{"id":3595,"date":"2011-02-25T11:28:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T11:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/sam-harris-dubunked.html"},"modified":"2011-02-25T11:28:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-25T11:28:00","slug":"sam-harris-dubunked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2011\/02\/sam-harris-dubunked.html","title":{"rendered":"Sam Harris dubunked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Which isn\u2019t hard to do.\u00a0 Simple common sense derails most modern neo-atheists.\u00a0 But over at the MoralMindfield<\/a>, a PhD student has done a better job than many.\u00a0 The best, and most obvious problem with Harris \u2013 to anyone who\u2019s read his works \u2013 is that he appeals to reason as the ultimate source of truth, and then plays on pure emotion, bigotry, anger, and other knee jerk feelings in his books to make the point.\u00a0 The PhD student sums this problem up nicely:<\/p>\n

\u201cEmotional, arrogant, glib rhetoric. \u00a0Harris\u2019s approach to writing is to make it amusing, readable, and emotional.\u00a0 Harris almost always appeals to emotion, not reason, despite how much he doth protest.\u00a0 He knows reason isn\u2019t how people work.\u00a0 People want something to hate and something to love.\u00a0 All he has to do is find the loves that the reader already has, and then link them to his own point, and he has made his case.\u00a0 Then he just links reader hatreds to his opposing positions and voila, he has made his case again.\u00a0 And because we share a common cultural background he already knows what most people love and hate.\u00a0 All he has to do is name-call over and over and produce anecdotes of bad religion and he has drawn the reader to his side.\u00a0 After all, who wants to be on the same side as a bunch of irrational perverts?\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 This is in-group\/out-group politics.\u00a0 By setting himself up as the crusader against evil, Harris automatically attracts followers.\u00a0 It is pathetic, in the classical Greek sense of evoking emotion, and certainly not rational.\u00a0 It is a form of rhetorical persuasion to create political unity, not philosophy or science.\u00a0 I will point out more of these as we go.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.\u00a0 This fellow has done his homework.\u00a0 And he makes sense despite his being one of those religious types that Harris and company so readily mock.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, things are beginning to slow down on the home front, and get back into some semblance of order.\u00a0 That means there are only about a thousand things we have to worry about.\u00a0 Of course, we will ever and always worry about my Dad, but that is something we have to live with at this point.\u00a0 Hopefully, next week, I\u2019ll be back.\u00a0 I hope folks will come back again.\u00a0 Remember, add yourself to the Follower tab to the Left of the screen.\u00a0 Tell others, invite them back, hijack a bus.\u00a0 Do whatever.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be back soon, and then we\u2019ll get things going again.\u00a0 TTFN<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which isn\u2019t hard to do.\u00a0 Simple common sense derails most modern neo-atheists.\u00a0 But over at the MoralMindfield, a PhD student has done a better job than many.\u00a0 The best, and most obvious problem with Harris \u2013 to anyone who\u2019s read his works \u2013 is that he appeals to reason as the ultimate source of truth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSam Harris dubunked<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Which isn't hard to do.  Simple common sense derails most modern neo-atheists.  But over at the MoralMindfield, a PhD student has done a better\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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