TGGP, Sam Harris doesn’t believe in God, and I think that’s the definition of an atheist. One need not shun all experiences associated with religion to qualify.
HA, Matthew and I are referring to the fact pointed out by, for instance, David Hume or Buddhism that what appears to be a unitary, unchanging essence-of-Nick-Tarleton-ness (or whoever-ness) is an illusion; all that really exists is a collection of perceptions and memories loosely bound together in the same brain; other people differ from me only in having different experiences and embodiments, not in having some distinct essence; Nick-Tarleton-fifty-years-in-the-future may have collected so many different experiences as to be as far from Nick-Tarleton-now as Hopefully-Anonymous-now is; and consequently, it seems more reasonable to serve sentient-beings-as-a-whole than this illusion of an essential self. Someone else can probably explain it better than me.
TGGP, Sam Harris doesn’t believe in God, and I think that’s the definition of an atheist. One need not shun all experiences associated with religion to qualify.
HA, Matthew and I are referring to the fact pointed out by, for instance, David Hume or Buddhism that what appears to be a unitary, unchanging essence-of-Nick-Tarleton-ness (or whoever-ness) is an illusion; all that really exists is a collection of perceptions and memories loosely bound together in the same brain; other people differ from me only in having different experiences and embodiments, not in having some distinct essence; Nick-Tarleton-fifty-years-in-the-future may have collected so many different experiences as to be as far from Nick-Tarleton-now as Hopefully-Anonymous-now is; and consequently, it seems more reasonable to serve sentient-beings-as-a-whole than this illusion of an essential self. Someone else can probably explain it better than me.