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.
SAM HARRISYou can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.
More Sam Harris Quotes
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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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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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It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
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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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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.
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The problem with religion, because it’s been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.
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False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
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The truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death.
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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.
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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.
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Unlike statements of fact, which require no further work on our part, lies must be continually protected from collisions with reality.
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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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Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas.
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The core of science is not a mathematical modeling–it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
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If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?
SAM HARRIS