As a teenager, I went through a “New Atheist” phase of sort. As a muslim, I found myself very intimidated by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and their purported arguments against theism. Their unshakable confidence, and the way they stated their conclusions as if they were indisputable facts, made me doubt whether my beliefs had any ground to stand on at all.
I was vaguely aware that r/badphilosophy held Sam Harris in contempt for being a remarkably poor philosopher, but I was always too afraid to engage with his written content, or philosophy more broadly, by fear of what I might discover in it. Then, one day, this video critiquing one of Harris’ books from that subreddit appeared on my Reddit timeline, and I clicked on it
The demonstration of just how unserious of a thinker Harris was freed me from all my apprehensions. In the following decade, I’ve been engaging with medieval and academic philosophy whenever I can, even meeting my husband through it. Turns out that, if anything, my religious priors are on far stronger foundations than whatever philosophical ideas happens to make the New York Times’ Best Sellers list at any given time.
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As a teenager, I went through a “New Atheist” phase of sort. As a muslim, I found myself very intimidated by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and their purported arguments against theism. Their unshakable confidence, and the way they stated their conclusions as if they were indisputable facts, made me doubt whether my beliefs had any ground to stand on at all.
I was vaguely aware that r/badphilosophy held Sam Harris in contempt for being a remarkably poor philosopher, but I was always too afraid to engage with his written content, or philosophy more broadly, by fear of what I might discover in it. Then, one day, this video critiquing one of Harris’ books from that subreddit appeared on my Reddit timeline, and I clicked on it
The demonstration of just how unserious of a thinker Harris was freed me from all my apprehensions. In the following decade, I’ve been engaging with medieval and academic philosophy whenever I can, even meeting my husband through it. Turns out that, if anything, my religious priors are on far stronger foundations than whatever philosophical ideas happens to make the New York Times’ Best Sellers list at any given time.