A question and request for Sam Harris

Dear Sam Harris,

I write to you with a question, a request and an explanation of an intellectual position and philospohical stance which is difficult to explain. Please bear with me as I attempt to express this matter that I believe has profound implications.

I write to you because I admire your intellectual rigor and hope that this will provide intellectually nourishing food for thought.

The request is that you contemplate spirituality and other matters within the framework of developmental psychology and contribute to the process of differentiating between spirituality and religion. The distinction

I do not know if you are familiar with the works of Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics and the likes, but the basics provide a context. While I disagree with many of the details, applications and conclusions of the authorities in these matters, I find the general theory to have merit worth consideration and hope to save the baby from being tossed with the bathwater.

I agree with your position in The Problem With Atheism and would like to suggest that spiritual, but not religious can be an improved framing that may serve us well in teasing out the confusing knot of conflated ideas regarding these matters. Rather than framing religious beliefs as wrong or misguided (although they are often both), it may be more fruitful to position them as immature.

The use of this term is new and still needs significant refinement. While there may be a significant portion of people that identify as SBNR who are relatively intellectually immature, there are others who have more sophisticated and nuanced perspectives. It is my contention that those in the later category can help to shine the light of wisdom and clarity in these otherwise muddied philosophical waters.

In the developmental scheme, rejection of the mythic can only happen after exposure to the mythic. One cannot reject religion in the absence of religion. While Ken Wilber may have realized and described the Pre/Trans Fallacy, he still seems to be missing something significant. Maybe this guy got it right or at least better. It may be true of Steve Taylor too, but geez....so many words...

If there is a mature spirituality that recognizes religion as a relatively narrow and primitive aspect of its greater being, then perhaps religious conflict will become as unnecessary for humanity as an appendix...wouldn't that be nice?