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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.

Sam Harris

As a man believes, so he will act.
SAM HARRIS

Act Believe Himself Man
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
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.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Evidence Honesty Science
Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.
SAM HARRIS

Achievement Fact Faith Fake Religious Uncertain
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.
SAM HARRIS

Definition Lying Relationship Trust Understand
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
Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbors believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Creation Earth Invention Science
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
Let me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.
SAM HARRIS

Assure Myself Offend Simplicity Worry
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 habit of spending nearly every waking moment lost in thought leaves us at the mercy of whatever our thoughts happen to be. Meditation is a way of breaking this spell.
SAM HARRIS

Habit Mercy Moments Ourselves Wake Up
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
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
It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.
SAM HARRIS

Book Ordinary Product Value
Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
SAM HARRIS

Believe Dangerous Ethics People Yourself
Atheism is just a way of clearing the space for better conversations.
SAM HARRIS

Atheist Better Conversation Space

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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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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