Sam Harris Series | Episode 1: The End of Faith

Regan Arntz-Gray, who’s been hosting a Sam Harris podcast discussion group for the past 6 years, is hosting a 4-month Interintellect Salon series on his body of work.

Episode 1: The End of Faith

While religion currently provides many with meaning, it does so at an unacceptable cost, and many continue to underweight the causal link between belief and action. Sam claims that widespread faith-based religious adherence is untenable in a globalized world, given the mutual incompatibility of these sets of beliefs and their intrinsic intolerance. We’ll discuss how these arguments land in the context of a more secular 2024 and their relevance to generational differences in the response to topical events and the appeal of religious community. We’ll discuss arguments made in “The End of Faith,” but pre-reading is not required.

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In this salon series, we’ll traverse through the thought-provoking and diverse work of Sam Harris. We’ll examine the central claims made in his books as well as through his body of work as a public intellectual. This series will include four salons, each focused on one major topic or group of issues to which Sam has contributed atheism and critiques of Islam, morality and cultural relativism, free will and spirituality without faith, and the transformative power of discourse.

For each topic, we’ll discuss Sam’s central claims, any questions they stimulate, and where they might require updating or recontextualizing for 2024. We’ll cover content discussed in several of his books, including The End of Faith, Free Will, Waking Up, The Moral Landscape, and Lying, so some pre-reading is helpful but not at all necessary.

In each salon session, expect thought-provoking discussions, speculative inquiries, and a deep dive into Harris’s intellectual legacy. Bring your questions and curiosity as we embark on these constructive discussions, and I expect we’ll all come away with some new insights on these important topics!

This event will be recorded.