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The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

Sam Harris

The problem with religion, because it’s been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.
SAM HARRIS

Alone Believe Criticism People Problem Religion
What I’m asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Deep Entertainment Ethics Live Spiritual
Words like ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ must go the way of ‘Apollo’ and ‘Baal’ or they will unmake our world.
SAM HARRIS

God Ourselves Word World
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling–it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Evidence Honesty Science
Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Creation Earth Invention Science
What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ or ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?
SAM HARRIS

Goodness Imporatant Lose World Worry
As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population.
SAM HARRIS

Atheist Live Myself Offend Population Society
You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.
SAM HARRIS

Control Lost Storm Yourself
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
It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
SAM HARRIS

Open Ourselves Time World
Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker
SAM HARRIS

Born Eat Food God Heaven Virgin
As a man believes, so he will act.
SAM HARRIS

Act Believe Himself Man
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
Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Dangerous Ethics People Yourself
Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings.
SAM HARRIS

Direction Human Perfection Religious Result Serious
Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction.
SAM HARRIS

Correct Faith Human Ignorance Possible Religious

The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

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The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.

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Popular Authors

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