Skimming through videos on TED, I was especially impressed with Sam Harris' talk on redefining universal morality using the scientific method.
This led me to Google Video bingeing on debates involving The Four Horsemen, namely, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris so I thought I'd pen down my thoughts regarding them.
Prior to this, I was only familiar with Dawkins and found his documentary, The God Delusion very entertaining due to the juxtaposition of his polite, cultured demeanor with his incredibly inflammatory choice of words when in conversation with people of a faith. I'm not too sure if its a conscious decision on his part, like a weird biologist Louis Theroux, but this curious social insensitivity endears him to me somewhat. This, however, makes his arguments seem like preaching to the choir.
Christopher Hitchens seems to approach the problem of religion from a somewhat political viewpoint, which I suppose might be relevant in America. This, however, makes me rather unable to relate to his arguments. Also, he tends towards being in love with the sound of his own voice. A rather disagreeable personage, if I might say.
Sam Harris, though, is concerned with the application of the scientific method and of solid logical structure to structures that have been guarded against this through the sheer weight of the past and political correctness. I continued to be highly impressed with his logic and style. In his rhetoric, it seems that the mystical and the scientific take their rightful and complementary places in a consistent view of the universe. A logical extension of Carl Sagan's ideas in The Demon Haunted World.
I can't say anything about Daniel Dennett but of all the debate opponents, the one I was most impressed by was actually Reza Aslan, a Muslim scholar, who managed to hold his own against Sam Harris, mostly due to better scholarship and a willingness to argue without resorting to anything but logic.
The one I was least impressed by, however, was Deepak Chopra, who completely missed the point of all the arguments, used a lot of confusing new age jargon and rambled on and over everyone at the table eliciting inexplicable blasts of applause from the bamboozled audience.
You can find all of these videos on Google Video.
