One Of The Best Quick Talks About Hell, By Sam Harris

[Margee]

I just listened to this and thought it might bring some comfort to those who are still afraid of the Christian god and the delusional issue of the hell doctrine. He makes some real good points in eleven minutes!!

[Aggie]

Margee, 

I agree, this is a great clip.  A couple things he presses a little more than I would, but his critiques of divine command theory, the barbarism of the OT, the inherent injustice of hell, God's pleasure with human sacrifice (of Jesus), and the dubiousness of traditional Christian views of prayer are powerful.  Reacting to the "offense of the gospel" is many times just intellectual honesty combined with basic human compassion.

I love his calm demeanor too.  It reminds me that being afraid of Yahweh, hell, and the rest are just what happens when you let fear cloud your judgment... 

[buffettphan]

That's a great video, Margee.  I really like Sam Harris.  Thanks for posting it

 

...and just curious - how did you post it?   

[Margee]

That's a great video, Margee.  I really like Sam Harris.  Thanks for posting it

 

...and just curious - how did you post it?   

Deny showed me!!   Go read the front of the status updates hon!!

 

I LOVE Sam Harris!! He's pretty cute too!!!

[Kris]

He is a hottie--and a smartie!!

[Bhim]

Yeah...no comments on Sam Harris' looks from me.

 

Anyway, this is a very nice talk he gave and an excellent summary of the reasons that Jesus should be seen as a morally reprehensible deity.  I thought his argument from the "problem of evil" track would probably be easy for a theist to refute via counterarguments based on the concept of theodicy.  However he does a good job of backing Christians into a corner by pointing out that all the people God kills in India are, according to a Christian paradigm, going to eternal conscious torment in hell.  Christians have a self-consistent argument.  However, as I'm sure Sam Harris would expound on if given more time, the problem is that Christians don't believe in their own argument.  They do have a problem with people going to hell, and they do recognize that all sin is not equal (i.e. stealing a paperclip is not the moral equivalent of mass genocide).

 

I'd like to see William Lane Craig's response, if anyone has it.

[rain]

 

 

I'd like to see William Lane Craig's response, if anyone has it.

Good points Sam Harris makes all through the entire debate. Bhim here is the link for the full debate. IGNORE THE TITLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwhgPjPCpL8  WLC rebutle starts at 1:10:10

 Thanks Margie for posting this 

[Positivist]

"This view has nothing to do with moral accountability."

 

Can I get an 'Amen'?

[Bhim]

 

Good points Sam Harris makes all through the entire debate. Bhim here is the link for the full debate. IGNORE THE TITLE

 

WLC rebutle starts at 1:10:10

 Thanks Margie for posting this 

 

 

Thanks for the link.  I watched the rebuttal (only the 8 minute segment, obviously not the whole 2+ hour video).  A couple thoughts.

 

First, I'll happily cede that the very existence of evil implies an objective good.  Maybe you can even argue that the existence of "law" implies a fundamental lawgiver (mind you I'm in no way opposed to theism, just Jesus).  But as far as I can tell, Harris doesn't seem to dispute the existence of objective good and evil, only that the God depicted in the Bible is good.  Saying that objective good exists is a different claim from saying that God defines objective good.

 

Secondly, Craig is engaging in quite a bit of sophistry by restricting the available topics of debate, e.g. not addressing the existene of God, the exclusive truth of Christianity, etc.  To be fair, Harris could have done a better job of sticking to the debate and thus preventing Craig from dismissing all of his points.  But questions such as, "if God and objective good exist, how does it logically follow that I'll go to hell for not believing in Jesus?" have to actually be addressed at some point.  Christian apologists are great at making generalized theism seem plausible.  I've never seen a convincing argument concerning why I should believe in Jesus.  You have to believe in the historicity of the New Testament, and this is where Christians put forth some truly academically poor arguments.

 

All in all, I appreciate Craig and Harris getting into this debate but I'm no less convinced that Christianity is a false religion.