~C4Chaos

Last Friday we traveled to Dublin for some paperwork. It was my first time to visit a U.S. Embassy since I received my U.S. citizenship.
The security was thorough. But one of the perks of being a U.S. citizen
is that I got priority treatment in the embassy. I got to line up in a
special queue. And the queue was short too. Nice. However, it turned
out that I didn’t need to have my papers notarized by a U.S. consul.
The instructions in the document were outdated. Gah! So to make our
trip to the embassy worth it, I lifted borrowed the November 5 issue of The American Conservative from the magazine rack. Shhh.

Serendipitously, one of the main articles in the magazine is entitled, Secular Fundamentalists — Can atheists form a movement around a shared disbelief?
It is a well-written and insightful piece by Michael Brendan Dougherty
about his first-hand account of attending the gathering of Atheist
Alliance International held last September. The piece revolved around Sam Harris’ infamous keynote speech about his dislike of the term Atheism. The gist of the article is this:

"For
those convinced that atheism itself is becoming a religion, the
conference provides plenty of evidence. It resembles an evangelical
retreat weekend—and not just because the teens in attendance seemed
thrilled with the prospect of little supervision and empty hotel rooms.
Attendees are encouraged to vote on an appropriate symbol of atheism.
They include versions of the letter A that look like the symbol for
anarchy and a circle with the bizarre Greek formulation “atheos.” The
same table displays pamphlets with quick arguments on behalf of the
godless, helpful for reverse proselytism." [read more]

That
said, rather than get lost in the lemon-eating debate between secular
and religious fundamentalists, I prefer to shift the focus to one
surprising gem I found in the article. Here’s a quote:

"Harris
suggests that atheists need to do better in the philosophy of life
department. Pointing to contemplative traditions within those hated
religions, he asks whether atheists can provide an account of human
happiness “not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and
successes and avoiding our pains.” He speculates about the mindset of
someone who “holes himself up in a cave, or in a monastery, for months
or years,” stating that many have improved their ethical intuition by
these practices.

"This sends a murmur through the crowd,
and when Q & A time comes, Daniel Dennett stands up. He jokes that
the case for intense contemplation would be more persuasive “if these
people ever came back with something interesting.” The audience laughs,
but Dennett ruins the light mood with a confession. He’s been
experimenting with transcendental meditation in the Brook-Farm style.
After only one night together, the leaders of unbelief are exposed as
potential monks and mystics."

Huh? Daniel Dennett does
Transcendental Meditation? All along I thought that among the New
Atheists Sam Harris is the only one who is vocal about his "spiritual"
or "mystical" (i.e. consciousness-expanding) practice. So I did some
more digging about Dennett’s fondness of TM and I found this interview on the Tufts Observer. Here’s a key quote:

"I
like to do a simple version of “Transcendental” meditation, and it is
measurably good for my blood pressure and my clarity of thought. I
highly recommend it. It has no more to do with religion than my two
hours plus a week at the gym. If praying a few hours a week, or a day,
helps you operate better, keep your perspective, stay humble, fine. But
the praying by itself doesn’t make you a good person, and it’s no
substitute for good works."

Nice. Looks like Harris and
Dennett have something in common when it comes to fondness of
meditation. However, the similarity ends there. Harris subscribes to
the idea of consciousness expansion via meditation (e.g. his practice of Dzogchen)
while Dennett uses meditation for his blood pressure and clarity of
thought. Those two have different ideas when it comes to
*consciousness*. Harris subscribes to a Buddhist philosophical view of nondual consciousness (although he wants to strip it off with its Buddhistness). Dennett subscribes to a Neural Darwinian view. In his classic book, Consciousness Explained,
he argued that consciousness arises from interaction and cognitive
processes in the brain and that there is no such thing as a "hard problem of consciousness." Dennett strips consciousness of subjectivity and reduces everything to external biological process. Harris’ bias favors the interior while Dennett’s bias favors the exterior. Among the New Atheists, their views on religion and science are complementary. Taken together, their perspectives are more integral.

Going back to The American Conservative,
I was surprised that I enjoyed reading it, even if I don’t identify as
a conservative. In the coming days, I’ll blog some of the insightful
articles I’ve read. In the meantime, check out the free articles from its archive. Consider this shout out as my own way of making penance for lifting borrowing a copy from the U.S. Embassy here in Ireland.