Well that's disappointing. Although honestly, I'm not expecting anything out of this book more than the most vague first steps in trying to work towards a way in which morality could in principle be objective. If I get that out of it, I'll be happy because that would be a revolutionary shift in my perspective. If, on the other hand, he tries to oversell it and make it sound like he's already worked out an objective morality and found all sorts of ways in which people ought to behave, supposedly justified by scientific experiments... then I think it will only turn me off to him, and indirectly make me lose respect for Dawkins having endorsed the book so strongly and changed his mind so flippantly.
Just checked his webpage. This caught my eye:
"In May 2006, Harris came under sustained attack in a featured article by Meera Nanda for New Humanist, in which she claimed that his analysis of religious extremism was flawed, and suggested that he was criticizing religion "for what seems to be his real goal: a defense, nay, a celebration of Harris' own Dzogchen Buddhist and Advaita Vedantic Hindu spirituality." Nanda stated that Harris failed to apply the same critical analysis to the eastern traditions as he applied to western religions, and she argues that the detachment from the self in Dharmic spirituality is part of the recipe for authoritarianism.[49]"
It does sound from reading his Wikipedia page that he is somewhat overly critical of Islam. Christopher Hitchens seems the same way. Yes, Islam is terribly stupid, but so is Christianity. Violent? I think only extremist forms of it are. He seems to be aruging that all of Islam is violent and that we ought to declare War on Islam instead of War on Terrorism. That sounds pretty scary, especially since I think that's what a lot of Christians secretly want to do anyway.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 03:52 pm (UTC)Just checked his webpage. This caught my eye:
"In May 2006, Harris came under sustained attack in a featured article by Meera Nanda for New Humanist, in which she claimed that his analysis of religious extremism was flawed, and suggested that he was criticizing religion "for what seems to be his real goal: a defense, nay, a celebration of Harris' own Dzogchen Buddhist and Advaita Vedantic Hindu spirituality." Nanda stated that Harris failed to apply the same critical analysis to the eastern traditions as he applied to western religions, and she argues that the detachment from the self in Dharmic spirituality is part of the recipe for authoritarianism.[49]"
It does sound from reading his Wikipedia page that he is somewhat overly critical of Islam. Christopher Hitchens seems the same way. Yes, Islam is terribly stupid, but so is Christianity. Violent? I think only extremist forms of it are. He seems to be aruging that all of Islam is violent and that we ought to declare War on Islam instead of War on Terrorism. That sounds pretty scary, especially since I think that's what a lot of Christians secretly want to do anyway.