Comments on: The Anti-God Squad

By: Gopakumar das

Gopakumar das — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:43:40 +0000

In human developmental psychology we discuss how all of us begin with some sense of the proto-”I” and relate to the environment beyond the “I” as an extension of the self, sometimes even within our magical control. Advaita Vedanta is something like this, but it says that ultimately the “I” is a part of the environmental impersonal “other”.

However, in psychology it is considered an important developmental achievement when the “I” can cognitively reach beyond the “I” and recognize that the environment is not some magical impersonal environmental provision but rather is a subject, a caretaker, needed and of significance, with a center of his/her own awareness, needs, desires, and feelings. This achievement is an advance because it ushers in relating, loving, and new possibilities outside of what we can imagine for ourselves. Our solitary mind is ultimately a very small space when compared to the relational mind. Gaudiya Vedanta tells us that when we pull back the veil of our solitude there is a world of subjects on the other side, and the center of that group is a subject so big and charming, the idea of self-centeredness is dwarfed.

Here’s hoping….

If we start from the “I” it will usually not be long before we start to reach for the “other”. Descartes did this himself. As a natural skeptic myself, when I hear of the researches into the ends of the universe, and inquire into what is beyond these ends, my mind begins to doubt doubting. I say to myself, “The universe –the context of all we know to exist– has a context as well? That is enough to stimulate the reach for another… and arguably justifiable.

By: swami bv tripurari

swami bv tripurari — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:58:12 +0000

Here is something from Harris himself on the empirical basis of the mystical experience:

The feeling we call “I”—the sense that there is a thinker giving rise to our thoughts, an experiencer distinct from the mere flow of experience—can disappear when looked for in a rigorous way. Our conventional sense of “self” is, in fact, nothing more than a cognitive illusion, and dispelling this illusion opens the mind to extraordinary experiences of happiness. This is not a proposition to be accepted on faith; it is an empirical observation…

He is of course Advaitin or Buddhist above, but as you can see he has some fascination with the bottom line of Vedanta. He would like to separate it from its religious surroundings, but that may be more difficult than he realizes. Then again many “religious” people also reject religions mystical conclusions. That’s the whole debate between Karma Mimamsa and Vedanta.

By: swami bv tripurari

swami bv tripurari — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:46:52 +0000

I would have to look at the debate again to refresh my memory, but Harris acknowledges a kind of secular mysticism (this does not come out in the debate). He accepts that the mystical experience of “enlightenment” and ego effacing is arguably the most evolved and happiest state of consciousness but does not agree with the metaphysical descriptions of what that state of consciousness is or the religious baggage that often accompanies it. So he is more aware of Vedanta than it appears when he debates Muslims and Christians. In one sense there is not that much to debate with him on mysticism. No one can prove the metaphysical claims arising from the mystic’s experience and no one can disprove them. Although one could erect a roughly empirical basis for those claims. Having reached such a stalemate with naturalism, one could make the case for the practical superiority of the mystics’ claims, but this would be difficult to sell to materialistic people who have no experience of such expanded/evolved consciousness, and embracing the practical superiority of these claims would affect the world on just about every level.

By: Kesava

Kesava — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 06:36:38 +0000

Dandavats Maharaja,
I was joking actually, although I would like to see you take on Chopra as well (which would certainly be a pushover for you!)

I would be very interested to know on what points you would pin Harris to the wall. It seems that most (if not all debates) with atheists are with proponents of Abrahamic religions. It would be refreshing to actually see a Gaudiya Vaisnava scholar up against Harris or Dawkins. Abrahamic religions are theologically a push over for most atheists, but I think Vedanta is another matter altogether…

By: swami bv tripurari

swami bv tripurari — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:22:47 +0000

I don’t know if you are joking, but Harris of course. Chopra has his demerits no doubt, but I would not mind meeting with him and talking with him about a better strategy for defending mysticism against naturalism than what he has come up with.

By: Kesava

Kesava — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:08:43 +0000

“I felt I could have done much better, even pinning him to the wall.”

Who? Harris or Deepak Chopra?

Either way it would be interesting to see…

By: Gaura-Vijaya

Gaura-Vijaya — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 02:54:24 +0000

Perhaps it is easier for atheist to be moral because he/she does not have any compulsion to be so and he/she can show kindness and good things voluntarily. But for a religious person who takes the moral high ground, there is a huge pressure to live upto that standard and people fail a lot in doing that because of a number of reasons. There are different kinds of atheists and they can become theists in one life changing experience and theists can become atheists too.

By: Robotmule

Robotmule — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:56:55 +0000

Nice, if any Visnu Fan can pin any Mundane/Atheistic Person to the wall philosophically, I will lick the dust from their feet (on Youtube)!

By: Audarya-lila dasa

Audarya-lila dasa — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:43:33 +0000

It’s been so long since I wrote my comment and I never saw your following comment Gurunistha – anyway, I believe my point was being made regarding the conjecture of Bhaktikanda above that ‘If religious sentiments are a result of certain combinations of purely material systems, so should be other phenomena such as loving feelings, sense of purpose (or not), and so on. But we don’t see atheists ridiculing couples exchanging flowers on wedding anniversaries, or mothers who cry over the loss of suicide children’ – so the argument is that religion is a ‘spontaneously occuring natural phemonema’ to which you said the athiests agree – which still begs the question, and my comment to your response was simply that Hitchen’s idea that religion would be fine if done behind closed doors doesn’t adequately address the objection because other ‘spontaneously occuring natural phenomena’ that affect society at large are not being objected to and subjected to this type of censure. In the case of marriage the ‘spontaneous occurance’ is encouraged by the state and by society at large. Fanaticism which results from religious dogma is also addressed by state laws to varying degrees. At any rate, it seems that the majority of people spontaneously feel that there is a God and that religion goes hand in hand with that spontaneous natrual feeling. That, in and of itself, really means that everyone in society will be affected by it – even those without ‘the feeling’. So the knitting society example fails on a couple fronts. One – knitting is done by a very small minority of people so it therefore doesn’t affect society at large much quite naturally – and, two, insisting that the spontaneous natural phenomena not affect others who it hasn’t ‘naturally occured in’ is unrealistic just as much it would be unrealistic to insist that marriage or suicide not affect society at large.

By: swami bv tripurari

swami bv tripurari — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:22:20 +0000

Harris seems the most aware of and even a little respectful towards mysticism. In his book End of Faith he has a short chapter on it that he was criticized for in his own community and as a result seems to have backed tracked a bit on what he wrote there. But overall he is preoccupied with Muslim and Christian fundamentalism.

I don’t think SE would impress him though. It speaks of downward causation from consciousness to matter but offers no empirical evidence to support the idea. Harris is really an empirical positivist with no place for metaphysics. I have contemplated how to debate him and feel confident that his arguments could be neutralized and covered with a shadow of doubt. You would have to talk his language and point to the leaps he takes from empirical evidence to naturalism and center the discussion on consciousness, while being versed not only in Vedanta and speaking from experience but also in the philosophy of mind–cognitive science.

He did debate Deepak Chopra. Chopra unfortunately was not very impressive. It’s probably on Youtube. Watching the debate I felt I could have done much better, even pinning him to the wall.