Secularist, humanist, Rawlsian, liberal, vegetarian, cyclist environmentalist, economist, free thinker.

Plenty of labels that come across when talking about public policy, a way of life or moral issues.

As Sam Harris has said, there is not always a need to wear your atheism on your sleeve to win an argument rationally. As a tactic, not falling into the atheist/theist trap is a winning one for public policy.

Thing is, it is not clear to a large number of people that religion is an antiquated and bizarre way of looking at the world – one that may be counter productive when facing humanity’s problems.

When you go beyond atheism then it descends into trying to herd cats. It is not enough of an idea for mass political mobilization.

But if there is one thing that may make more sense it is pushing secularism and it’s benefits to a free and equal society of liberty. That is one that can include more than atheists. Where numbers matter that could be the winning approach.

OTHER BLOGS:

Sam Harris – do not cast the first stone his speech at Atheist Alliance International Conference, Washington DC, 2007 where he articulated his ideas on not using atheism in public debate.

With regards Palin on the Bush doctrine, that Sam Harris mentions see blog here. The tactic of winning over Hillary Democrats seems to be working with Lynette Long. Also, considering Sam Harris mentioned that we should consider not using the term Atheist when there is a more central goal to be won (in Palin’s case lack of experience) I wonder why he agreed to the title.

When Atheists Attack

by Sam Harris in Newsweek

Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin‘s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones “God and country.” If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.

Then came Palin’s first television interview with Charles Gibson. I was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin’s luster can be much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady’s misfortune—and, above all, upon the “liberal elites” with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth’s surface (she didn’t have a passport until last year), or that she’s never met a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a straight-faced claim that Alaska’s geographical proximity to Russia gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American success story—but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling into, or upon, world history.

The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that half the electorate revels in Palin’s lack of intellectual qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of mediocrity in this country. “They think they’re better than you!” is the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it once again. “Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!” Yes, all too ordinary.

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter’s microphone, saying things like, “I’m voting for Sarah because she’s a mom. She knows what it’s like to be a mom.” Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Palin’s most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been widely discussed. The truth is, I didn’t much care that she did not know the meaning of the phrase “Bush doctrine.” And I am quite sure that her supporters didn’t care, either. Most people view such an ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the other things Palin is guaranteed not to know—or will be glossing only under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain’s advisers. What doesn’t she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research, environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin’s ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn’t: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions of Americans—but we shouldn’t be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job she isn’t ready for? He wouldn’t. Everything happens for a reason. Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country—even the welfare of our species—as collateral in her own personal journey of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on his personal journey to the White House.

In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq, Palin urged the congregation to pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God; that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.” When asked about these remarks in her interview with Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response “absurd.” It was worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged about Palin’s life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church, Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible guide to future events and that we are living in the “end times.” Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather. Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing—as all true Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals, Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant when declaring to her congregation that “God’s going to tell you what is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to have that within you”?

You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” “miraculous healings” and “the gift of tongues.” Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin’s spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of “the final generation,” engaged in “spiritual warfare” to purge the earth of “demonic strongholds.” Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: “All options remain on the table”?

It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that Palin’s impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family values; in the case of one of Palin’s daughters, however, teen pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who “intends” to marry her. Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of “the dysfunction in the black community”?

Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst, as in the Palins’ case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism. Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds. She has also fought vigorously for a “parental consent law” in the state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of 21st-century family planning—or, indeed, of the 21st century.

We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched by religious ideology. Bush’s claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted a “higher Father” before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush’s religious beliefs, and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that while she cannot afford to “talk the talk” between now and Nov. 4, if elected, she can be trusted to “walk the walk” until the Day of Judgment.

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world’s only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

“Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child’s brain?”

“Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I’m an avid hunter.”

“But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind.”

“That’s just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink.”

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. “You can’t blink,” she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.

Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York Times best sellers “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation.” His Web site is samharris.org.

