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January 2010 
Sam Harris and Reza Aslan: Reason & Faith
Posted on Feb 21st, 2007
by 
Julian
Julian
We live in such highly charged times. The powerful influence of philosophy, worldviews, and cosmology on current events and the future of humanity is under more scrutiny than perhaps ever in history.
It is so exciting to see that the debate on religion is so much more in the public eye and that books addressing our 21st century collision between fundamentalist faith, scientific rationality, and destructive technology are best-sellers. Of course what is missing is an understanding of where mysticism and reason can genuinely coexist - in healthy transrational spirituality.
As a South African who grew up under Apartheid, I have a very vivid sense of the power of philosophy to create suffering and oppression as well as dignity and freedom. I also feel the moral imperative to seek and express truth as being somewhat central to the cause of compassion. In this I find myself in rather good company.
Here are atheist Sam Harris and Mulsim scholar Reza Aslan being moderated by Jewish intellectual Jonathan Kirsch. A truly beautiful discussion. All three are opposed to religious fundamentalism, but their positions are differentiated by important nuances.
It is great to hear some intelligent counterpoints to Harris' devastating (and i think accurate) critique of religion. The arguments are very eloquent all 'round here, and ciritics of Harris and his buddy Dawkins will find much good ammunition...
As a lover of mystic poetry, mythology, and spiritual practice, I find substantial sympathy with Aslan and Hirsch's intellectual fascination with the psychological meaning behind religious symbols, but Harris' philosophical clarity and humanistic passion for truth, goodness, and tipping the sacred cows to call a spade a spade, is of the essence.
The question that remains - which I think my Integral jousting partners keep trying to bring up is this: though the problem of irrational belief may be obvious to rational people, how do we deal with the reality that the majority of the world population is simply not interested in rational argument, truth, evidence or reason?
My exploratory answers (and this is the theme of my entire zaadz presence) have to do with creating a space for 1) rationality and critical thinking in spirituality, 2) to integrate rational intelligence with experiential inquiry-based spiritual practice, that has the potential to reveal authentic transrational states and stages, as well as 3) to introduce shadow work/psychological awareness as an important aspect of 21st century spirituality.
None of these three factors are present in either old-world religion or New Age spirituality, both of which eschew rationality in favor of faith, are about belief rather than a kind of scientifically appled experiential practice, and are usually inherently dualistic and lacking in psychological depth and appreciation for the power and sacred nature of working with what Jung calls the Shadow instead of projecting or denying it.
The reasons i find these three approaches compelling are:
1) when critical thinking is understod as an essential spiritual tool - the whole conversation gets up-leveled - the false and fragmented dichotomy between spirituality and making distinctions and discerning judgments gets overturned.
2) when inquiry-based practice is understood to be the crucible of spiritual life, stagewise growth, compassion and insight have a better chance of emerging in greater numbers of people. Introducing this as a counter-meme to belief, faith or consoling ideas seems crucial.
3) When psychological awareness and shadow work are understood to be part of spirituality two things can happen - a) one can begin to cognitively see the psychological reasons for clinging to defensive beliefs that make no rational sense, and b) one can begin to process the disowned despair, pain, grief, anger and fear and become more grounded in a integrated body-mind-heart experience that is not seeking spirit elsewhere as a dissociative fantasy.
Part of this creation of space for a healthier integration entails exercising critical thinking to debunk the parts of religion and spirituality that obscure truth, beauty and goodness and perpetuate the fragmentation that needs to be integrated.
i think this is a noble pursuit - even though some will inevitably be offended. This is true in all discourse. Some others who I enjoy and respect find this problematic. Clearly there is work to do...
How wonderful that we have a forum to explore these details!
Please enjoy Harris and Aslan and don't be afraid to get your neurons dirty or to put your heart into the positions that resonate....
It is so exciting to see that the debate on religion is so much more in the public eye and that books addressing our 21st century collision between fundamentalist faith, scientific rationality, and destructive technology are best-sellers. Of course what is missing is an understanding of where mysticism and reason can genuinely coexist - in healthy transrational spirituality.
As a South African who grew up under Apartheid, I have a very vivid sense of the power of philosophy to create suffering and oppression as well as dignity and freedom. I also feel the moral imperative to seek and express truth as being somewhat central to the cause of compassion. In this I find myself in rather good company.
Debate between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan
Here are atheist Sam Harris and Mulsim scholar Reza Aslan being moderated by Jewish intellectual Jonathan Kirsch. A truly beautiful discussion. All three are opposed to religious fundamentalism, but their positions are differentiated by important nuances.
It is great to hear some intelligent counterpoints to Harris' devastating (and i think accurate) critique of religion. The arguments are very eloquent all 'round here, and ciritics of Harris and his buddy Dawkins will find much good ammunition...
