awesome debate

Harris - Sullivan Debate
This is a stunning debate between Sam Harris bestselling atheist author of "End of Faith" and Andrew Sullivan who's exact qualifications I'm forgetting but you'll see them when you go read the conversation, and I hope you do go read the conversation. It's an e-mail debate which gives each person the time to really think through their statements, and because its on the internet they don't have the space limitations of a newspaper. Harris is Harris, holding nothing back and in my opinion being a bit insulting, but if your going to have a conversation like this you must accept that your core beliefs are being challenge so plan to be insulted and move on. Andrew Sullivan points out that he is a gay catholic so I'm sure he has pretty tough skin anyway.
Another link to the debate, seriously check it out.
I think Harris could have been a bit more careful not to be directly insulting, which is something I will generally criticize him for, he's a bit too confrontational so he loses people that may have been on the fence. Otherwise I think he's good. And as I said luckily he's debating someone who can take it, Sullivan even throws in a little humor in his response.

I also disagree that religious moderates simply have less faith. You write:

"Religious moderation is the result of not taking scripture all that seriously."

Blogger, please. In many ways, the source of much of today's religious moderation is taking scripture more seriously than the fundamentalists.

I just liked the Blogger Please bit, come on thats funny. Oh I hope its evident that this was part of Sullivan's writing, while the indent was him quoting Harris.

I'm still reading but this is my first impression, oh and I gotta give a shout out to Daylight Atheism for showing me this conversation.
Oh why bother ending the post now I'm just going to keep reading and adding bits here and there.

Wow, I gotta hand it to Sullivan, at the end of what I'll refer to as round 2 (really round 1 the first part was mostly a hello!) he pretty well whipped Harris for claiming that all theists are liars. This is the kind of thing that Harris always gets attacked for, even by me, and I like his work.

I'm liking this Sullivan character, he's not wining me over to the faithful side but I like his style. heres another point of humor.

Thank you very much for your latest post. It was clarifying for me - and forced me to think hard about how to respond. I even communicated with my Imaginary Friend about it.

Clearly, I like it when people don't take themselves to seriously. Especially on this subject, its a debate that has been raging for thousands of years and I don't see it ending any time soon. So go ahead and talk converse argue, but be reasonable, and don't get angry with the other person, even when they insult what may be the most important thing in your life.

Now heres something you don't hear everyday in a religious debate.

that's why you've gone on retreats, explored Buddhism, experimented with psilocybin, as I have.

For those who don't know or don't feel like clicking the link, psilocybin is the chemical in 'shrooms that make you trip your nuts off.
Ok My opinion is that Sam pretty well crushed him in round three, Sullivan basically takes one line where Harris says that science doesn't know everything and tries turns that into proving that Harris also believes in a higher power. Most atheist are willing to admit that given enough evidence they would believe in a god or gods which makes perfect sense, We don't believe in god(s) because their is no evidence for them, if their was we would believe. Thats hardly a good footing for an argument against atheism.

Half-way point

Ok not so much to report on for the second half. In my opinion (which is obviously heavily biased) Harris did very well at pointing out the flaws of religion as a whole. I think Sullivan was a wonderful rival and had some excellent points, but the part in particular that ended his chances for me was when he said that there was absolutely nothing that could change his mind. Why would you bother with the conversation if you knew that there was nothing that could possible alter your views? Oh well.

So what was your opinion? because you damn well better have read the debate before you read my review. if not, go read the damn thing, I'll even give you another link to it right here so you don't have to scroll ya lazy bastard.
Ok now that everyone has read the entire thing, let me know what you thought of it.