Here's what I think, Rabbi Dumbass

Hey everyone, do you like the title? I was being kind.......

So here's the premise of this little blog:
I have to drive a little ways to work every day so I figured I'd make a CD of a debate I downloaded so I could have something interesting to listen to on the way to work.
Next thing I know, I'm so goddamn angry at this fucking religious lunatic that I'm practically pounding on my steering wheel and screaming obscenities at the radio like Billy Mays with turrets syndrome.

The debate was between Sam Harris and David Wolpe (author of great literary works such as "Why be Jewish") Yes, why indeed......I'm assuming he doesn't mean Jewish in the racial sense of the word. Otherwise I can't wait for the sequel, "Why be White"

So after somehow managing to calm down a bit, I thought I'd listen to this debate again and take notes of all the dumb shit that flows from this fuckstick. Now I'm not usually this harsh on someone, but what really gets me is when people make verbose and obtuse "arguments". I've heard Christopher Hitchens refer to it as "white noise." And that is exactly what it is. Do you know how frustrating it is when someone TALKS but doesn't SAY anything? Listen to this debate and you'll get an earful of it.

I'm really not sure if the debate is posted on a website or not. I downloaded it from emule so I know that it's there if all else fails..........

Now I hope to hear others' opinions about this contest between these two and let me know what you all think.


But here is my running take:

2:40 - "They don't get that science is powerful, but narrow." Uh oh, here is the Rabbi telling us about science. Things are not looking good.

3:20 - He is overtly criticizing Sam for being trained scientifically but not philosophically. Does he not know that Sam Harris graduated from Stanford with a degree in......philosophy!?

3:54 - "I challenge anyone to think of a question where we once had a scientific answer, but now the best answer is a religious one." Great job Sam, frankly I wish I thought of this argument. Now how will the dumbass respond to this.......?

6:32 - Marxism is a science. That is his response. Seriously.

7:02 - Sam - "The antidote to bad science is good science, not religion."

7:15 - Rabbi - "The cure for bad religion is good religion and more religion." So a question for the Rabbi: By what process do we determine what is good religion and bad religion? Unfortunately Sam doesn't ask this, but I cannot figure out an objective system for determining what is good religion vs. what is bad religion WITHOUT invoking scientific principles or secular morality.

7:51 - Galileo and the Pope were friends.

"Hey Galileo, it's the Pope writing. Had a great time at your BBQ last month. By the way, you're excommunicated. Have fun in Hell, sinner."

Jesus loves me,

Urban VIII

*Ok, now that was a joke. It is true that Galileo was never excommunicated. Just sentenced to house arrest and his books were banned. See that's not too bad..........

9:00 - Wolpe has taken it upon himself to tell us what a dead Rabbi would say if he came back to life.

13:20 - Here begins a white noise phase........"What evidence do you have that life is worth living?"
As Dawkins would say, "Why are unicorns hollow?" "What is the smell of hope?"

14:50 "Religion is not a belief in a proposition." Yes he really says that. On a related note - trees are not make of wood.

18:14 - "The virgin birth is not a claim about biology." I grow discouraged.

23:36 - "Does the fact that 98% of humans in history have had a sense of a god suggest that there really is a creator?"
It suggests that primitive peoples who had little or no scientific explanation for the nature of the world tried to use reason to explain their world. And using your reasoning without the aid of scientific discoveries naturally leads to a supernatural view of the world. As for modern people, who have the benefits of science and the progress of secular ethics (but don't choose to use it), can't we just say that some people are intellectually lazy and others are just fucking idiots?

26:10 - "Healthy religion is the only cure for sick religion." What nonsense. This is like saying, "Healthy racism is the cure for sick racism."

28:30 - "Would you like to live in North Korea or South Korea? South Korea is Christian." Oh man, someone help me from pulling my hair out. 46.5% of South Koreans are atheists/agnostics, you fucking idiot! And there are almost the same proportion of Christians as Buddhists. Damn it, I hate people who just start pulling statistics out of their ass.

32:10 - We knew it was coming.........The Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot argument. Apparently, according to the wise Rabbi, it wasn't until after the French Revolution that societies became capable of being truly evil. I'll let you come up with a good retort for this one, my head hurts.

