There is another issue here before I get to some of the specifics here.
There is a, a separation that some people would argue [COUGH] and
some notable will argue that religion should stay in one realm and
science in another realm.
And they should not intrude upon each other's space.
Do you understand?
That, that they have their separate territory.
Some people call it separate magisteria.
It's a, a, a realm and, and
they should remain separate and, and, and not intermingle.
And I've had some personal experience with that.
I gave a paper in a sort of small academic
scholarly group this last summer.
And it's a paper that you'll read later on in the course.
It's called the Internalization of, of The Anatomy of Internalized Beliefs.
You know, how, how beliefs come our way and some are taken in and
actually internalized and become part of our assumptions and, and
support our wor, wor, world views.
And, and I apply that in some respects to the,
the internalization of religious beliefs.
Beliefs about the soul and its afterlife.
Well, I was shocked, because about half of the group,
these people who I know pretty well were offended.
I was unprepared for them to be offended,
because they felt that I had violated the rule.
I had intruded upon the sacred and it took me a little while to, to recover.
That, that, that was their criticism.
So, it's not just in, among you know, every day,
although these are people who are everyday people.
But these are scholars who, who seem to abide by the line that,
that you can talk about science things and
you can talk about religious things, but you shouldn't intermix them.
I, I think that is a terrible mistake.
It's either that or the paper I gave was a terrible paper.
All right.
So those are the Four Horsemen.
As I said, courage you to, to listen to them.
It gets a little tedious from time to time.
I'll probably ask questions about it.
I won't not ask how much do you think they drank?
That, that they do a considerable [LAUGH] amount of drinking in it,
but I see no evidence that they are getting clobbered.
They sort of nurse the same drink for a couple of hours.
[COUGH] The first on board was, is, Sam Harris.
He's, he's, the one that gave the clarion call.
Hey, we are coming.
I, I don't think that they, that they had spoken with each other, hey,
you write this book and then I'll follow.
I think this sort of happened, it was in the air that,
that it's about time to question religion.
Questioning religion for a long time and,
and it still is in some respects, it's taboo, you know?
Don't ask me about my religion and I won't ask you about your religion.
Be, because, let's, let's let's just agree that, that we probably disagree.
So let's not get into it.
I know whether you ran into that one when people talked about their, their soul and
their beliefs about the soul.
I think even that up to now that the soul, talk about the soul has been taboo.
Lets not make that taboo.
I mean, this is a really, really rich and interesting topic and
I think its an important topic as well.
So first on board was Sam Harris.
Sam Harris he got his undergraduate degree in philosophy.
Where he, he actually studied deeply religions,
both Western and Eastern religion, religious philosophies.
He was a philosophy student.
Very articulate and, and writes really well and
as you will see when you look at the Four Horsemen video,
he's, he's very articulate.
He is easy to listen to ask good questions.
So his first book was the end of faith calling for The End of Faith.
Because he saw the serious, what he considered to be very serious da,
danger of people fighting over religious premises.
We'll get it, this is not the first, this is not the only time this will be
brought up in, in, in, class or in this course.
He wrote a follow up book called the Letter To a Christian Nation,
because he's got so many letters from Christians about who,
who were objected to his book on The End of Faith.
Is really calling for the end of faith.