By the grace of Ceiling Cat, Sam Harris will be speaking here this Friday afternoon about his new book, The Moral Landscape. Admission is free, and the location and time appear in this ad from the student newspaper (click to enlarge):
Sam’s 20-minute talk will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.
Thanks to the U of C Office of Spiritual Life, Professor Robert Richards, and Dr. Alex Lickerman for helping organize this affair.
Are you in the mood to include the ad?
I wonder what the audience will think about the “morality” of Koran burning.
To me it is immoral because it adds to your carbon footprint and tips the planet toward further climate change.
lol. Thanks. 🙂
His talk is a great talk. I saw him speak at Tufts and it is worth going to listen.
You have an ‘Office of Spiritual Life’ in your university?! Do they distribute vodka shots top needy students & staff?!
🙂
That would be “spirituous”.
I’ll be making my trek from the north side to U of C. Look for ward to it.
I’m sure the office of spiritual life is right next to the office of leprechaun studies. But hey, if what they do is bring interesting speakers like Sam to campus, I’m for it. I guess.
I’ll Be attending from Minnesota. I wish I could attend his debate with William Craig on the previous day too but that’s too far away..
I’ll be the Harris/Craig debate at Notre Dame. I’ve been following the doings of the Gnu Atheists since I saw Harris’ Idea City talk on YouTube in ’05. This will be the first time I’ve been to a speaking event/debate. Looking forward to it. Hope the talk in Chicago is good…
He’s debating William Lane Craig? Can’t wait to hear that one! Hope it gets posted soon…
I was just there on campus for a business meeting a few days ago. Ticked that I missed both Sam AND Jerry — but seeing Sam give a free talk has just raised him in my estimation, if that’s even possible.
Do go and see Harris speak. I flew to LA to see him and Hitch shame Wolpe and Artsen. It was really good and I was glad to see them in person instead of just YouTube.
I just took part of last friday off to see PZ. I’m at home sick today (thanks spousal unit), so I don’t know if I can swing this friday, too. Damn. I’ll figure it out.
I’m in a minority here, to be sure, but I did not like The Moral Landscape and I would urge everyone to read Scott Atran’s review of it in The National Interest.
From what I have read about SH’s book, I have not been all that impressed, and Atran I have very mixed feelings about; I was interested certainly by his ‘In Gods We Trust’, though I feel that Boyer puts things better, and although, in his review, some of his criticisms of Harris seemed well-judged and on the mark,I was not persuaded by his appeal to John Gray’s dubious thesis the ‘it is universal forms of monotheism, such as Christianity and Islam, that merged Hebrew tribal belief in one God with Greek faith in universal laws applicable to the whole of creation that originated the inclusive concept of Humanity in the first place.’ Both Christianity and Islam, and particularly the latter at present, make a very strong distinction between those members of ‘Humanity’ who are of the faith and those who aren’t. Again, although – on a very cursory look at it (and so I may be wrong in my feeling) – I appreciate Atran’s humanity in his latest book, Talking to the Enemy, and agree to an extent with what he advocates, he surely plays down the more dangerous and unpleasant aspects of Islam as an institution. It is right and good to dissolve religion, as Atran and Boyer do, (and right, I think, as a consequence of this dissolution to point to the essential similarities between chiliastic political movements, such as Communism, and religious movements – the ground of religion being broader than its manifestation in belief in the supernatural), but Atran, as Boyer is not, seems, in his desire to be fair, to ignore those more unpleasant aspects of institutionalised religion, particularly in the case of Islam.
I have never been to campus before, does anyone know the best place to park (I will be coming from the south loop)?
Thanks