(August 8, 2012 at 10:31 pm)goddamnit Wrote:(July 3, 2012 at 7:12 am)Brian37 Wrote: Even Victor Stinger in his book "The New Atheism" Stinger addresses why even Harris views on Buddhism and spirituality are as much woo as any other.I put a lot of effort into meditating and reading about mindfulness over the past few days. I did it because Harris had a good sales pitch for it, but I do not want to put effort into a false hope and find out it is bullshit later. I would rather know now.
What exactly did Victor Stenger say? Was it a criticism of Buddhism in general or specifically Sam Harris's views? Will you please type up the part you are referring to? Which chapter and page number? Hard copy or soft copy? I am on a quest for self-improvement and could really use this information.
Read the book. It's main topic claim is that science DOES have something to say about god claims. But it has a chapter that deals with the history of god claims and religious traditions in which he address all sorts of labels including Buddhism, to demonstrate that human morality is evolutionary and not label based, regardless if the religion has god claims or not. He addresses the big Abraham three, as well as Janism(sp) Taoism and others.
It doesn't even take a scientist to understand this. If the layperson can see that every human has eyes and legs and arms, why wouldn't we be subject to the same emotions and actions both good and bad?
When you add to that question the scientific fact that we are ALL from the same evolutionary DNA past, the picture is crystal clear. Religious traditions have never been a requirement to make babies and that is the only thing evolution requires. Our species in it's most current form was around long before any written language and even since, religions have come and gone and morphed into newer ones.
Religious traditions are born out of our evolutionary pattern seeking and grouping for safety in numbers. But that is merely a placebo, that can be false but have a real benefit to lead to reproduction. Much like the Egyptians falsely for 3,000 years believed the sun was a god. It only works in a placebo sense, but the sun was never a god.
All I can say is read the book. "God The Failed Hypothesis" is also another book by Stenger I would recomend.
"The God Delusion" By Richard Dawkins as well. All these books go into detail without getting to complicated for the layperson, as to why humans believe false things.
