourself, how did the writer know about my life? Ever seen that movie and wondered, how many others can relate, I thought I was the only one? And what is it that makes some poetry as relevant today as it was hundreds of years ago?

  IMHO, commonality.

  In the end, following my theme(LOL!), we probably are more in agreement than we realize. If not, I hope you'll still let me buy you a few s.
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  LiveLife

  Hell's bells, man, I gave up on choosing friends based on whether they agree with me decades ago.
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  LiveLife

  Just to toss a pebble into the pool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

  • Law of Closure — Our mind adds missing elements to complete a figure.
  • Law of Similarity — Our mind groups similar elements to an entity. The similarity depends on relationships constructed about form, color, size and brightness of the elements.
  • Law of Proximity — Regional or chronological closeness of elements are grouped by our mind and seen as belonging together.
  • Law of Symmetry — Symmetrical images are seen as belonging together regardless of their distance.
  • Law of Continuity — The mind continues a pattern, even after it stops.
  • Law of Common Fate — Elements with the same moving direction are seen as a unit.

  I believe this explains the perception of commonality in experience whether or not the commonality actually exists. It seems to me that if there was true commonality it would be very unremarkable for a song about ... say, love ... to seem to speak to us and our lives, directly. We find the pattern and commonality, whether or not it is there. It is part of being human.

  That's why we can enjoy cartoons.

  Live Life
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  nvrgnbk

  I'll buy some of that.........................and the beer! LOL!

  Thanks for the viewpoint LiveLife.
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  karvel

  Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith.-

  p.221 The End of Faith by Sam Harris

  Will it ever happen? Is it happening already?

  not in my lifetime that's for sure. i really enjoyed that book. i did cringe a little everytime he quoted alan dershowitz. i mean, i hate muslims as much the next guy...but dershowitz...what a jerk.

  ps- kidding bout the muslim thing
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  quietlyleaving

  NVR

  This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns

  I think maybe we'd have to agree on what our deepest human concerns are first before we can approach them rationally
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  jwfacts

  I am reading the book right now, and it is brilliant. In some ways better than the God Delusion. I highly recommend it, for some incredible ideas and beautiful prose.
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  Blueblades

  I read the book. We are all a product of our birth heritage. Religion is learned from hand me down family by family earth wide. I am born into a Catholic family and so I am Catholic until I start to question why.

  Faith is tied to a belief system. Saying: I have faith in the sun appearing after nighttime, because it does it every day.,that is not really faith. The faith that Harris is talking about is a connected faith to some belief system. And for all of those who have that kind of faith it is a leap. Religious faith, whatever that may be, is here to stay. Because it is continual and is being taught every single day around the world as babies are coming into their own respective families.

  The three major religions in the world are always going to be at odds with each other. While individuals might change from one religion to another, leaving one faith for another faith, the majority of families live and die in the faith that they were born into.

  We will not see a time when there is no religion or faith that Harris desires and is speaking of in his book.

  This having a religion and faith is ingrained in mankind. Few have been able to get away from it.

  Blueblades Just my opinion.