OTHER BLOGS:

Christopher Hitchens on Palin

Mother Nature is Not Our Friend – by Sam Harris

Sam Harris (author of  End of Faith and Letter to A Christian Nation) has conducted a survey of belief from Atheists and Christians – 36,781 people took part:

The primary purpose of this poll was not opinion research, in fact. Rather, we were designing stimuli for an experiment that we are now running on atheists and Christians using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The goal of survey was to produce stimuli of two categories – factual and religious – which would behave appropriately once we put members of each group inside our MRI scanner. We needed factual statements that both atheists and Christians would accept with the same order of confidence and religious statements that would divide them more or less diametrically.

In addition to vetting our experimental stimuli, however, we took the opportunity to solicit the opinions of believers and nonbelievers on many psychological and social topics that are not strictly relevant to our neuroimaging work. Many of these results are now available for viewing on my website.

Some highlights of the research:

The idea of secularism being supported by people of faith and none shows some promise here.

Pluralism as to ideas that lead to a good life seems to be rejected at the faithful end with Christianity as the real thing.

The idea of a Christian God that can be called on to interfere with the problems in the world is strong with 80% of believers agreeing.

If you really believe this about the after life, then a fear of death is a powerful incentive for faith.

90% proclaim the second coming of Jesus. Not sure whether on a horse is optional – but believers profess it as a real future event – to be prepared for.

Majority of believers disregard the poetry notion of Virginity that the Archbishop of Canterbury told Dawkins. 95% of respondents that were Christian think it actually happened.

In many ways the point being drawn out is that there are a lot of believers that literally think Jesus rose from the dead and literally was born of a Virgin, that Armageddon is literally going to happen, that literally Christianity is the only truth that will save you.

Sam Harris said of the Koran after quoting numerous passages:

But there is no substitute for confronting the text itself. I cannot judge the quality of the Arabic; perhaps it is sublime. But the book’s contents are not. On almost every page, the Koran instructs observant Muslims to despise nonbelievers. On almost every page, it prepares the ground for religious conflict. Anyone who can read passages like those quoted above and still not see a link between Muslim faith and Muslim violence should probably consult a neurologist.

With many quotes from the Koran in the link above that make you think that, should you wish to commit violence in the name of Allah, you will find references for such actions that you do so on behalf of god. While there are Muslims that do not believe in using violence and are secularist – not less the Bangladeshi community in my town who fled fundamentalism – the question of how we take away the oxygen that make people feel the Koran is a book that orders Jihad rather than one of metaphor, poetry and a history of a people living in a superstitious supernatural world is one that needs answering with fearing to ask the question.

I still remember when Ayaan Hirsi Ali was receiving death threats at a conference in Washington DC that they did think about cancelling her talk, but she went ahead. I am so glad that we got to hear what she had to say.

The treading on egg shells when a teacher allows her class to name a teddy bear Mohammad faces a murderous mob, a journalist student suffering imprisonment and the threat of the death penalty for starting a debate on feminism and the Prophet, the drawing of cartoons and over the top reaction to when people say that Islam is wrong need challenging.

This can be done without concern for sensitivities or treating people like they need wrapping up in cotton wool for fear that they cannot cope with rational debate without strapping explosives to themselves in response to have the last word. We do not help moderate Muslims that keep their faith in the private sphere if we fear making such criticism or scrutinizing what the text and belief are of Islam. That forgets how Christianity developed to where it is now in the UK.

To this end we need more articles like that of Johann Hari, from The Independent which I re post below:

Johann Hari: We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Thursday, 14 August 2008

Johann Hari

This is a column condemning cowardice – including my own. It begins with the story of a novel you cannot read. The Jewel of Medina was written by a journalist called Sherry Jones. It recounts the life of Aisha, a girl who was married off at the age of six to a 50-year-old man called Mohamed ibn Abdallah. On her wedding day, Aisha was playing on a see-saw outside her home. Inside, she was being betrothed. The first she knew of it was when she was banned from playing out in the street with the other children. When she was nine, she was taken to live with her husband, now 53. He had sex with her. When she was 14, she was accused of adultery with a man closer to her own age. Not long after, Mohamed decreed that his wives must cover their faces and bodies, even though no other women in Arabia did.

