I’ve been making noise on social media lately about how I deliberately read problematic books. By problematic, I mean that they are deemed, justly or unjustly, toxic or bad by people I usually agree with. I’ve noticed some palpable discomfort when I bring up the topic, so I thought I would take some time to explore why I think reading problematic literature is helpful.
Continue reading “In Defense of Reading Controversial Books”
In their book The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff spelled out three great untruths that they believe are infesting our culture. While I’m ambivalent about the book, these three great untruths have stayed with me. They are:
I consider myself a mystic, and yet I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God, gods, the afterlife, or the supernatural. How is this not a contradiction in terms? Isn’t supernaturalism and woo central to the experience of mysticism?
Continue reading “On Atheistic Mysticism”
Several days ago, I was meditating with Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. During the meditation Harris instructed me, quite simply, to find the “I” who is doing the meditating and to look for the self within consciousness. I did as instructed and, just like that, my sense of self was obliterated. As simply as a candle being blown out, my feeling of being a self within my head was extinguished, and all that remained was the vast sky of consciousness.
Continue reading “Satanism, Meditation, and the Tyranny of the Self”
In this episode of Sacred Tension I sit down with author and logic professor Ben Burgis to discuss his latest book, Give Them an Argument, and what figures on the right like Peterson, Harris, and Shapiro get wrong.
Continue reading “Destroying the Right With Facts and Logic”
Last week in my Sunday Curiosities series, I posted a fiery video in which Steve Shives explains why he thinks Sam Harris is a douchebag. Of all the interesting things I posted in that article, I was dismayed to see my item on Harris get the most attention. People on social media were aggrieved that I would post such an “unfair” portrayal of Harris.
Continue reading “My Complicated Feelings About Sam Harris”
This week’s curiosities: Steve Shives calls out Sam Harris, Melissa Wilson writes powerfully about leaving the Evangelical World, and Hail, Satan? documents the rise of The Satanic Temple.
Continue reading “Leaving Evangelicalism, Calling out Sam Harris, and Hail, Satan?”
