Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.
SAM HARRISWhat we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody’s beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.
More Sam Harris Quotes
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The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It’s really no more inflammatory than that.
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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.
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Atheism is just a way of clearing the space for better conversations.
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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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It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential.
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The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us.
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We must continually remind ourselves that there is a difference between what is natural and what is actually good for us.
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The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.
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If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?
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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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It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.
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Words like ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ must go the way of ‘Apollo’ and ‘Baal’ or they will unmake our world.
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From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.
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The fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me in the least should suggest to you just how inadequate I think your reasons for being a Christian are.
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If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?
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It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
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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.
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Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
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You don’t get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don’t know.
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Most of us are wiser than we may appear to be. On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow ones own advice.
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We are all prisoners of our thoughts.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don’t like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.
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