You cannot read this story today – except in the Koran and the Hadith. The man Mohamed ibn Abdallah became known to Muslims as “the Prophet Mohamed”, so our ability to explore this story is stunted. The Jewel of Medina was bought by Random House and primed to be a best-seller – before a University of Texas teacher saw proofs and declared it “a national security issue”. Random House had visions of a re-run of the Rushdie or the Danish cartoons affairs. Sherry Jones’s publisher has pulped the book. It’s gone.

In Europe, we are finally abolishing the lingering blasphemy laws that hinder criticism of Christianity. But they are being succeeded by a new blasphemy law preventing criticism of Islam – enforced not by the state, but by jihadis. I seriously considered not writing this column, but the right to criticise religion is as precious – and hard-won – as the right to criticise government. We have to use it or lose it.

Some people will instantly ask: why bother criticising religion if it causes so much hassle? The answer is: look back at our history. How did Christianity lose its ability to terrorise people with phantasms of sin and Hell? How did it stop spreading shame about natural urges – pre-marital sex, masturbation or homosexuality? Because critics pored over the religion’s stories and found gaping holes of logic or morality in them. They asked questions. How could an angel inseminate a virgin? Why does the Old Testament God command his followers to commit genocide? How can a man survive inside a whale?

Reinterpretation and ridicule crow-barred Christianity open. Ask enough tough questions and faith is inevitably pushed farther and farther back into the misty realm of metaphor – where it is less likely to inspire people to kill and die for it. But doubtful Muslims, and the atheists who support them, are being prevented from following this path. They cannot ask: what does it reveal about Mohamed that he married a young girl, or that he massacred a village of Jews who refused to follow him? You don’t have to murder many Theo Van Goghs or pulp many Sherry Joneses to intimidate the rest. The greatest censorship is internal: it is in all the books that will never be written and all the films that will never be shot, because we are afraid.

We need to acknowledge the double-standard – and that it will cost Muslims in the end. Insulating a religion from criticism – surrounding it with an electric fence called “respect” – keeps it stunted at its most infantile and fundamentalist stage. The smart, questioning and instinctively moral Muslims – the majority – learn to be silent, or are shunned (at best). What would Christianity be like today if George Eliot, Mark Twain and Bertrand Russell had all been pulped? Take the most revolting rural Alabama church, and metastasise it.

Since Jones has brought it up, let us look at Mohamed’s marriage to Aisha as a model for how we can conduct this conversation. It is true those were different times, and it may have been normal for grown men to have sex with prepubescent girls. The sources are not clear on this point. But whatever culture you live in, having sex when your body is not physically developed can be an excruciatingly painful experience. Among Vikings, it was more normal than today to have your arm chopped off, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t agony. If anything, Jones’s book whitewashes this, suggesting that Mohamed’s “gentleness” meant Aisha enjoyed it.

The story of Aisha also prompts another fundamentalist-busting discussion. You cannot say that Mohamed’s decision to marry a young girl has to be judged by the standards of his time, and then demand that we follow his moral standards to the letter. Either we should follow his example literally, or we should critically evaluate it and choose for ourselves. Discussing this contradiction inevitably injects doubt – the mortal enemy of fanaticism (on The Independent’s Open House blog later today, I’ll be discussing how Aisha has become the central issue in a debate in Yemen about children and forced marriage).

So why do many people who cheer The Life Of Brian and Jerry Springer: The Opera turn into clucking Mary Whitehouses when it comes to Islam? If a book about Christ was being dumped because fanatics in Mississippi might object, we would be enraged. I feel this too. I am ashamed to say I would be more scathing if I was discussing Christianity. One reason is fear: the image of Theo Van Gogh lying on a pavement crying “Can’t we just talk about this?” Of course we rationalise it, by asking: does one joke, one column, one novel make much difference? No. But cumulatively? Absolutely.

The other reason is more honourable, if flawed. There is very real and rising prejudice against Muslims across the West. The BBC recently sent out identically-qualified CVs to hundreds of employers. Those with Muslim names were 50 per cent less likely to get interviews. Criticisms of Islamic texts are sometimes used to justify US or Israeli military atrocities. Some critics of Muslims – Geert Wilders or Martin Amis – moot mass human rights abuses here in Europe. So some secularists reason: I have plenty of criticisms of Judaism, but I wouldn’t choose to articulate them in Germany in 1933. Why try to question Islam now, when Muslims are being attacked by bigots?

