Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
SAM HARRISThe 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.
More Sam Harris Quotes
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How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.
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Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.
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An average Christian, in an average church, listen to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse — and there have been some extraordinary arrogant scientists.
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If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won’t matter how successful you become or who is in your life – you won’t enjoy any of it.
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It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
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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).
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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.
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Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
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I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.
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People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.
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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.
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As a man believes, so he will act.
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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.
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Muslims must learn that if they make belligerent and fanatical claims upon the tolerance of free societies, they will meet the limits of that tolerance.
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Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a thelogically defensible reading of the Bible.
SAM HARRIS