I Am Watching The Four Horsemen...

OMG!  Awesome.  Did you see Hitchens puffing away there?  That is the funniest thing I've ever seen.  I think I may have to watch this.

OK!  So, two hours later, I watched it…  I have to say it was a joyful experience all in all.  When I watch videos like this I use the zoom function on my iMac to full-screen the videos, then I twist my computer round so it's facing my bed and I relax languorously as the video streams.

I noticed Christopher Hitchens might have tipped his hand a little, as they all did at one time or another, when he mentioned that he would rather not see all the world's churches emptied on the basis of being bereft of a good argument.  Deplorable to Dawkins' outstanding sense of 'truth' and Harris's sensibilities regarding religion's dangerous excesses, although not entirely reprehensible in Dennett's view probably because he wouldn't mind full churches either (albeit for sounder reasons).

I found the address of their image as cultural vandals (hour 2) to be almost detractive from a point they circled round to in the end: the dangers of religion.  In retrospect I'm glad they took so much time to point out how much they appreciated the various aspects of religious aesthetics.

Sam Harris, I think it's evident, was the consummate taskmaster in this conversation, framing many of his crucial questions in what sounded for all the world (to me) to be implicitly integral dialect.  I particularly enjoyed his tiny monologue at the opening of the discussion (and the way he kept returning to it) regarding religion's penchant for dignifying, well, religious experiences.  He continued to attempt to get his colleagues to acknowledge the failure of science and secularism in this department.

Dennett's framing of faith-based claims and religious attitudes as a 'bag of tricks' was enlightening.  It's true, of course, and to isolate the structures inside of the religious game which could be isolated from their content might be a valuable book idea.  Content-free religious structures, with examples as applied to entirely fraudulent ideologies.  The hope, as always, would be for history and developmental (cultural, psychological) studies to go hand in hand in such an examination of the mechanism behind the curtain of religious phenomenon.

Hitchens, with his constant smoking and drinking, was entertaining.  He talked a lot, though.  To his credit he always mentioned something new, and was not averse to contradicting himself (flexibility?)…

Dawkins was charitable and loopy.  I mean, how could you be more concerned about the truth (or non-truth) of religions over the “bloody borders” of Islam and things like that?  Seems strange.  I did like his insistent critique of Hitchen's claim that he would rather not see churches emptied on the basis of being left with nothing to argue about.

All in all it was interesting to see how these four men are so different, especially when it comes to motivation.  Dawkins seems to be a champion of rationality or Reason's Aesthete.  Dennett seems to be rather insistent on purging religion of its toxicity or The Sieve of Spirituality.  Hitchens, with his candidness and polemical wont could be Rationality's Riot Gear…

Well anyway, that's all too cute by half.  But it was fun watching, and good to see that nothing conclusive was ever arrived at.  Now that's the mark of a good a secular conversation if I ever saw one.  ;-)

~C,

THANKS! for pointing this out to me - great stuff. I come away liking Dennett, Harris and Hitchens more than I did, and I already liked Dennett a lot. I think Bronu's take is pretty good. I still don't much like Dawkins, though.

I liked Hitchens views on religious art and literature – he's an impressive man when he isn't being “mean” to his enemies.

Harris did seem to be pushing his point about distinguishing spirituality from religion (and rightly so, I think), but it seemed at one point Dawkins was rather annoyed by it.

Peace,
Bill

My thanks as well for posting that. Gotta love the web and google videos.
I just watched the first hour before posting this, but I'll throw in a couple of cents.

I find it interesting that Harris (an American, yes?) tried to distinguish between spirituality and religion while Dawkins (an Englander, yes?) was seemingly “rather annoyed by it”, according to Bill at least. A couple or a few weeks ago I heard something on public radio about a poll that concluded that Western Europeans were dominately agnostic/atheistic while Americans were dominately religious. Europe never sounded so good to me.

A spiritual, not religious view/attitude is the dominant view within my close and gross social circle, btw. It may be the dominant view within my subtle (internet) social circle as well, which is largely comprised by “integral” associates or, as I prefer to think, post- or alter- integralists.

I remain somewhat disturbed by the attitudes that I encounter regarding meditation and meditative practices. Rommel (C4Chaos) refracted that (that which disturbs me) in his comment about Harris being the only meditator in the bunch. Harris said something about how belief without evidence is a noble trait amongst the religious.

Too many meditators seem to hold beliefs without evidence. Sure, there are abundant experiential coroborations, but evidence? Everybody else sees the emperor's new clothes, so isn't that evidence that they exist? and then that all gets conflated with stages and worldviews……what a mess!

I once read an article suggesting that meditation surpress neural activity in an area of the brain that helps to create thought of boundries. Oh yeah, I can see that, I know that feeling of Kosmic unity.

Ya'll know what I'm saying?, or not saying?

I suppose I was refering to the mainstream Wilberian integral culture's treatment of meditation. It left me with a sour taste and actually discouraged my practice, but that's another story.

Can one strip “spiritual” practice of religious roots? I doubt it. The very notion of spirituality is so colored by thousands of years of religion. Ah, but isn't that reason for a comparative approach and doesn't that lead to Zeitgeist?…as in google video. Ya'll have watched that, haven't you? The transcripts have the references and pictures. Sorry I'm still such a sorry, lazy cybertard that I cant throw ya a link, but that's the way it is.

The man/intellect I'd like to see address the issue is Jared Diamond, he's so damn thorough, so damn…..integral?

Clearing the toxins from religion is like trying to fill a swimming pool with water that one must carry with a sieve. Part of religion is politics, always will be.

Ha!, I just finished Collapse. I really identified with the Norse, fending off starvation and deathly cold. I'm without adequate heat or cooking at present, see my latest blog. I look forward to your blog(s) about the book.

Have you read Guns, Germs and Steel ? Collapse is the follow-up, ya know.

And what about Zeitgeist? See google videos, part one is highly relavent to this discussion, imao. The antidote for religion's toxicicity may be deeper truth. I blogged a short bit about zodiacs that relates…I should go back and fill it in. Ah, so many shoulds…

THE IRONY, which continues to make me smile EVERYTIME it comes to MIND, IS that IT WAS OSHO who brought to the USA THE MOST significant understanding of the need to DO AWAY with ALL ‘isms, in his quest to establish an understanding in the MIND-SET of the USA that …

“ONLY once in the whole history of human consciousness has a thing like ZEN
come into BEING. IT IS very rare”

What we actually need to devise is a ”scientific zen-like switch time machine”