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Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.

Sam Harris

Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas.
SAM HARRIS

Bad Born Ideas Mom Moments Religion
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
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
SAM HARRIS

Intellectual Public Reason Science Time
The truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death.
SAM HARRIS

Death Philosophy Simplicity Truth
The power of psychedelics is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime.
SAM HARRIS

Life Power Reveal Science Time Understand
A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
SAM HARRIS

Freedom Himself Love
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
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
SAM HARRIS

Ignorance Knowledge Production Religious Scripture Secularism
We are all prisoners of our thoughts.
SAM HARRIS

Ourselves Prison Thinking
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.
SAM HARRIS

Evidence History Human Myself Society
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
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

Abusive God Kill People Name Oppression Reading
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
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
Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.
SAM HARRIS

Belief Faith Link Strong World
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
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
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.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Change Happiness Privacy Yourself
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

Abandonment Desert Ethics Question
The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.
SAM HARRIS

Appearance Atheist Fantasy Life Reality Shame Touch
The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments , and a passionate unwillingness to do so.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Difference Evidence Passionate Willing
What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody’s beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.
SAM HARRIS

Belief Live Ourselves Place Reason Religion Respect
The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence.
SAM HARRIS

Character Explanation Islam Truth Violence
The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.
SAM HARRIS

Evidence Faith Religion
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.
SAM HARRIS

Angry Confusion Depression Enjoyment Life Success Yourself
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
We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.
SAM HARRIS

Creation Enough God Man Moments

Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.

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Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.

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