from the Burqua to the cell phone?

perhaps my ultimate point is questioning the validity of his method as you mentioned in your second sentence.

isn't that exactly what all of the things that they (the righteous four) classify as 'bad' do already? i.e. challenge your existing beliefs? attempt to replace one set of incomplete/inaccurate/partial assumptions with yet another?

i need to get a tattoo because the people who do not have them are "------" fill in the blank and people who do have them are '_______' fill in the blank.

a fat man in a red outfit lands on my roof in the middle of winter and comes down my chimney with presents for me only if i eat my peas...

solving the dilemma of ridiculous beliefs has to start with understanding belief itself. not with claiming that certain beliefs are ridiculous and then saying something like 'how can you be so dumb as to not have seen that already like me!'

that, i believe, was the point that some of those guys were making in the recent piece. harris is drawing his own personally believed conclusions (Burqua use is BAD!!!!!) and insisting that there is empirical evidence to prove that it is so (i.e.UNIVERSALLY BAD!!!!!) therefore should not be done. PERIOD.

their point being that Burqua use (forced or voluntary) is a behavior that results from a belief. the content of the belief is random. for some it works. for others it does not. there is no universal for content (i.e. the belief). there is potentially universal law for understanding/explaining the context i.e. belief itself.

Harris claims universal BADNESS for all. immediately citing some (or many) extreme cases where the behavior generated by the belief has been really really bad for some (or many)

is he wrong about the extreme cases? no of course not but that does not extrapolate to: he is right about all.

this is not science. this is dogmatism. and his method is alchemy because he appears to be intelligent enough to understand exactly what he is doing. i.e. creating controversy (always talking about the extreme really bad things) for personal profit.

as you pointed out, he is supposedly a scientist not a novelist. so he should be writing research papers for peer review.

or maybe he could change his subject to the use of cell phones while operating a motor vehicle? there have been instances of people who believed that they could simultaneously safely drive a motor vehicle while not paying attention to the machine or their surroundings.

people have been killed or maimed in really horrific ways because of that ridiculous belief.

should we eliminate the motor vehicle? the cell phone?
or tell everyone that does the same thing that they are idiots and need to change their belief?

or is there another possibility such as a concerted effort to get children from the age of 5 for instance to start to look at belief (not beliefs) and understand what it is as a process and what it does in terms of generating behavior?