As a lover of mystic poetry, mythology, and spiritual practice, I find substantial sympathy with Aslan and Hirsch's intellectual fascination with the psychological meaning behind religious symbols, but Harris' philosophical clarity and humanistic passion for truth, goodness, and tipping the sacred cows to call a spade a spade, is of the essence.
The question that remains - which I think my Integral jousting partners keep trying to bring up is this: though the problem of irrational belief may be obvious to rational people, how do we deal with the reality that the majority of the world population is simply not interested in rational argument, truth, evidence or reason?
My exploratory answers (and this is the theme of my entire zaadz presence) have to do with creating a space for 1) rationality and critical thinking in spirituality, 2) to integrate rational intelligence with experiential inquiry-based spiritual practice, that has the potential to reveal authentic transrational states and stages, as well as 3) to introduce shadow work/psychological awareness as an important aspect of 21st century spirituality.
None of these three factors are present in either old-world religion or New Age spirituality, both of which eschew rationality in favor of faith, are about belief rather than a kind of scientifically appled experiential practice, and are usually inherently dualistic and lacking in psychological depth and appreciation for the power and sacred nature of working with what Jung calls the Shadow instead of projecting or denying it.
The reasons i find these three approaches compelling are:
1) when critical thinking is understod as an essential spiritual tool - the whole conversation gets up-leveled - the false and fragmented dichotomy between spirituality and making distinctions and discerning judgments gets overturned.
2) when inquiry-based practice is understood to be the crucible of spiritual life, stagewise growth, compassion and insight have a better chance of emerging in greater numbers of people. Introducing this as a counter-meme to belief, faith or consoling ideas seems crucial.
3) When psychological awareness and shadow work are understood to be part of spirituality two things can happen - a) one can begin to cognitively see the psychological reasons for clinging to defensive beliefs that make no rational sense, and b) one can begin to process the disowned despair, pain, grief, anger and fear and become more grounded in a integrated body-mind-heart experience that is not seeking spirit elsewhere as a dissociative fantasy.
Part of this creation of space for a healthier integration entails exercising critical thinking to debunk the parts of religion and spirituality that obscure truth, beauty and goodness and perpetuate the fragmentation that needs to be integrated.
i think this is a noble pursuit - even though some will inevitably be offended. This is true in all discourse. Some others who I enjoy and respect find this problematic. Clearly there is work to do...
How wonderful that we have a forum to explore these details!
Please enjoy Harris and Aslan and don't be afraid to get your neurons dirty or to put your heart into the positions that resonate....
Access: PublicTagged with: sam harris, reza aslan, jonathan hirsch, religion, faith, reason, science, spirituality
Hi, Julian, you're right: this is a good debate! I enjoyed listening to it. I didn't fully identify with either side of the argument, though I recognized in Aslan's comments some of my own: “Sam, stop making such wild generalizations!”
Unfortunately, I have to say the same thing to you, brother, with regard to this blog entry. You write that old world religion and New Age spirituality lack critical thinking, inquiry-based practice, and serious shadow work. I personally believe that you have been hampered, unfortunately, by spending so much time with the New Age and “healing” crowds, and self-admittedly have not studied deeply in theology or other world religious traditions. Because it is just flat out wrong that these elements are missing in traditional religious history and practice. I think the shadow element is actually relatively new, at least as it is understood and practiced psychotherapeutically; but even then, there are still quite a few religious thinkers out there who are deeply interested in these issues and already exploring them. So, it isn't necessary to “introduce” shadow work to the religious/spiritual practitioners in the world; that work is already growing and developing. I think it needs to grow more, and I will happily join you in furthering that cause. But we shouldn't imagine we are trailblazing here. And concerning logic, epistemology, the use of rational distinction-making in the service of spiritual growth: just take a look at Buddhism – not as it is taught in bookstore cafes, but as it is taught monastically. Check out the work of classical Buddhist logicians like Dignaga or Dharmakirti. Look into the many inquiry-based practices that actually already exist in Old World religious traditions.
I am not at all interested in dissuading you from emphasizing these things. I fully support you. I think they are vital. But an expanded horizon of study should make it clear to you that the picture you're currently painting is inaccurate and therefore harmful - because people will be less likely to take you seriously if you don't really have a grasp on the extent of what is out there, historically and currently.
Warm wishes and a big hug, brother J.
