Reza Aslan vs Sam Harris (ritual, atheist, spiritual, Jewish)

[des]

Last night I heard an interesting debate with Reza Aslan (Progressive Moslem) vs Sam Harris (extremist atheist). It was also hosted by Johnathon Kirsh (Jewish) who had his own interesting comments to the discussion.

Reza Aslan, imo, was a much stronger debater, but maybe I was a bit biased. I think one of his best points was that Harris was in claiming the extreme views of religion represented them, was an "literal" as the various fundamentalists views. He also had a knowledge of the conflicts in various areas of the world that Harris didn't. Still I thought that Harris did a good
job, and wasn't entirely overshadowed.

This wasn't a formal debate, but Kirsh did referee a bit, quoted the authors' works at several points and kept things moving.

There will be a rerun of this tonight at 10:00 EST, I think. On CSPAN2. Geek warning, as this is really geek tv. :-)
It is worth catching if you can.

--des

[Sunstone]

Did the debate touch on Harris's ideas about spirituality, Des? Or did it just focus on Harris's ideas about religion?

[des]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Did the debate touch on Harris's ideas about spirituality, Des? Or did it just focus on Harris's ideas about religion?

Yes it did. More towards the end though. I also thought it was the most interesting part of the discussion, because i also thought they were both most incisive.

(And btw, not so far apart as it might seem.)

--des