{"id":696,"date":"2010-10-05T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/sam-harris-new-book-challenges-religion-as-a-source-of-morality.html"},"modified":"2010-10-05T17:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T17:28:00","slug":"sam-harris-new-book-challenges-religion-as-a-source-of-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/sam-harris-new-book-challenges-religion-as-a-source-of-morality.html","title":{"rendered":"Sam Harris’ New Book Challenges Religion As A Source Of Morality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Marilynne Robinson has written a somewhat critical review<\/span><\/a> of Sam Harris\u2019 new book, The Moral Landscape<\/i>.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t read this book, but I\u2019ve heard enough from him on this topic to know where he stands. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Here, for example, is Robinson\u2019s defense of the positive role of some churches in guiding people on moral paths:<\/span><\/div>\n
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If he were to articulate a positive morality of his own, he might well arrive at its heights to find them occupied by the whole tribe of Unitarians, busily cooperating on schemes to enhance the world\u2019s well being, as they have been doing for generations.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u2026[H]e never notices that many of the good things he embraces \u2013 for example, equality and opportunity for women \u2013 have been championed and better realized in mainline churches and the larger community than in the sciences.<\/span><\/div>\n
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What she says may be true of the overwhelmingly liberal mainline churches.\u00a0 Anyone who has heard Sam Harris knows that his main criticism is aimed at traditional religion, which is far and away the most common type.\u00a0 Mainline churches have been dying for years and it\u2019s never been demonstrated to my satisfaction that the values they espouse are really based on the bible.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Most of the Unitarians that I know are atheists.\u00a0 At least half or more of them are secular humanists who like all the good stuff in religion but not the supernaturalism.\u00a0 They all seem to me to be ignostic.\u00a0 There\u2019s a whole group of them, the HUUmanists<\/span><\/a>, who are affiliated with the American Humanist Association, that bastion of godlessness.\u00a0 Does any of this sound familiar?<\/span><\/div>\n
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I don\u2019t know how setting these people up against Harris does anything to forward the cause of traditional religion.\u00a0 If Harris has any quarrel with liberal religion, it\u2019s for the same reason that I do.\u00a0 It provides cover for and enables its much larger and more monstrous traditionalist older sibling.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It\u2019s doubtful that Unitarians even come under the heading of liberal religion except that they, like Secular Humanistic Jews, have expropriated the exoskeleton of religion while ejecting the supernatural and its claims for authority.<\/span><\/div>\n
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As for Harris\u2019 central argument, even Robinson acknowledges that when he speaks about science determining morality, he means something more:<\/span><\/div>\n
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It is true that he defines science in broad terms as \u201cour best effort to form a rational account of empirical reality,\u201d which includes, for example, history.<\/span><\/div>\n
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So he is not just talking about learning morality from the chemical components of DNA, as if such a thing were possible.\u00a0 He\u2019s divorcing the search for morality from the authoritarian ancient texts we\u2019ve inherited and replacing them with human reason.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Robinson correctly warns about the immoral abuse of scientific discoveries, though I hardly think that Harris is unaware of history.\u00a0 I\u2019m currently reading James Watson\u2019s DNA: The Secret of Life<\/i>.\u00a0 Watson goes to some effort to remind us of these abuses in the eugenics movements.\u00a0 And we always have nuclear weapons to jog our memories.<\/span><\/div>\n
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If stated crudely, the assertion that science holds all the keys to understanding morality is plainly ridiculous.\u00a0 I have never heard Harris or anyone say this.\u00a0 Secular moral and ethical philosophy also play a very key role.\u00a0 Traditional religious texts and their advocates, however, have no place in the discussion.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marilynne Robinson has written a somewhat critical review of Sam Harris\u2019 new book, The Moral Landscape.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t read this book, but I\u2019ve heard enough from him on this topic to know where he stands. \u00a0 Here, for example, is Robinson\u2019s defense of the positive role of some churches in guiding people on moral paths: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,38],"class_list":["post-696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogentries","tag-morality","tag-science-and-reason"],"yoast_head":"\nSam Harris' New Book Challenges Religion As A Source Of Morality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Marilynne Robinson has written a somewhat critical review of Sam Harris\u2019 new book, The Moral Landscape.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t read this book, but I\u2019ve heard enough\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/sam-harris-new-book-challenges-religion-as-a-source-of-morality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sam Harris' New Book Challenges Religion As A Source Of Morality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Marilynne Robinson has written a somewhat critical review of Sam Harris\u2019 new book, The Moral Landscape.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t read this book, but I\u2019ve heard enough\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theatheistrabbi\/2010\/10\/sam-harris-new-book-challenges-religion-as-a-source-of-morality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Atheist Rabbi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-05T17:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeffrey L. 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