--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Sam Harris is such a great conversation starter!
>
> I think my statement was an epistemological assessment of the
> claim that one can have a subjective experience that can then
> make you confident that you "know" that Jesus is Lord". Of
> course people do it all the time. But in the systems of modern
> epistemology that I studied, this connection is not valid.
But again, is that not an epistemological claim
("this connection is not valid") that you can't
possibly back up? In that sense, what's the
difference between the claim that Jesus is Lord
and the epistemological claim that the first
claim isn't valid?
> If you are a pure rationalist or even a solipsist, you can make this
> case, but neither of those positions have survived as supportable
> philosophical positions for decades.
Solipsism--in the broader sense I mentioned earlier,
that we have no empirical means of determining whether
there's really anything "out there" that exists
independently of our minds--is irrefutable. It
doesn't *require* any support; it's an obvious fact.
What is *not* an obvious fact is the claim that there
*is* nothing "out there." It's important to make that
distinction.
> They do continue in the form of
> archaic philosophies like the Vedic tradition.
Actually, a number of researchers and philosophers
struggling with the question of consciousness make
the observation I just made above.
Perhaps my statement
> lacked a bit of the humility that I claimed was needed! I think
Sam's
> point is that cultures that follow this type of philosophical
> tradition need the same epistemological oil change that has
dominated
> the development of liberal democracies.
But let's make sure we're not changing it for oil
that doesn't have the qualities we think it does.
These ideas need to be
> challenged the same way we challenge a claim that someone is
selling a
> magic pill that keeps you from ever dying.
How would you challenge the claim I made above, that
there is no empirical means of determining whether
there's anything "out there"?
That's where epistemological humility has to begin,
it seems to me. If we take the independent existence
of "out there" as an axiom, something we "know," it
throws all the rest of the epistemological exercise
in question.
It is taboo in society to
> challenge the basis on which someone asserts that they "know" that
> Jesus is Lord., and even worse, what that means about how other
> people should behave.
As far as I'm concerned, the first belief (or any of
its competitors) is inarguable. As to the second, a
person's belief that they should get to determine how
I should behave is likewise inarguable *as a belief*,
but they're going to have a very hard time implementing
it, because I'm going to resist it with all my might.
> I think we are shaped by the religious societies that we live
> in. I don't know how that influence could be avoided by a child
> not raised by wolves.
Well, of course. But that doesn't necessarily
mean that it's the *only* influence. As I said,
I think it's quite wrong for Harris to insist
that Sullivan must have picked up his initial
belief in God from that source. He may well have,
but Harris can't possibly *know* that.
Try this: go back over some of Harris's posts
and see how many statements he makes that he
can't back up in the way he insists Sullivan
should be able to back up his. There are quite
a few of them.