32:30 - Listen to this sentence carefully, "The values that you take with skeptical inquiry are values that in fact were taken from the religious regimes that you find unpalatable." Please tell me, when exactly did religion EVER encourage or even respect skeptical inquiry? Skepticism is a one way ticket to hell for unbelievers. Why is the Rabbi afraid to take a stand and admit this?

33:00 - Here is where Sam is at his best

35:25 - My breaking point has been reached. The Rabbi reads the following quote from a Holocaust survivor:

"The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment--or, as the Nazis liked to say, "of blood and soil." I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."

Ok, no doubt that this man went through an ordeal that is almost as horrifying as anything we can imagine. But if you are gonna take this man's word as some proof that atheists, left to their own devices, will create terrible torture machines to use as they see fit, then you are confusing emotional testimony with fact. It MAY be true that the gas chamber was created in a lecture hall by scientists and it may not. But he can't know it. And if you want to look at devices to elicit pain.........well look no further than the faithful of medieval Europe. The machines used to bring forth confessions of witchcraft and Satanic possession are the most awful forms of punishment I can imagine.

37:08 - Host desecration!! Holy shit, how about this for coincidence. The mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated Host, or communion wafer. Now this debate took place quite a while ago, and if you listened to it then you might have thought, "Oh that's crazy. I don't think Christians would be that nuts to actually take this seriously." You would be wrong.

38:14 - "In what sort of regime are you likely to be able to get a society, ala America, where [the torture of one group by another] is minimized?....The only idea that ties one person to another is God."
Wow. So America is the gold standard for the rest of the world in terms of how we treat one another. And the reason that Americans are so tolerant is due to God. That is the essence of his argument. Using this logic, countries with large atheistic populations should just be bastions of moral deprivation and secular charitable organizations should be non-existent. Help me.

39:11 - Learned something new from the Rabbi. In order to actually understand the OT correctly, you need to filter it through a person. I think the Rabbi's filter needs changed.

39:57 - Sam nails him perfectly.

42:27 - Oh boy does Sam do a number on him here. Talking about the revelation that Mother Theresa lost her faith, Sam says "Ask yourself, when even the doubts of experts are thought to confirm a doctrine, what could possibly disprove it?" When the Rabbi then asks if Mother Theresa would still have done her "charity" work if she still wasn't a Christian despite her doubts, Sam pounces on him by pointing out that many secularists spend their lives devoted to charity and helping the poor. Fucking great. Then, after about two seconds of complete silence, the Rabbi starts talking about "serious percentages." Yawn.

43:22 - Here Rabbi dipshit starts this bullshit about how "in study after study, religious people are happier, feel less stress, etc."
Thomas Gray once said "Ignorance is bliss." And what is with this childlike expectation that you should only concern yourself with happiness? How about truth? My dog always looks happy, does this mean I need to bark at my neighbors and shit in my yard?

51:00 - Here the dumbass essentially asks if we don't have religion what do we have? To which Harris points out that we don't replace the belief in Santa Claus with something that does exactly what Santa does. It's true that some beliefs just fade away and we don't (and shouldn't) replace them.

52:10 - Rabbi: "Where does our moral order come from?"
Oh this is where Sam is in his zone and you just have to listen to him to fully appreciate this part of the debate. Dexter the 17 headed demon, brilliant.

54:44 - For the first time, I actually feel sorry for the Rabbi. His response to Sam is so sad and pathetic.....

58:00 - Are you ready to hear one of the stupidest things that you will hear in a long time? Here it is.....From the Rabbi of course: "My experience of religious human beings and the way they live, and the fact they live in harmony, to my perception, with an invisible order that gives them a life of a certain sanctity."
Got that? "The fact they live in harmony." *sigh*

60:44 - Sam and the metaphysical Elvis. Just listen for yourselves. It's hilarious.

64:00 - The talk switches to human creativity and whether if an end to religion will diminish creativity in the arts. Christian chicken pluckers, lol.

67:10 Here begins a little q&a session so I've decided to stop here.

There is sooooo much more to this than what I have written about. I really hope that other people will listen to it and comment on this blog their own opinions.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

- AQ