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The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

Sam Harris

When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don’t believe as you do.
SAM HARRIS

Belief Believe Difference God Impossible Name Respect Right Suffering
This is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Ourselves Perfection Religion True
Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. It is both a failure of understanding and an unwillingness to be understood. To lie is to recoil from relationship.
SAM HARRIS

Definition Lying Relationship Trust Understand
Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.
SAM HARRIS

Activity Education Fast Man Survive Woman World
Unlike statements of fact, which require no further work on our part, lies must be continually protected from collisions with reality.
SAM HARRIS

Fact Reality Statement Work
From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.
SAM HARRIS

Freedom Love Point View
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
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
Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.
SAM HARRIS

Atheist Care Existence God Imagination Stop Wisdom Yourself
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
SAM HARRIS

Ignorance Knowledge Production Religious Scripture Secularism
The perpetrators of the Inquisition – the torturers, informers, and those who commanded their actions – were ecclesiastics of one rank or another. They were men of God – popes, bishops, friars, and priests.
SAM HARRIS

Action God Information Man Oneself Torture
I’m the Ted Bundy of string theory.
SAM HARRIS

String Theory
If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?
SAM HARRIS

Sex Victim
Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.
SAM HARRIS

Assure Myself Offend Simplicity Worry
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
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 deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

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The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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