“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.”

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.

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.

Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don’t have American science versus Canadian science versus Japanese science.

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.

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.

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.

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.

From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.

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.

It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.

An average Christian, in an average church, listen to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse — and there have been some extraordinary arrogant scientists.

Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.

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.

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?

When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn’t. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.

It is impossible for a man to be freed from the habit of sin before he hates it, just as it is impossible to receive forgiveness before confessing his trespasses.

You can get used to anything if you have to, even feeling perpetually guilty.

My worst habit used to be smoking but I quit.

Habits are like submarines; they run silent and deep.

Study the habits of the people you want to be like and then imitate them. If they are succeeding, they must be doing something right.

We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them.

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement

It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given. One or the other becomes a habit of life.