4.6 • 29.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2023
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
In this episode, we examine a series of Sam’s conversations centered around religion, atheism, and the power of belief.
First, we hear the stories of three guests who have fled their respective oppressive religious organizations. We begin with Sarah Hairder, founder of the advocacy group Ex-Muslims of North America, who details how her encounters with militant atheists catalyzed her journey to secularism. Then our narrator, Megan Phelps-Roper, walks us through her story of abandoning the Westboro Baptist Church. Finally, Yasmine Mohammed presents her harrowing account of escaping fundamentalist Islamism and Sam’s role in inspiring her public advocacy work.
We then tackle the concept of belief more broadly, diving into Sam’s understanding of atheism and what sets it apart from the views of other atheist thinkers like Matt Dillahunty and Richard Dawkins. We also revisit an infamous conversation between Sam and Jordan Peterson, wherein they attempt to come to some universal definition of the word “truth.”
The episode concludes with two Q&A portions from life events in which Sam addresses some real concerns about purpose and meaning in the absence of religion.
About the Series
Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.
Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.
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0:00.0 | Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're |
0:12.1 | hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing |
0:16.2 | the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense |
0:20.7 | Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed |
0:26.1 | to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. |
0:30.4 | We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support |
0:34.5 | of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. |
0:48.6 | Welcome to the Essential Sam Harris. This is Making Sense of belief and unbelief. |
0:56.8 | The goal of this series is to organize, compile, and juxtapose conversations hosted by Sam Harris |
1:03.2 | in specific areas of interest. This is an ongoing effort to construct a coherent overview of |
1:09.4 | Sam's perspectives and arguments, the various explorations and approaches to the topic, |
1:15.3 | the relevant agreements and disagreements, and the pushbacks and evolving thoughts which his |
1:20.4 | guests have advanced. The purpose of these compilations is not to provide a complete picture of any |
1:27.2 | issue, but to entice you to go deeper into these subjects. Along the way, we'll point you to the |
1:33.5 | full episodes with each featured guest, and at the conclusion, we'll offer some reading, |
1:39.2 | listening, and watching suggestions which range from fun and light to densely academic. |
1:44.7 | One note to keep in mind for this series. Sam has long argued for a unity of knowledge where the |
1:51.6 | barriers between fields of study are viewed as largely unhelpful artifacts of unnecessarily |
1:57.0 | partitioned thought. The pursuit of wisdom and reason in one area of study naturally bleeds into, |
2:03.5 | and greatly affects others. You'll hear plenty of crossover into other topics as these dives into |
2:09.7 | the archives unfold, and you're thinking about a particular topic may shift as you realize its |
2:15.6 | contingent relationships with others. In this topic, you'll hear the natural overlap with theories |
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