Balder
nicely put balder - and you make a good point - echoing aslan's good points.
at the same time i will echo harris' rebuttal:
yes you are right there is substantial evidence of both sophisticated critical thinking and shadow work in esoteric intellectual buddhism and intellectual theology of all stripes - HOWEVER it is not unfair to say that the religion that defines the vast majority of the world's population is not possesed, in any sufficient quantitiy, of neither of these elements.
faith-based religion and spirituality (by defintion) asks that critical thinking be suspended on certain key central premises. this is a hard one to get around, no?
do you agree that the lack of psychological awareness and propensity therefore to shadow-projection is a significant component in, say, the great showdown between the “evil-doers” of fundamentalist islam and “The Great Satan” of fundamentalist christian america?
would you agree that these things are lacking in the 30 million strong evangelical movement formerly headed by shadow victim haggard that helped born again president george w bush (who “god told” to go into iraq) to ride into 2 terms?
would you agree that critical thinking, humanistic spirituality and psychological/shadow awareness is markedly absent in te arab-israeli crisis over who gets to own the literal so-called “holy land?”
would you aree that these things were absent in the catholic/protestant violence in northern ireland, or the conflicts in recent years between religious/ethnic groups in the balkans and in africa? how about the handiwork of the iranian's under the ayatollah, or the taliban in afghanistan? now i love rumi as much as the next mythopoetic counter culture yogi - but let's not pretend he represents islam to ay significant extent - especially as a force in the real world…..
my premise is that both religion and alternative spirituality suffer from a lack of the three things i am prescribing. this is largely because they are generally dualistic and see critical thinking as the enemy of “faith” - the dualism too pits the shadow against the idealized religious archetype of goodness and creates a personal and social split with devastating and widespread consequences.
is this a generalization?
yes.
is it a wild generalization? no. it is one based in the history of religion and the current phenomenon of new age spirituality.
do a handful of intellectual theologians, esoteric monastic practitioners, and a lot of religious moderates (however many) change the reality of the historically bloody effects of religion lacking in the qualities i am mentioning on the planet and it's central role in our current crisis?
hardly.
my critique is not based in theology, it is based on much less esoteric and readily apparent sources.
i am suggesting that faith can be matured through judicious application of critical thinking, shadow work and inquiry based practices.
the fact that some religious people are already doing so to some extent gives me cause for joy - but it does not weaken what i am saying.
Hi, Julian,
It is less what you are saying and more how you are saying it that I am concerned with here. As I said, I think rationality, inquiry, and shadow-work are all vital “tools” that can be used powerfully in the service of transformation and healing. And I agree with you that many of the world's religious practitioners operate from a mythic membership perspective.
But you give the impression that these three elements you are emphasizing are wholly absent from the world's religious traditions, and that is just not the case. In some traditions, they feature quite prominently. If you believe that religion = mythic-membership thought, then your arguments are understandable. But the religious “line” of human development is incredibly rich, spanning prerational to rational to transrational perspectives – often within the context of a single religious tradition. It is not as though it is up to secular humanists to save all the benighted religions of the world by injecting into them some radically new elements which have only been discovered in recent times. That just isn't true. This isn't to say that modern and postmodern knowledge cannot enrich religious traditions. It is just to point out that there is a long history of rational and radical/transformative inquiry in human religious development, and we should not neglect it. The various manifestations of these things can be vital resources to modern religious practitioners, especially those interested in transformation and in dealing with the trenchant problems of ideologically driven violence and fragmentation.
In fact, I would suggest that traditional religions contain some teachings which actually currently transcend what secular humanism has to offer. I think the secular humanist perspective is important, as I said above, and believe that it calls us to extend certain critical analyses in directions that were either neglected or not noticed in previous times, but there are also texts and teachings which – if you believe Wilber and accept his analysis – exceed the “rationalist” perspective by at least several degrees on the AQAL spectrum of development. If you seek to discard religion as a whole, based on the number of practitioners at a mythic membership level of development, you may discard resources that actually go well beyond what most secular humanist thinkers currently have to offer.
I know your critique is based mostly on what you are observing in the world. But what we see in the media, as Aslan points out, often leaves many important and subtle dimensions out of the picture. And “theology” and “religious philosophy” are not just little negligible blips on the radar screen: if you take an historical perspective, they constitute hundreds, even thousands of years of deep human reflection, inquiry, experience, and practice. In my view, we ignore or dismiss these things at our peril. It is profoundly hubristic to ignore them as if they didn't exist and just assume that our current knowledge is superior in all aspects to whatever musty stuff came before.
Best wishes,
Balder
oh this is quite beautiful and illuminating balder - deep bow to you.
i hear that we agree substantially but that you want to include something quite vital.
thank you.
here's a video that has some interesting stats about religious literalism and evolution in america - it says that 54 million american's over the age of 18 do not accept evolution…
problem?
That was fun. Check out this “easy peasy lemon squeezy” path to radical enlightenment!
It's the website of one of the members of the WIE forum, apparently.
now in 4 easy steps with only seconds of meditation and no messy hard work!
in just 2 years you too can be powerfully enlightened!
lol
lol. what a ridiculous claim.
Doesn't this guy know it takes a lifetime of pouring over dusty old book stacks and obscenely obtuse arguments to get to even a little bit of the truth. Hard work and karmic effort. That's what the “good books” say, right?
:-)
m