But I live in the Muslim majority East End of London, and this isn’t Weimar Germany. Muslims are secure enough to deal with some tough questions. It is condescending to treat Muslims like excitable children who cannot cope with the probing, mocking treatment we hand out to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. It is perfectly consistent to protect Muslims from bigotry while challenging the bigotries and absurdities within their holy texts.

There is now a pincer movement trying to silence critical discussion of Islam. To one side, fanatics threaten to kill you; to the other, critics call you “Islamophobic”. But consistent atheism is not racism. On the contrary: it treats all people as mature adults who can cope with rational questions. When we pulp books out of fear of fundamentalism, we are decapitating the most precious freedom we have.

In the USA there is I think something that may unite the Religious Right and the Secularist community – a fear that Europe is being swallowed up by Islam. The Archbishop’s comments that Sharia Law should have an accommodation in UK law, and other examples do seem to add to that perception – and it is one played on in Europe by anti immigration parties.

One such Dutch politician is Wilders who has spoken about making a film that will depict him decimating the Koran. Which if he did it would be nothing new – youtube has plenty of films of people doing that. How analytical such a film about the Koran will be I am not sure, but the background of course is that four years ago the Dutch film “Submission” was shown on Dutch TV and the director of the film Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death with a letter between his dead body and blade stating that the screenplay writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be next.

Now I am concerned with how some people want to accommodate Islam. That women are given less human rights due to their cultural tradition (a German court ruled that a woman was correctly beaten according to cultural custom but thankfully that decision was overturned). If this is multiculturalism, then it needs to be defeated because it allows people to be treated differently, against the notion of justice as fairness, and leads to the treatment of people that would not be allowed by law on other citizens.

However there is a fight back – witness the condemnation that met the very surprised Bishop of Canterbury (as parts of the Anglican community may refer to him when the schism is complete). Then there is Ayaan herself who though her life is under threat while she lives in the USA, speaks out but with authority because she has has lived it. Sam Harris in “End of Faith” in a chapter talks about the concerns of a literalistic interpretation of Islam.

Tolerance is a wonderful thing, but it does not cover everything. Some things will be beyond a society to accept, the question is only if there is a moral basis. Ethical consideration would be to do with harm and suffering, and the welfare of people. As such, for example, decisions based on divorce and financial arrangements which did not consider genders to be equal parties would be a cause for concern.

However, the xenophobia that exists is out of proportion to the threat posed, which is more within their own community then to wider society. That of genital mutilation, less likely for women to be educated or fluent in the native tongue, and customs such as honour killings which do not deserve the adjective. 7/7 happened, but much of that is ignoring what was happening within a community until it was too late.

In a global communication network, it will be difficult to censor the message of hate that Islamic fundamentalists use. Yet we can perhaps counter their message of hate, with rational passionate discourse about the benefits of human rights and liberal democracy. Hate crimes that encourage harm and the breaking of the law require zero tolerance.

Because it seems the key opponents in politics of Islam are the xenophobic politicians. The other politicians in power seem keen to move public policy to an accommodation with “moderate” faith groups in an attempt to take the sting out of the tail of extremist belief – based on fear. Few of political standing seem able to create a vision of an open country that will stand up for liberal values with a veer and vigour. They seem prepared to sacrifice these values for a better nights sleep after an election, reducing liberties and allowing values out of step with a modern state.

If I am wrong, by all means link them here in the comments – I would like to hear such politicians who will stand up for such values. I doubt that it will be popular with the electorate though it may be correct. But the case has yet to be made in the manner like below:

We live but a brief existence on this earth. We want the best for ourselves and our children. It is part of the human identity to better ourselves. By education. By hard work. The will to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. Much do we owe to those that came before us and may we strive that the future generation will say the same of us.

When people overcome obstacles and hardship to come here to make such a better life for themselves, to become a productive member of society that they become as one with us – this is a cause of celebration that the liberty and opportunity that we have created attracts such people that add to both commercial wealth and spirit in the land.

