A great article on complicity in religion in the LA Times:

[Arugula Latte]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-harris15mar15,0,671840.story

God's Dupes

Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics -- and are every bit as delusional.
By Sam Harris, SAM HARRIS is the author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" and "Letter to a Christian Nation."
March 15, 2007

PETE STARK, a California Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge that he doesn't believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population thinks that the Bible is the literal or "inspired" word of the creator of the universe, this took political courage.

Of course, one can imagine that Cicero's handlers in the 1st century BC lost some sleep when he likened the traditional accounts of the Greco-Roman gods to the "dreams of madmen" and to the "insane mythology of Egypt."

Mythology is where all gods go to die, and it seems that Stark has secured a place in American history simply by admitting that a fresh grave should be dug for the God of Abraham — the jealous, genocidal, priggish and self-contradictory tyrant of the Bible and the Koran. Stark is the first of our leaders to display a level of intellectual honesty befitting a consul of ancient Rome. Bravo.

The truth is, there is not a person on Earth who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be certain about such things. As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and low — sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the validity of prophecy, etc. — continue to divide our world and subvert our national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science, inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources.

* * * snip * * *

[ellisonz]

1. I'm uncertain.

[kath]

2. kick for a great article

[hfojvt]

3. How is he gonna define wisdom?

"Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain — from cosmology to psychology to economics — has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. "

Really? It seems to me that there's alot of economic theory and practice which is a load of crap. Economic practice that values human life as nothing. Lutz and Lux wrote a book called "The challenge of humanistic economics" Why? Because most mainstream economic theory is non humanistic.

Nice of him to give us this:
"There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith — but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it."

I would have more respect for him if he was encouraging more people to do those good things, rather than simply insulting them for not giving up their Imaginary Friend. That's what alot of the ancient wisdom he wants to scoff at does.

[Hatalles]

4. There was a wonderful debate between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan on CSPAN.

I'm not a fan of Sam Harris and think he's profoundly ignorant when it comes to Islam and the Arab/Muslim world, but I'd highly recommend it. Definitely worth watching.

[kiahzero]

5. Meh.

Sam Harris continues to have nothing useful to say. In other news, the sun rose this morning.