Sam Harris - Death and the Present Moment

A Celebration of Reason - 2012 Global Atheist Convention
13-15th April - Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre
Presented by the Atheist Foundation of Australia

http://atheistconvention.org.au
http://atheistfoundation.org.au

Sam Harris is a Co-Founder and CEO of Project Reason, a non-profit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
http://www.samharris.org/

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[Urasims]

The blind fish doesn't actively seek out new things... I really wish people didn't think of stupid analogies.

[Socrates Ofny]

Not accepting that there may be things in the universe beyond human capacity to understand[scientifically]- is just as much an act of faith as anything your garden variety non-religious theist believes. As I said before the biologist J.B.S. Haldane observed: "The universe in not only queerer than we suppose: it is queerer than we can suppose." Many physicists understand this well. There are many thing in physics that are paradoxes that by definition the rational mind can't understand.

[Socrates Ofny]

Your first paragraph as written doesn't make any sense to me. Could you rewrite it or explain what you mean? In your second paragraph what "original point" are you referring to? What specifically do you mean by "if god were proven to exist beyond all doubt"? You can't prove anything exists "beyond all doubt", maybe "beyond all reasonable doubt". If that were to happen then your last sentence would be correct. So? That means Harris would have to apologize for all his childish insults.

[Ford Jacobs]

I cannot accept that there are things in the universe beyond human capacity to understand. I admit that there are many things we do not currently understand.

God was created to answer the questions humans asked that they didn't have an answer to. As the centuries have progressed, the gulf of lacking knowledge got much smaller, eliminating the need for the god excuse as an explanation. Holding on to the god delusion will only result in you missing your own life out of devotion to fiction.

[Ford Jacobs]

Following your original line of reasoning, that doesn't make humans on the surface supernatural, does it?

Original point: If god were proven to exist beyond all doubt, you wouldn't refer to him/her/it as supernatural anymore. By your definition, if god were within the realm of human knowledge, then no longer supernatural.

That is why your claim is flawed.

[Socrates Ofny]

In a very real way you reasoning is self-contradictory. Without question there are things about the "universe" that are way beyond our current scientific understanding and may always be beyond our scientific understanding, but you are making the claim that you have a personal scientific understanding about what exists and doesn't exist in that realm. Many people feel they can access some of these things on a spiritual level that cannot be proven scientifically. Good for them, bad for you. 

[Socrates Ofny]

Huh? Why would anybody think that was "beyond scientific understanding"? The biologist J.R.S. observed: "The universe in not only queerer than we suppose: it is queerer than we can suppose." Since our brains and their ability to think scientifically are products of evolution there is no particular reason to think that they will be able to ever understand all the "secrets of the universe." Blind fish deep in a cavern will never be able to understand human beings living on the surface. 

[yield269]

Don't flatter your communication skills.

[Ford Jacobs]

I could go with that. However, in our parents lifetimes, nuclear physics was a field largely misunderstood by science.  In fact, when my dad graduated with a degree in chemistry, he was well schooled in the concept of valence. This body of knowledge was replaced by valence shell electron theory, which is a much better explanation of chemical interactions among elements.

By your definition, valence shell electron theory is then, at least until recently, a supernatural phenomenon.

Flawed.

[Socrates Ofny]

Either you have poor reading comprehension and/or can't remember things for more than a few minutes and/or can't reason through things rationally. I've already addressed all your points and conclusively proved you wrong. Please get up to speed.