It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
SAM HARRISIt is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
SAM HARRISLet me assure you that my intent is not to offend or merely be provocative. I’m simply worried.
SAM HARRISThe position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you.
SAM HARRISScience 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.
SAM HARRISWhen 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 HARRISFalse encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.
SAM HARRISA puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
SAM HARRISThe faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.
SAM HARRISIslam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas.
SAM HARRISGeorge Bush says he speaks to god every day, & Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.
SAM HARRISPeople who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.
SAM HARRISAn 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.
SAM HARRISThis is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own.
SAM HARRISReligious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the false to achieve primacy over the facts.
SAM HARRISWhat would our world be like if we ceased to worry about ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ or ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?
SAM HARRISWhat 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