I feel kind of silly here, because I've read this a couple times and I'm not sure what you mean. Whats not how athiests frame it? how do they frame it? Are you saying he is pre supposing atheists who read it already agree that science has dis proven god?

My complaint was that his numbers looked weird. Being off by 0.7 million when the value is 1.3 million is a larger than 50% error. And 1.3 million doesn't round to 2 million.

He took the time to look up a 2000 WHO report (which I'm having trouble finding) but I was able to find a scientific paper that says a more recent WHO report takes the alleged 2000 WHO report and cuts it by a third. And that also makes his claim of it being so much worse than auto accidents very questionable.

I agree that exaggeration doesn't help him. But if he's trying to make a point about how important scientific data is, he should at least get it right. Right?

I openly admit that I think Harris tends to overstate his position and misstate other people's positions, and I think as a result I'm fairly critical of the things he says. I think that his fame has turned him into more of a hack than a thinker, but that's just my view of him. (However, there are a LOT of people who think that of the four big name public atheists, he's the weakest.)

I have discovered that when I make this case, even to highly intelligent and health-conscious men and women, a psychological truth quickly becomes as visible as a pair of clenched fists: They do not want to believe any of it

I think Harris is overestimating his audience.

Do you think he did anything other than find some number in a study and right it down (possibly rounding up like a 1.8 million or something)? Or maybe he quoted something else that referenced the study without looking it up directly. These kinds of estimates of deaths due to X are routinely horrible and are massively extrapolated from limited data. It is quite believable to me that two different studies, even by the same organization, would be off by that much. At this point, he really can't be accused of anything.

I don't think that he's saying that people believing in the possible existence of god is dangerous. I think he's saying that people refusing to modify/alter some aspects of their belief systems even after being given scientifically proven information to the contrary is dangerous. If my interpretation is correct, I would personally tend to agree with that, and I strongly believe in the existence of some form of god.

In other words, I think he's basically saying that in order for us to move closer to the truth (about god), we cannot have an attitude of "I have all the answers" (I know that wood burning fires are 100% OK), we need to adapt an attitude of "I have a belief system but am willing to modify/alter it if new information comes into play".

I have no idea what he actually did going into it. When I read his article, I found the numbers to be strangely higher than what I had expected, and then when I did my own research, he seemed to be pretty badly informed on the matter. I spent 5 minutes on it. It wasn't that hard.

I'm willing to believe that he selectively chose the 2000 figure over more recent figures in order to make a rhetorical point. (See how super bad wood smoke is? And yet you still sit there with fists clenched? -- Even though now we're not talking about wood smoke anymore...) As I noted, I don't think particularly highly of him.

Edit: By the way, 1 million people per year is something like 1/10% of the world population? This isn't even that big of a deal even if the science is accurate.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_stat...ts/fast_facts/

Smoking deaths = 5 million per year. Even if wood smoke is 30 times more dangerous, smoking deaths are 5 times more common. What does this say about the actual harm of current wood-lighting practices?

We're on the same page, but I'm not sure how this squares anything away. Is he saying that theists refuse to modify their positions based on scientific information? What is he basing that on?

How does he know these people aren't willing to adapt their beliefs? He hasn't shown them anything close to the kind of evidence he presents for why burning fires are dangerous.

I'm not sure he's attacking theists as a whole, I think that would be crazy. But certainly there are many folks out there (extremists, devouts, whatever) who refuse to believe anything that is not written word for word in the bible/quran/whatever. A basic example would be anyone who refuses to believe in the possiblity of evolution (We didn't come from no monkey!!!)

I think the blog entry is sort of incomplete because it doesn't really take the next step in making this connection, and maybe I'm extrapolating a bit, but that's what I got out of it.

Possible, but he did say "religious people" and gave no care to clarification.

You certainly don't have any evidence that he did this. It is a possible explanation, of course, (one I doubt actually happened because it doesn't help him), but no reason to actively believe that it is true.

lol at the round down to 1 million from 1.3 million when you are pissed off he said 2 million from some unknown reference. I have no idea why you think the "only 0.1% of world population" is relevant to any point he was making, but it is kinda silly.

What he says is unremarkable and obvious. What he misses is it isn't an argument. Anyone can say the same thing, i.e., "You refuse to believe what I say because you don't want to".

The argument is that wood fires are harmful, supported by scientific facts. Why people reject the argument has nothing to do with the truth of the facts and logic.

The argument that wood fires are harmful is secondary. It could have been any argument about something people commonly hold to be true and the science that disproves it. The point is to give a tangible illustration of the emotional reaction people may experience when a treasured belief gets broken because of science.

I agree - but so what? I can say the same thing about Harris' scientism, except for the "because of science", for which I would substitute "because of truth".

So...what the article says. It is an interesting insight into our emotional tendencies. That is important in and of itself, it doesn't have to imply anything further.

Now you are probably right, if someone managed to provide the evidence and rational that was convincing of a deity, I am sure many atheists would have an experience much like having to discard the enjoyable notion of a fireplace. However, since religious people have yet to provide any such evidence or rational that is even a tiny bit convincing, this isn't a possibility we really have to worry about.

"because of truth" sounds like a pretty vacuous yet simultaneously conceited phrase.

This is a pretty obvious misreading of Harris in my opinion. He is not making an argument against theism (nor is he claiming to). Rather, he is, as Aaron W. says, making an emotional analogue between people's religious beliefs and the emotional attachment some people (even atheists!) have to fireplaces to help those atheists understand on an emotional level why some people resist the scientific evidence against religion.