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 HARRISJesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker
More Sam Harris Quotes
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Words like ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ must go the way of ‘Apollo’ and ‘Baal’ or they will unmake our world.
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Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.
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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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Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
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Theology is ignorance with wings.
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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.
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Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
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It’s simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.
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From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.
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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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It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
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The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.
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The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors.
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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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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.
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