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Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

Sam Harris

We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.
SAM HARRIS

Civilization Cultural Faith Greatness Ourselves Problem Religious
George Bush says he speaks to god every day, & Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.
SAM HARRIS

Failure Religion
To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say that I would have lived in a different universe had I been in a different universe.
SAM HARRIS

Different Live Myself Simplicity Universe
Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
SAM HARRIS

Conscious Freedom Ourselves Simplicity Thinking Willing
The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.
SAM HARRIS

Current Hold Holy Thinking
You don’t get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don’t know.
SAM HARRIS

Pretend Worth Yourself
The truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death.
SAM HARRIS

Death Philosophy Simplicity Truth
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
SAM HARRIS

Ignorance Knowledge Production Religious Scripture Secularism
Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don’t have American science versus Canadian science versus Japanese science.
SAM HARRIS

Boundary Human Ourselves Politics Science Thinking Transcendence
It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.
SAM HARRIS

Belief Difficult Heart Imagination Lying Mental Religious Tradition
We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That’s it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.
SAM HARRIS

Choice Conversation Faith Human Option Violence
An argument can be logically valid, but unsound in that it contains a false premise and, therefore, leads to a false conclusion (e.g., Scientists are smart; smart people do not make mistakes; therefore, scientists do not make mistakes).
SAM HARRIS

Argument Assumption Fake Leadership Logic Mistake Science
The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you.
SAM HARRIS

Community Face Islam Kill Muslim Religion Yourself
Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath–and the God of Nature too. If you can’t see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world.
SAM HARRIS

Eyes God Nature Ourselves Reality World
We must continually remind ourselves that there is a difference between what is natural and what is actually good for us.
SAM HARRIS

Difference Goodness Natural Ourselves Reminder
The habit of spending nearly every waking moment lost in thought leaves us at the mercy of whatever our thoughts happen to be. Meditation is a way of breaking this spell.
SAM HARRIS

Habit Mercy Moments Ourselves Wake Up

Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

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Either our wills are determined by prior causes and we are not responsible for them, or they are the product of chance and we are not responsible for them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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