Sam Harris: lecture on religious faith - Part 05

Part 5 of Sam Harris' lecture to the New York Society of Ethical Culture

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• samharris
• bible
• christianity
• atheism

[Davebierman]

this talk changed my life

[pmfcal]

1. Hitler's and Stalin's atrocities were not driven by atheism or the lack of any other belief.

2. Killing people in hospitals accidentally by mistreatment is not driven by atheism or the lack of any other belief.

3. In contrast, there are many examples why people commit atrocities for religious reasons.

[Photosidekick2]

Religion, as well as the belief in any other supernatural thing, is indeed very dangerous. Even Hitler said that he had "God on his side."

[robertojaen]

@pmfcal Stalin was not necessarily an atheist, he was god in his head. That is why every home in Russia had a portrait of Stalin.

[YamaKazoo]

@YamaKazoo you're

[YamaKazoo]

@MadMAn12gauge wow, what a clown you are. You call me a troll while your trolling, well done bill.

[MadMAn12gauge]

haha just kidding :P

[MadMAn12gauge]

@YamaKazoo stop crying and let the adults post messages here, you troll...do that somewhere else

[chazdoit]

@pmfcal And even if they allowed religion on their society they would have still commited all those atrocities, an appeal to a higher authority will not stop these crimes, in contrast most tyrants can justify themselves and their crimes claiming to be divinely authorized.

Argentina was pretty catholic, the military dictatorship killed thousands of civilians, having a religion didnt help one bit there.

[YamaKazoo]

Hold on a minute, was the nuclear crisis in the 60s about religion ? That almost killed all life on earth. And what he said about ireland is wrong, lots of irish republican legends were protestant, the wars and eventual independence from britain was about sovereignty of all ireland, under irish rule, in other words nationalism. He's wasting his time, his book should be about tolerance and unity. AND he talks alot about christians & muslims and almost next to nothing about judeaism.

[jessicalba7]

@aguteempasil good for him!

[queenastilon]

@PiccyVideos

You said: "I dislike this idea of changing the language lexicon to let religions off the hook for the behaviour. Namely, starting to call 'Muslims', 'Islamists'." It does not let them off the hook at all. The difference is that not all Muslims are Islamists. Islamists definitely want everyone to be Muslims, want to Islamise any country they move into, etc. A sort of evangelical Muslims, if you like (I don't).