Sam Harris diskutiert.

Weil ich in meinem letzten Post gerade auch Sam Harris erwähnt habe: Auf der Richard Dawkins Website kann man eine Blog-Diskussion zwischen Sam Harris und Andrew Sullivan von Beliefenet verfolgen.

Ich hab's gerade erst entdeckt und bisher nur Sam Harris' letzten Beitrag gelesen. Als Appetithäppchen:

You write that "we are evolutionarily programmed for faith." While this claim seems debatable, let's just accept it as a given. What can we conclude from this? We certainly can't conclude that any specific religious doctrine is true (or likely to be true). Nor can we say that religious faith is desirable in the 21st century, or even compatible with our long-term survival as a species. Here is your quotation from Justin Barrett, with a few, minor edits:

"[Viking] theology teaches that people were crafted by [Odin] to [rape and pillage]. Why wouldn't [Odin], then, design us in such a way as to find [raping and pillaging] quite natural?*

We probably do have a genetic proclivity for raping and pillaging. Clearly, rape is an excellent strategy for getting one's genes into the next generation, and a wide variety of species engage in it (orangutans are notorious; they've even raped humans.) But who is going to argue for the moral legitimacy of rape based on the fact that it has paid evolutionary dividends?

Und falls das "we are evolutionarily programmed for faith" bekannt vorkommt: Sullivan hat sich in seinem vorangegangenen Post auf "Darwin's God" bezogen, einen NYT-Artikel, zu dem ich sogar auch selbst was geschrieben habe.

MfG,
JLT

[Bild-Quelle: dittmar-online]

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*Das Originalzitat, dass Andrew Sullivan gepostet hat, war dies:

Christian theology teaches that people were crafted by God to be in a loving relationship with him and other people. Why wouldn't God, then, design us in such a way as to find belief in divinity quite natural? Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me - should I then stop believing that she does?