[Video] Sam Harris debates with Rabbi David Wolpe

[vow66]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjhbccXIp4c

Full Video Here
http://www.ajula.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1766&u=7037&t=0

[dcsmart]

1. i like Rabbi Wolpe

i watched a debate with him and Christopher Hitchens, which i posted and is in my journal. I have respect for Wolpe. His religion is not the right-wing fearful hysteria that demands an our way, or no way mentality. However, i think a excellent response to both of them would be the article i posted in this forum:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x205868

thanks for the post. i really do enjoy Rabbi Wolpe, and even though i am not a theist, the "new atheists", not so much. Hitches on politics, yes.

[Meshuga]

2. I also like Wolpe

And this was a pretty civil debate between Wolpe and Harris, I thought.

[Goblinmonger]

3. I hate the term "new atheists"

just smacks of right-wing talking point. The only thing "new" is that they actually are outspoken about it and there is nothing new about that. Bertrand Russell was a "new" atheist then. Just seems like a label from those that don't like to hear what many atheists are afraid to say.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Marquis de Sade was an outspoken atheist author in the 1700s.

[ZombieHorde]

5. Which religious ideas have replaced Freud's?

Wolpe makes this claim and Harris seems to accept it.

The same for Marx.

[Jim__]

6. I thought Wolpe mentioned Freud and Marx as proponents of ideas that were once ...

... considered scientific and are no longer considered scientific. IIRC he was trying to demonstrate that you can be just as wrong following scientific ideas as you can be following religious ideas; but I watched the video yesterday and may not be remembering the part you are talking about.

I thought Harris accepted the examples as legitimate and did not challenge them.

[ZombieHorde]

7. Harris' challange (around 4 min 10 sec) was

to come up with an example of a scientific answer being replaced with a religious answer, as opposed to the many religious answers which have been replaced by scientific answers.

[Jim__]

8. OK. I watched the beginning of the video again.

He says that Marx's ideas about what constitutes a good society have been largely rejected and now the religious ideas about what constitutes a good society are accepted as better. When he starts to talk about Freud, there is a lot of back and forth and it's not really clear.

Harris accepts what he says, but I had the impression that he's accepting that Marxism and Freudianism were bad science.

I think the given and take of conversation leads to a certain imprecision. There's so much going on that it's pretty hard to come up with exact answers.

[ZombieHorde]

9. "the religious ideas about what constitutes a good society"

Secular democracy is better than theocracy, a simple modern day comparison makes this obvious.

[dcsmart]

10. maybe he was thinking of Groucho Marx

because Marx's ideas are still relevant and certainly are not replaced by religious ideas because Marx was a materialist and metaphysics played no part in his philosophy