This is the first episode of a series dedicated to the public debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges, Truthdig organized by the online magazine, entitled "Religion, politics and the end of the world." The video Audio in English are available here .
Incipit Sam Harris
I tend to start every speech on this subject with an apology, because I am going to say things very strict on religion [audience laughs] I do not think I can avoid offending anyone in this room, because we live in a country where 90% of people claim to believe in the God of the Bible. I just want to assure you right now that are deliberately provocative. The aim is not to offend. It certainly is not the purpose of my books. I'm just extremely concerned about the role religion is playing in our world. I believe that religion is the most dangerous ideology and the source of divisions that we have ever designed. And that keeps me awake at night. Since Sept. 11, when we saw these 19 people that crashed with the aircraft, and showed us what can be "socially beneficial" religious certainty, I argued that the role of religion in our society is negative, and I have come to realize that there are only three ways to stand as defenders of religion. There are not 100, just three. Or a person claims that a certain religion is true, or claim that religion in general is useful, so useful that might be needed, or attacking atheism is essentially saying that another religion, which is dogmatic, intolerant, irrazionale o comunque degno di disprezzo. Per cui voglio separare queste tre modalità di difesa della religione, perché qualunque conversazione tra un credente e un non credente tende a incanalarsi in una di queste tre strade.
Prima cominciamo con questa affermazione che una delle nostre religioni sia vera . Ci sono almeno due problemi in questa posizione. Il primo è che le religioni non possono essere tutte vere . Questa cosa ci è stata fatta notare da Bertrand Russel cent'anni fa. Ma anche se sapessimo che una delle nostre religioni è perfettamente vera, cioè se sapessimo che la vita è in realtà un esame a crocette creato da Dio (A ebraismo, B cristianesimo, C Islam) [il pubblico laughs] ... even if we knew that one is perfect, then, given the awesome wealth of doctrines available, and their mutual incompatibility, every believer should expect damnation for a mere probability. [Audience laughs]. It seems to me that this should give people a moment of religious thoughts. Never happens, but it should.
But the deeper problem in saying that a certain religion is true is that the evidence in favor of religion is nonexistent or very bad. And that sums up all the statements on the existence of a God with personality, the divine origin of certain books, the virgin birth of certain people [audience laughs], the truth of some ancient miracles ... Take Christianity, for example. Christianity is based on the assumption that the account given by the Gospels of Jesus' miracles is true. I know there are some Christians who shake their heads here, but the truth is that most Christians, most of the time, they take for real at least some of these miracles, the most important of which seems to be the resurrection. The problem is that the only thing I certify that these miracles have ever occurred is the Gospel. There is no extra-biblical description of these events. Everyone agrees that the Gospels were written many decades after the events they tell. The problem is that even if the evidence was much better than this, even if we had hundreds of eyewitness accounts of these miracles by a contemporary, yet not enough to accept the claims of Christianity. Why not?
Simply because even in the twenty-first century, the testimonies of miracles are common. I met literally hundreds of people educated in the West who think that their guru in India preferred to have magical powers. There are eyewitness accounts of miracles. And they are very common. There are 'yogi' Hindus, who, according to witnesses, walking on water, raise the dead, flying without the aid of technology, read minds, divine the future. C'è Sathya Sai Baba. Tutti questi miracoli sono attribuiti anche a lui. Lui afferma persino di essere nato da una vergine, che tra parentesi non è un'affermazione rara nella storia: Gengis Khan era nato da una vergine, Alessandro magno era nato da una vergine... a quanto pare la partenogenesi non garantisce che porterai l'altra guancia [il pubblico ride].
Quindi considerate questo: Sai Baba ha questi miracoli che gli vengono attribuiti da letteralmente migliaia e migliaia di testimoni oculari ancora in vita . Ha dato una festa di compleanno qualche anno fa, e ci è andato un milione di persone. Ci sono milioni di persone che credono che sia un Dio vivente. Ora considerate, come se fosse la prima volta, l'affermazione fundamental to Christianity: the claim that some miraculous stories, the kind that surrounds Sai Baba today, and are not convincing to no one but his faithful, suddenly become credible in a special way, if seen in the context of science and pre- religion of the Roman Empire in the first century, decades after their alleged occurrence. The miracles of Sai Baba does not even deserve an hour on the Discovery Channel. But put these signs in an ancient text, and half the people on this planet consider him a legitimate project around which to organize their lives. There is no one who sees a problem with that? [Audience laughs].
So let's leave the questions of truth of religion. The second way to argue in defense of religion is say that religion is useful, so useful that may be required. The most common way of supporting its usefulness is to say that makes moral people, giving them consolation, and that gives meaning to their lives. There are several problems with this. The first is that these arguments, if they are intended as a defense of the existence of God, are 'non sequitur' totals. The utility of religion does not give the slightest reason to believe that God really exists. In fact, each religion may act as a placebo : It may be totally lacking in truth and at the same time very useful in certain circumstances. There is no doubt that some religious beliefs are comforting: ideas like God has a plan for me, everything happens for a reason ... But the fact that these ideas are comforting does not count as evidence in favor of their truth. And this is really easy to see in any other matter which is not God in truth, the comforting nature of these ideas would not offer even one additional reason to believe in them, if we have good evidence in their favor. Suppose that one day physicists and cosmologists tell us "We are humbled for the misunderstanding, but that God exists, and has a plan for you " [audience laughs]. Suppose that to happen. Now, the fact that questa idea sarebbe consolatoria non fornirebbe una ragione ulteriore per crederci. Se mai abbiamo fatto una conquista nella storia della nostra razionalità, è proprio questa distinzione: che c'è un mondo di differenza tra voler credere qualcosa ed avere buone ragioni per crederci. È per questo che in inglese esistono termini come "wishful thinking" [la tendenza a credere inconsciamente ciò che fa comodo e non ciò che è realistico, NdM] e "experimental bias" [tendenza a vedere soltanto gli esiti di un esperimento che confermano la propria teoria, e non quelli contrari, NdM]. È per questo che gli scienziati, quando possono, effettuano studi di controllo "a due livelli di cecità", e fanno interpretare i propri dati da altre persone. Quindi è questo il punto cruciale. Quando senti qualcuno che sostiene il legame tra la moralità e la religione, o che sostiene che la religione dà significato alla vita delle persone, questo è un argomento sulla sua utilità, non un argomento sulla possibilità che una certa dottrina religiosa sia vera .
L'altro problema nel sostenere l'utilità della religione è che i pericoli della religione sono testimoniati ormai su base quotidiana dalle esplosioni di bombe. Quanto è utile che milioni di musulmani in questo mondo credano nella metafisica del martirio? Quanto è utile che gli sciiti e i sunniti in Iraq abbiano delle divergenze religiose so sorrowful? How useful is that so many Jewish settlers believe that the creator of the universe has promised them a piece of land in the Mediterranean? How useful was the obsession of Christianity to sex in these 70 generations?
(continued)
0 comments:
Post a Comment