black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.

Sam Harris

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
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
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
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
Values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.
SAM HARRIS

Creature Fact Reduce Value
I’m the Ted Bundy of string theory.
SAM HARRIS

String Theory
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.
SAM HARRIS

Honesty Imagination Integrity Intellectual Religion Standard Truth Yourself
A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
SAM HARRIS

Freedom Himself Love
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
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.
SAM HARRIS

Argument Difference Evidence Passionate Willing
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?
SAM HARRIS

Argument Evidence Logic Prove Value Yourself
False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
SAM HARRIS

Encouragement Fake Motivational Person Purpose
The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.
SAM HARRIS

Freedom Hide Kill Lost Thinking
It’s simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.
SAM HARRIS

Frame Moral Religion True Universe
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
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.
SAM HARRIS

Current Hold Holy Thinking

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Sam Harris Quotes