This does not mean that the light of liberty, freedom and opportunity that attracts so many to our shores should be dimmed on the say so of those that would replace our ancestors hard won rights with customs and beliefs that go against enlightenment values. Nor should we let mistrust and hatred allow us equally to do away those same values that allow us the freedoms to be who we are. Let us not sleep walk into thinking these rights are everlasting; may we ever be watchful of the demagogue that will promise us something with one hand while taking away the rights that gave us everything we love and appreciate. Rights that make our country great.

All equal before the law, the right to be tried by your peers, the right to a fair trial, the freedom to religious belief and none, that your private life is yours, the freedom to speak your mind and be challenged in that opinion, that all have the liberty to make their own way in this life and that by doing so shall the greater good be best served within such laws that are in accordance to the common good.

I ended my blog The Way We Are by calling on us to  recognise that we can use the fact that we have a common ancestor to embrace our common humanity in order for life to survive on this planet. Sam Harris’ article Mother Nature is Not Our Friend follows on  from there that it really is up for us to do the best we can in the face of a non existent god and the indifference of nature.

 Enjoy!

Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

by Sam Harris

 Like many people, I once trusted in the wisdom of Nature. I imagined that there were real boundaries between the natural and the artificial, between one species and another, and thought that, with the advent of genetic engineering, we would be tinkering with life at our peril. I now believe that this romantic view of Nature is a stultifying and dangerous mythology.

Every 100 million years or so, an asteroid or comet the size of a mountain smashes into the earth, killing nearly everything that lives. If ever we needed proof of Nature’s indifference to the welfare of complex organisms such as ourselves, there it is. The history of life on this planet has been one of merciless destruction and blind, lurching renewal.

The fossil record suggests that individual species survive, on average, between one and ten million years. The concept of a “species” is misleading, however, and it tempts us to think that we, as homo sapiens, have arrived at some well-defined position in the natural order. The term “species” merely designates a population of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring; it cannot be aptly applied to the boundaries between species (to what are often called “intermediate” or “transitional” forms). There was, for instance, no first member of the human species, and there are no canonical members now. Life is a continuous flux. Our nonhuman ancestors bred, generation after generation, and incrementally begat what we now deem to be the species homo sapiens — ourselves. There is nothing about our ancestral line or about our current biology that dictates how we will evolve in the future. Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. Very likely, they will not resemble us. We will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.

Will this be a good thing? The question presupposes that we have a viable alternative. But what is the alternative to our taking charge of our biological destiny? Might we be better off just leaving things to the wisdom of Nature? I once believed this. But we know that Nature has no concern for individuals or for species. Those that survive do so despite Her indifference. While the process of natural selection has sculpted our genome to its present state, it has not acted to maximize human happiness; nor has it necessarily conferred any advantage upon us beyond the capacity raise the next generation to child-bearing age. In fact, there may be nothing about human life after the age of forty (the average lifespan until the 20th century) that has been selected by evolution at all. And with a few exceptions (e.g. the gene for lactose tolerance), we probably haven’t adapted to our environment much since the Pleistocene.

But our environment and our needs — to say nothing of our desires — have changed radically in the meantime. We are in many respects ill-suited to the task of building a global civilization. This is not a surprise. From the point of view of evolution, much of human culture, along with its cognitive and emotional underpinnings, must be epiphenomenal. Nature cannot “see” most of what we are doing, or hope to do, and has done nothing to prepare us for many of the challenges we now face.

These concerns cannot be waved aside with adages like, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” There are innumerable perspectives from which our current state of functioning can be aptly described as “broke.” Speaking personally, it seems to me that everything I do picks out some point on a spectrum of disability: I was always decent at math, for instance, but this is simply to say that I am like a great mathematician who has been gored in the head by a bull; my musical ability resembles that of a Mozart or a Bach, it is true, though after a near fatal incident on skis; if Tiger Woods awoke from surgery to find that he now possessed (or was possessed by) my golf-swing, rest assured that a crushing lawsuit for medical malpractice would be in the offing.

