Sam Harris: Reflections On Christopher Hitchens

"Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times best sellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, human violence, rationality—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live.

Sam’s work has been published in more than 20 languages and has been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Rolling Stone, and many other publications. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), The Annals of Neurology, among others. He also hosts the Making Sense Podcast, which was selected by Apple as one of the “iTunes Best” and has won a Webby Award for best podcast in the Science & Education category.

Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He has also practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. Sam has created the Waking Up app for anyone who wants to learn to meditate in a modern, scientific context." 

Source:Sam Hitchens talking about Chris Hitchens.

From Sam Harris

After you see this, you'll know why Sam Harris likes Chris Hitchens so much: 

"Author Christopher Hitchens discusses his book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" as a part of the Authors@Google series. The author of Why Orwell Matters and Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens is a Vanity Fair contributing editor, a Slate columnist, and a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly. He has also written for The Nation, Granta, Harper's, The Washington Post, and is a frequent television and radio guest. Born in England, Hitchens was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. He now lives in Washington, D.C., and he became a U.S. citizen in 2007.  This event took place on August 16, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA."

From Talks At Google

I was hoping to hear from Sam Harris what he thought about Christopher Hitchens and any impact (if any) that Hitchens might have had on his life, career, etc. But it was just a 4 minute video (which is very short for YouTube) and they just talked about the last day that they spent together. 

So, we're all Agnostics at The New Democrat. And that's a big reason why we're Liberals. Not that all Liberals are Agnostics, but a big part of liberalism has to do with facts, evidence, and reason, not faith. 

If you think about it, liberalism might the least romantic and idealistic philosophy, in the world. And probably the most successful (up until Donald J. Trump) political philosophy, at least in the western and developed world, because it's all about facts, evidence, and reason, as the core of the philosophy. And of course we use those values to argue for individual rights, personal autonomy, property rights, checks and balances, the rule of law, equal rights and protections, etc. 

Liberals don't tell people "it's going to get better". We would say: "If we do this, that, and the other thing, and stop doing these things, life will get better". But we don't say "it will get all get better. You'll see". If we don't believe that, we're not going to say that. 

So I tell you all of this, because 1 of the goals for The New Democrat is to send as many people as possible, into a severe, deep, sleep. Just not while they're driving, or flying a plane, trying to run a government... trying to do anything that requires being intelligent and responsible. 

Actually, I share some of the liberal values of liberalism, to tell you why we respect the Chris Hitchens, the Sam Harris's, the Bill Maher's, the Richard Dawkins's, the Michael Schnurer's,,, all men of reason, facts, and evidence and, not faith. I'm sure there are plenty of women who share these values as well. I just can't happen to name 1 right now. 

And another liberal value, is consistency. Actually, credibility is another liberal value as well. You get credibility as a communicator, by being consistent... being factually accurate helps as well. Chris Hitchens, wasn't an Atheist because he was a militant Communist, or something, who believed in State Atheism. Or 1 of what The New Democrat would call New Atheists from the 2010s, who are really just anti-Christians... people who bash and put down Christianity, especially Anglo-Saxon-Christianity. Or some hippie/hipster who claimed to be spiritualist, but not religious. (Even though religion and spirituality are siblings of each other)

Hitchens and Sam Harris are both Atheists, because they don't believe in God and both oppose religion, period. And it's not just the so-called Christian Right (who are about as Christian as ants are elephants, in too many cases) but fundamentalists from eastern religions, like Islamists and the Islamist regimes in the Middle East and their Islamist, terrorist networks. 

Bill Maher got in trouble with the far-left back in 2014-15, because he spoke out against Islamism and Islam in general. But Islamists and fundamentalist Christians, especially Anglo-Saxon-Protestants, share a lot of the same cultural values, when it comes to women's place in the world, their opposition to personal freedom, free speech, and individualism. And had Maher given the same speech about fundamentalism Anglo-Saxon-Evangelicalism, as he gave about Islamism and Islam in general, the far-left would've treated Maher as their "progressive hero". 

I didn't agree with Chris Hitchens on everything. He was a self-described Democratic Socialist, at least up until 9/11, 2001. And perhaps remained a Socialist on economic policy for the rest of his life. And after 9/11, Hitchens became more of a Neoconservative when it came to foreign policy and national security and supported President George W. Bush on practically everything as it related to foreign affairs and national security. But his belief in reason and evidence, as well as facts... what we know, what we can see for ourselves, the real facts and evidence on the ground... instead of faith, has always been the reasons why I and the rest of The New Democrat have always been fans of Hitch as well. 

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