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The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It’s really no more inflammatory than that.

Sam Harris

When someone like myself points out the rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust, because he visits suffering on innocent people of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, we’re told that? God is mysterious.
SAM HARRIS

Cruelty Evidence God Innocent Mystery Suffering Visit
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.
SAM HARRIS

Action Belief Potential Privacy Time
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
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
People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.
SAM HARRIS

Evidence Hall Ourselves People Power Society Strong
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
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
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
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
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
One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Civilization Production Representation Tradition
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
Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.
SAM HARRIS

Belief Faith Link Strong World
Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath–and the God of Nature too. If you can’t see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world.
SAM HARRIS

Eyes God Nature Ourselves Reality World
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.
SAM HARRIS

Atheist Live Philosophy Principle Unfortunate World
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.
SAM HARRIS

Collaboration End Evidence Human Open Ourselves Security World

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It’s really no more inflammatory than that.

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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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