I wonder what Sam Harris means when he talks of spiritual experience. I suspect he's using it as a poetic way of addressing human experience and psychology.

If so, it's sort of like Hawking or Einstein using "god" as a poetic term for the working of the universe. In my opinion this unorthodox definition just creates confusion. God and spirituality are not words that need to be salvaged. Nor can we ever truly get away from their standard meaning.

I think that he does mean to link the word to human experiences and psychology, but I think he believes that there is a particular emotional or mental state that is tapped into by most if not all current and past religious ideologies that he would associate with having a "spiritual experience".

He has studied meditation, and I imagine that is where his own personal experience with what he would suggest associating with the word "spirituality" comes from. I personally think that however you get into that mental state, it is basically just some element of our psyche that clears our thinking, instills confidence and a sense of being at peace, and makes us feel like we understand our situation in the world.

I somewhat agree with you that using older words that have had a much broader umbrella of definitions in the past is quite possibly counter-productive. But, I think that there probably is a physical or chemical "spiritual center" in our brains that is essentially taken advantage of by most religions, probably more objectively studied through meditation, and will in the future be understood better in medical or psychological terms just as he says.

I think it is possible that in the future we could associate that element of our brains with the word "spiritual" just as we associate nervous system responses to lack of food or water with "hunger" or "thirst"; which wouldn't be so bad.

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I don't think science has done much to address people's fear of death. Religions tend to focus on an afterlife, which can be comforting. As technology progresses it becomes more and more apparent that science produces results, but it's hard for people to let go of that nagging uncertainty of nonexistence.

It will be interesting to see what shifts in ideology occur as death becomes less "mandatory", at least from an age-related perspective.

Blaming the Muslim religion exclusively for violence is rubbish, eg... The crusdae, Blackwater (christan killer crusaders in the middle east right now), Orthodox Israeli Zionist etc. etc.

>> ^billpayer:
Blaming the Muslim religion exclusively for violence is rubbish, eg... The crusdae, Blackwater (christan killer crusaders in the middle east right now), Orthodox Israeli Zionist etc. etc.

Nice try. Should I try to correct you or would you like to proclaim ignorance and go read some history now yourself? I'll give you a hint, out of the three major world religions which two have had reformations and which one hasn't?

Yes, because the reformations were totally nonviolent and lead to lasting peace and ne'er agin was a life taken. For example... Although I didn't hear him blame Islam exclusively for violence.