Considering humanity as a whole, there is nothing about natural selection that suggests our optimal design. We are probably not even optimized for the Paleolithic, much less for life in the 21st century. And yet, we are now acquiring the tools that will enable us to attempt our own optimization. Many people think this project is fraught with risk. But is it riskier than doing nothing? There may be current threats to civilization that we cannot even perceive, much less resolve, at our current level of intelligence. Could any rational strategy be more dangerous than following the whims of Nature? This is not to say that our growing capacity to meddle with the human genome couldn’t present some moments of Faustian over-reach. But our fears on this front must be tempered by a sober understanding of how we got here. Mother Nature is not now, nor has she ever been, looking out for us.

Article re posted from here.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall I thought, as we marched from Jefferson Memorial to the White house during the Atheist Alliance International Conference 2007, as I had got wind of this Round table discussion happening but kept my mouth shut sworn to secrecy. So it is with great delight that the discussion between Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens is now available to watch on the internet, and will be on DVD next month.

In many ways the Round table discussion is better than the talks. Because they are bouncing off ideas, anecdotes, and experiences between them back and forth – and dealing with the common criticisms that they have encountered. Do enjoy, about two hours split in two parts below or watch via this link here

Part One

Part Two

Sam Harris has done a FAQ about Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

1. As a bestselling author, can’t Ayaan Hirsi Ali afford to pay for her own protection?

For security reasons, I cannot give specific information about the arrangements that have been made for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but I can say that the average security costs for people with similar security profiles can be in excess of two million dollars per year. Needless to say, very few writers sell enough books to cover such an extraordinary expense (and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not among them).

This might seem like an outrageous sum to spend so that one woman can safely stand at a university lectern and speak about the power of reason and the rights of little girls—and it is an outrageous sum and an outrageous circumstance. It is, of course, galling that a mere advocate of human rights and basic rationality should require special protection in the United States. But this is simply a fact of life in a world where freedom of speech and conscience falls ever more under the shadow of Muslim fanaticism. In my opinion, there is no one making a more heroic effort to change this fact than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

2. In your original appeal, you wrote that “if every reader of this email simply pledged ten dollars a month to protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the costs of her security would be covered for as long as the threat to her life remains.” How can you say this if you don’t know how far the email has spread? And if you only need $10 from each person why does the security page have options to give as much as $1000 per month?

The idea of offering a monthly subscription was to allow everyone to make a meaningful contribution to Ms. Hirsi Ali’s protection. Given what I know about the general costs of security, and the fact that the original email went out to over 15,000 people, it was correct to say that Ms. Hirsi Ali’s needs would be largely met if everyone gave $10 a month indefinitely. However, the truth is that only about half of the people receiving the email will open it; fewer will read it; and fewer still will donate.

I would be extremely happy if we could meet Ms. Hirsi Ali’s security needs in a grassroots way, with small donations, but this is not realistic. Protecting her will require some much larger gifts of money. Such gifts are still needed and actively being sought.

3. Aren’t there more important causes to support than the protection of Ayaan Hirsi Ali?

There are countless worthy targets for our generosity. Whether it is helping to alleviate hunger in the developing world or building a new pediatric hospital in the United States, one must choose between absolute need and absolute need, and such choices often defy rational justification.

Allow me to briefly make the case, however, that in this wilderness of competing needs and limited resources, the ongoing protection of Ayaan Hirsi Ali deserves our special commitment. In fact, few projects represent such a perfect marriage of moral and intellectual necessity. While the threat of Muslim extremism still seems distant to many of us living in the developed world, I think it is the one problem that has the potential to suddenly eclipse all others.

When one considers the cascading effects of what 19 jihadists did with box-cutters on September 11th, 2001–now measured in the trillions of dollars–it is difficult to imagine how the world might look after a single incident of nuclear terrorism. I think it is safe to say, however, that if we do suffer even one such attack, global warming will seem the least of our concerns. For this reason, I think that the superstition and bigotry that currently plagues Muslim communities, East and West, is the most pressing issue of our time. I know of no person better placed to awaken the world to the scope of this growing emergency than Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

4. Might this just be a waste of money? Do bodyguards actually make a difference?

Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of professional security should remember that Ms. Hirsi Ali’s colleague, Theo van Gogh, having declined diplomatic protection of his own, was immediately murdered on an Amsterdam street. It is true that no security can be perfect, especially when one’s enemies are willing to commit suicide. But the fact that U.S. diplomats successfully travel to places like Kabul and Baghdad demonstrates that the combination of intelligence, secrecy, and armed protection can make a difference. It is safe to say that Ms. Hirsi Ali is only alive today because the Dutch gave her diplomatic protection the moment she started receiving death threats in 2002.

