What’s with the heavy-handed moderation and interrupting Harris and Shermer in mid-thought?
And can anyone suggest a good volume control for Chopra?  He is much too loud.

I loved when Julia Sweeney, toward the end of her presentation of ‘Letting go of God’ said, Deepak, you are full of shit!

I watched most of the two hour debate but missed the questions at the end.  Shermer and Harris were perfect in their quiet, thoughtful approach which made Chopra’s occasional rants show him to be verging on the irrational.  THe best part for me was how Harris especially was able to properly contextualize Chopra’s claims and to expose when he really hit the “woo woo” button, at one point Deepak had to confess that Harris had caught him on some of his pronouncements and that he would defer to Harris’s version of events.

It seemed to me that Chopra for a rare time in his life had met with someone who readily exposed his short-comings, although this did not force him to recant his crazy metaphysics, it did stop him from just babbling on and on about how humans are the “ultimate force” in the universe because we are the unique exemplifiers of some such a “cosmic power.”  As I listened to Chopra it became more and more clear to me that his view is entirely anthropo-centric, as if we are so important in the workings of the universe.  This view is not really so different from the views of the traditional religions, just add a pinch of quantum physic and subatomic rhetoric and you get Deepaked.

The full 2hr debate can be viewed at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaceOff/

Bob

... just add a pinch of quantum physics and subatomic rhetoric and you get Deepaked.

<rimshot>: Bohm-bohm Bohm.

In a nutshell-Deepak Chopra=flapdoodle. And he knows it. Thats the despicable part.

Jean Houston was bad.  Sam would make some excellent points, get near to the killing blow, then she’d enter with some vague nonsense about her life (did I accidentally hit the ‘I care’ button?) that has nothing to do with anything.  I like the way Sam let her rant on a few times, then in a few words completely undermined her position and we find, behind the admittedly very kind and intellectual face, she has a position as flaky as Pat Robinsons.

mpbrockman - 24 March 2010 01:29 AM

I’m really going to have to watch the whole thing, but the prospect of listening to two hours of an irate Chopra has all the appeal of a bad hangover.

Yes, I’m quoting myself.

OK - I tried. I really wanted to be able to evaluate each side on their merits; but I really can’t listen to Chopra for any length of time, and when he gets irate and loud (much of the time) his accent thickens and I have difficulty understanding him.

Does anybody know if there’s a transcript anywhere? I’d much rather read than watch this.

Just watched 3 episodes on you tube and…....I can barely believe that Deepak Chopra referred to Scientists as Jihadists. Are u freakin’ kidding me? How can anybody debate wth somebody like that? Ridiculous.

I am actually tired of these debates and am coming to the conclusion that Dawkins is right. Fuck these people. You cannot debate somebody who cannot think, and lives a life as a propagandist. it’s like trying to debate Goebbels for Christs sake.