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Sam Harris is the man and he is back. He’s making the rounds for his latest book ‘Waking Up’, and he’s delivering interviews like this along the way. His ability to concisely and with great lucidity express himself never ceases to amaze. It makes me wonder if I should spend 3 months on retreat in total silence thinking about what I want to say next.
He just sent me a signed copy of the book and it’s in route to me out here in Germany. I’m excited to read it and dive into his brain for awhile.
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I find the claim about eastern cultures having no contribution towards science and it being entirely a western concept preposterous. While I fully admit that western culture has produced a great amount of scientific knowledge there are also great contributions of the Chinese, Japanese and Indian cultures towards mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Sam I respect you for deconstructing the core principles of eastern philosophy and presenting in a scientific context but you don't have to dismiss them as being some exotic non-practical people who are only interested in spirituality and religion. My humble request is that you educate yourself a bit more on the topic before making sweeping generalisations like that. If not you would only be contradicting your belief on the importance of practicing intellectual honesty in leading a healthy life.
Why are you taking the words of god so seriousely? Dont you know youre supposed to project your own beliefs and scientific understandings on to the bible? Whether you support or oppose gays, slavery, or evolution, the bible agrees with you.
Thanks Sam!
Perhaps Sam Harris needs to read the history of Soviet Russia? People like Lenin and Stalin saw religion as something that needed to be eliminated in order to make a better world. Atheists may not have a Canon that they think is inspired by a deity, but they do have a belief that human intelligence can guide mankind. Run amok, like it did in Soviet Russia and Communist China, that belief can be just as destructive as they claim religion embodies.
When he describes theists as stupid and that their believes are perpetuated on a lie, then he is doing the same thing religionist are doing. He is claiming a superiority of his method. Regardless of what scientific support he claims, his attitude is the same as any fundamentalist.
A good argument does not need polemical attacks.
He is a great thinker! But it is sad that he is ironic when it comes to religion. Irony also comes from a feeling, and that is superiority. If he could entirely understand transcendance, he would not have passion when it comes to mocking religion and religious people.Plus, some of the things that he says religion claims and have not been proven by science, maybe have not been proven 'yet'. There was a point in time before the wheel was invented or before we knew how gravity works, science is always developing and some theories have even gone one against the other so science at any point in time is not infallible. The objectiveness of science that's based on experiments and mesurements is valid until another way of performing and experiment or mesurement is invented :D
blah blah blah??
In response to the first question: At the same time an experience that a person has could be unseen to others and actually more real what most people can experience. I would not discredit every "hallucination" instead I would investigate the experience and try to correlate it with scientific theories. If it is completely devoid of meaning then you may be schizophrenic but if there is a causation to what you experience you may have additional perception due to atypical brain structure.
as an athiest, my spirituality has never been better.
When asked something that people do not or can not know religion says it knows, but it does not. When asked something that you do not know say, I do not know because that is the truth.
damn this is a boring interview
The heart is a pump.
If subjective experience exists there must be a subject having the experience. If there is an illusion going on, then who's having the illusion? There may be no physical part of the brain where your 'self' can be found but that doesn't mean that there is no self. Isn't it an emergent property of the brain?. That's not the same as it not existing. I'm an atheist and agree with him a many things, but Sam Harris is full of contradictions here. How can you empty your mind of thought and then become aware of the thinker? He's saying there's no self one sentence and then saying there are two selves the next and that they're aware of each other. No one understands how nature assembled bits of matter in such a way that they became aware. That isn't the same as self awareness being an illusion.
The audio in this vid is kinda bad =/
"Intellectual honesty is the guardian of love."
Fucking hell, that's beautiful.
Wouldn't you have no choice but to concur that any persons self consciousness would have been 'self put at self-risk' by initially deciding to take 'knowingly prior' what were already known to be mind-altering psychotropic substances. -yeah, that confirms the dumbness of both of these 2 guys here. -Looks and sounds like they both never got their right-mind's back.
For the uninitiated out there reading this, get you ears on and pay very careful attention now…. it's not 'meditation' ??? it's 'maditation' …lesson over!
You need to snap out of it and be sensible for a refreshing change, Mr Harris here is suggesting you 'dump religion' an instead just replace it with 'spirituality' hmmm isn't that like leading you out of the fire and into the furnace instead (both at the same time!!) lololol I heard the guy was supposed to be a clever fellow??, -obviously not!
What kind of world do we live in where an associate professor of creative writing is even compared to Sam Harris? Stranger than fiction
oh fuck… the last part on Islam… it's so so so true…
The pointer made me lol.
What about people that have never been able to see or/and are deaf. Is their "I" and the center of locus still more behind their eyes than anywhere else?
16:42 Drugs cannot provide lasting liberation which is why Buddhism forbids them. Sam again does not understand the brain & psychologically given drugs promote mental illness in most people.
12:45 It was not an "accident of history" that a fully enlightened mind ('Buddha') did not arise in the West. Instead, per Buddhism, it is extremely rare that a Buddha arises, just as it is extremely rare for a mind to realise the selfless experience Sam is trying to preach. This is why the Buddha taught a minority of minds will realise the truth he explained and why, by default, the majority must follow other religions that preach about the 'self' or 'soul'. If Sam actually understood psychology & the brain (which he does not) he would understand most people would suffer from depression if they tried to realise the Buddhist teachings he is wrongly evangelising to the mass market.
If Sam was practising "self-transcending love" or "Buddhist metta" then he would not be trashing the religions that other people cherish.
8:08 Sam is stealing his dogma from Buddhism yet denies Buddhism teaches there can be human flight without technology.
4:05 Sam says: "YOU are still conscious; YOU still see everything; YOU still hear everything; YOU still feel everything". Pure comedy. The impression is Sam is a typical intellectual & his ideas do not come from actual spiritual experience but are simply stolen (& monetised) from spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism (where it is forbidden to give teachings for money). The impression is Sam still follows the Talmudic (money worshipping) religion of his ancestors.
3:59 Sam is getting funnier. Sam said: "If YOU inspect this feeling of self closely enough it can actually disappear". So Sam appears to be saying 'the self' or 'you' experiences the experience of 'no self'. This is illogical.
Sam is funny. He is publically transforming an extremely difficult to experience realisation about selflessness into a dogma. Sam's blind faith apostles quickly think: "Yeh, there is no real self" and continue on with their ordinary lives still not spiritually free.
I read it. Very good book. I meditated every morning 30 minutes over a 9 month period. I understand the truth now and from my personal experience I no longer seek self transcendence or actualization. I no longer read or study in depth any teachings. Now I just stop my thoughts, that is all I need to do now. I don't formally meditate anymore and I cease to seek the truth, I discovered I am the truth. In my personal experience I feel all religion and man made doctrines, words, thoughts, teachings, etc are not the truth. If it's a thought, it may point to the truth, but for me it is not the truth. Thoughts are not the truth experience. When I silence my thoughts I experience the truth. Gosh I feel so relaxed and have moments of peace of mind daily. Having said that I believe I have a body, DNA, genetic codes, etc. that have an effect on my experience in a human body and have come to accept that more and not fight it.