5. Isn’t it true that the Dutch would still protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali if she remained in Holland?

The Dutch government has said as much. But the offer does not seem to be in good faith. The threat to Ms. Hirsi Ali is actually greatest in Holland, and it is much more expensive to protect her there. In fact, the security precautions necessary to keep her safe in Holland are quite stifling. She is much better placed in the U.S. to do her work. (For more on this subject, please see the opinion piece I wrote with Salman Rushdie).

6. Why single out Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Don’t other Muslim dissidents need our support?

There surely are other Muslim dissidents who are threatened and deserve our support. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most visible, however. In the event we raise enough money for her security, we will help others as well. Several of us are in the process of forming non-profit foundations for this larger purpose.

7. What will you do with the money, if you don’t raise enough of it?

The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust will pay for Ms. Hirsi Ali’s security until the money runs out. Hopefully we will raise enough to cover her needs indefinitely. If we do not raise enough money, and no government steps forward to offer her diplomatic protection, Ms. Hirsi Ali could be forced to stop doing her work and enter the witness protection program. Hopefully it will never come to that.

8. What will you do if you raise more money than is needed?

Given the costs of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s security, excess funds are not expected. However, if we raise enough money to cover Ms. Hirsi Ali’s security, I will send an announcement by email to every person who has donated to the Security Trust through this website. This will give people a choice about whether to continue to give to a surplus fund. I will, of course, make a similar announcement if Ms. Hirsi Ali is ever given diplomatic protection by the U.S. government (or any other).

The surplus fund will be used to support other dissidents and public intellectuals in the Muslim world – through conferences, media events, publications, or by making similar efforts to pay for their protection.

9. Ayaan Hirsi Ali works for the American Enterprise Institute—a “neoconservative” think-tank. Why should liberals support her?

Ms. Hirsi Ali’s cause transcends politics and should motivate liberals and conservatives equally. The American Enterprise Institute, to its great credit and to the enduring shame of my fellow liberals, was the only think-tank to offer Ms. Hirsi Ali a job when her security concerns finally forced her to leave Holland. Even if you find the views of certain AEI fellows as objectionable as I do, please recognize that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an independent scholar. The AEI deserves credit for having the courage and wisdom to support her. While the AEI is shouldering the burden of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s security for the time being, it cannot absorb these costs indefinitely.

10. How widely is this appeal being circulated? Is this only a secular effort, or have you reached out to Christians and moderate Muslims as well?

I’ve reached out to everyone I think could be helpful, including people like Pastor Rick Warren. I am very happy to say that Pastor Warren responded immediately (as fast as the fastest atheist) and pledged to help. I’ve also sent this appeal to my few contacts among practicing Muslims. Needless to say, I think it would be only fitting if moderate Muslims helped protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the immoderate ones.

11. Is there a risk that a high profile appeal such as this might be seen as a victory by the extremists who threaten Muslim apostates?

From my point of view, we don’t have the luxury of worrying about this. I think our society should be devoting immense resources to the problem of encouraging and protecting dissidents in the Muslim world. Until governments realize this, private citizens will have to do what they can. The real victory for the extremists would be if someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali could no longer make public appearances and do her work.

12. Will you personally be giving to the Security Trust every month?

Absolutely.

Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust to me at author@samharris.org. Please have the subject line read: “Question about the Security Trust”

Go to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust:
http://www.samharris.org/site/security_trust/

I had the pleasure of meeting Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the AAI conference this year – and was fortunate to get a copy of her book Infidel which people were trying to buy off me as I went to queue up to get signed. I praised her for her courage and sincerity.

That courage is going to be called on once again. The Dutch government has refused to honour a previous commitment to protect her unless she lives in Holland. Paradoxical as the security costs would actually be more if she was in Holland (as the risk would be greater there).

