Although I won’t be touching on whether or not Harris can be called an atheist (sometimes he uses the term, other times he attacks its validity) in future posts, I couldn’t help but cite this gem: “Sam Harris is not an Atheist according to the AFA” [1].
Predictably, the first post in this forum topic opens by citing the definition of atheism asserted by the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA). For those unfamiliar – the vast majority – it goes something like this: "[atheism is] the acceptance that there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a god, gods or the supernatural". Whether Harris fits the estimation of atheism espoused by a rather parochial group is ultimately inconsequential...unless of course that group is organizing and running a “Global Atheist’s Convention” at which Harris is a featured speaker. It merits being said that Harris lead “4,000” attendees of said convention (held in April 2012) in a session of mindfulness meditation [2]. At the time no one called him out on this. So much for absence of religion being a part of atheist conventions!
The poster suggests that Harris fails to meet the definition because of the final point about the supernatural. Where the poster is wrong is in the simple fact that neither religion nor atheism requires belief or disbelief in the supernatural. Of course, that’s the same major error in the AFA’s definition. One can say that Buddhists are atheists in the sense that they don’t believe in the theistic conception of God. Likewise we can say that Raelians are atheists.
Whether Harris is an atheist or not has no bearing on my argument that he can be considered religious and holds certain beliefs on faith. Admittedly, this short observation was prompted more by my view that the AFA are a rather vacuous group when it comes to what they proclaim than by anything explicitly to do with analysing Harris' work. Having since found that demonstrations and suggestions of Harris’ religiosity have been in circulation since The End of Faith was published in 2004, I am quite surprised that the AFA are not only moot on his hypocrisy but openly endorse him by giving him headliner status. Actually, surprised isn't the right word (considering how low an estimation of the AFA I have). Overall I am simply disappointed that rational discussion is frequently undercut by certain figures never being openly subjected to evaluation within the subcultural discourse. I have personally seen people who label themselves as rationalists and/or atheists exercising no critical thinking about such figures (including Harris and the AFA's president, David Nicholls) say.
[1] http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/sam-harris-is-not-an-atheist
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums
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