The risk to her life is real, but she is having to look to others to finance her security. For those that value free speech and the empowerment of women now is the time to put your money where your mouth is.  

Below is an article that Sam Harris has recently written please support her:

 http://www.samharris.org/site/security_trust/

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most prominent advocate of free speech and women’s rights in the Muslim world, and for this she must live under perpetual armed guard, even in the West. Unfortunately, on October 1st of this year, the Dutch government officially rescinded its promise to protect her. Now, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s friends, colleagues and admirers must come to her aid.

I have created a page on my website that links directly to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust. The money raised by this trust will pay Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s security expenses. In the event that money remains after these costs have been met, it will be used to encourage and protect other dissidents in the Muslim world.

The ongoing protection of Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a moral obligation. It is also a strategic one: for here is a woman doing work that most of us cannot do–indeed, would be terrified to do if given the chance–and yet this work is essential for preserving the freedoms we take for granted in the West.

If every reader of this email simply pledged ten dollars a month to protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the costs of her security would be covered for as long as the threat to her life remains.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Sincerely,

Sam Harris

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
In 2005, TIME included Ayaan Hirsi Ali in its list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. If you would like to know more about her, please read Christopher Caldwell’s fine profile in the New York Times Magazine. You can also read the essay that Salman Rushdie and I recently published in the Los Angeles Times, or the one that Christopher Hitchens wrote for Slate.

It has been brought to my attention that an article has been written by Michael Brendan Dougherty about Fundamentalist Secularists and the Atheist Alliance International Conference (my write ups on can be found here or on side bar).

 Now I like the way he goes for the argument. For example talking about Margaret Downey as the “dippy hostess”. I found her considerate and making time for delegates, keeping us informed and always approachable for ideas. Without her efforts Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens would not  have been in the same venue. That of its own was worth the airfare.

I further find interesting his take that Harris being met by silence is an embarrassment for non believers. My blogs here demonstrate that I am all for Harris’ position – I understand were he is coming from. That we may have differences of opinions (unity of ideas proof that we are always right?).  The bumper stickers that were on sale did make me laugh – “Keep your theology off my biology” was one I bought. I find it amusing that he takes such seaside postcard humour seriously. Humour breakdown.

 Next he goes for Julia Sweeney. Shame he takes what she has to say as “I bet she must be fun on dates”. Well, you should be so lucky mate! If this was the argument that is meant to counter why AAI happened then really if only it was about good argument winning the day. For a reason why read my blogs on Jehovah’s Witnesses and Introduction.

 Mind you I like the thing where he mentions what would Harris say to his response if he sneezed. My line at the AAI conference was that we were becoming so puritanical that if someone sneezed we should say “May all be well with you!” Though I said that a few times I reserve the right to say “Oh god” when cycling in the pouring rain or when reaching the heights of orgasm – I know nothing in the English language comparable to reacting to those experiences. For me the expression is beyond belief – it is a lexicon that can be used.

 Then of course he says that come Sunday everyone is asleep, too tired. No mention of when Margaret Downey announced the tour (now called march but what the hell!) of Jefferson Memorial to the White House which we did after the conference. Ah well never mind pity he did not come with us and see us all in our A shirts standing OUT.

Am I a secularist fundamentalist? No I would not kill faith school teachers. I would not throw stones at children attending such schools. Nor would I wish those that want a christian political state to burn in hell nor would I wish their freedom to worship the way they wish impeded providing it did not infringe on my freedoms as a non believer. I will work on a Sunday and I am glad that I have had consensual sex before marriage (only in recent times in British law has rape within marriage even been recognised since 1994)  or else I would be approaching thirty a virgin.

Lifestyle? Well maybe we choose what we think will make us happy. Some of us may even choose what makes us smug. When it comes to choose what makes me want to live the life I want to lead I have forsaken obeying anything unquestionably, nor take things as an article of faith.

The fact that people found Harris’ speech uncomfortable should be an indication of the herding cats mentality. People will think for themselves when it comes to non-belief. We are freethinkers not fundamentalists.

As to his hair comment you may want to read this blog here. Please note this blogger does exhibit modern teenage language but he is the person in question in the Conservative article