The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The problem of human suffering is never too much rational thinking, or too high a demand for evidence. But the solutions are.… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can compete successfully with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Where we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; where we have no reasons, we have lost… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me in the least should suggest to you just… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Faith enables many of us to endure life's difficulties with an equanimity that would be scarcely conceivable in a world lit only… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
And while Protestant reformers broke with Rome on a variety of counts, their treatment of their fellow human beings was no less… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
If we cannot find our way to a time when most of us are willing to admit that, at the very least,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
How can we encourage other human beings to extend their moral sympathies beyond a narrow locus? How can we learn to become… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
A true spiritual practitioner is someone who has discovered that it is possible to be at ease in the world for no… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
God is great"). Conversations about the practical impossibility of God's existence and the science-based irrationality of an afterlife slid seamlessly into xenophobia… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“It is also worth noting that one can obtain a Ph.D. in any branch of science for no other purpose than to… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.” — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
We do not respect people's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons. If my reasons are good enough for believing what I believe, you… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern… — Sam Harris Copy Share
There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by… — Sam Harris Copy Share
We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends… — Sam Harris Copy Share
“Your principal concern appears to be that the Creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of… — Sam Harris Copy Share
“As manuals for contemplative understanding, the Bible and the Koran are worse than useless. Whatever wisdom can be found in their pages is never… — Sam Harris Copy Share
About 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. If our polls are… — Sam Harris Copy Share
“If your golf instructor were to insist that you shave your head, sleep no more than four hours each night, renounce sex, and subsist… — Sam Harris Copy Share
The fact that one can lose one's sense of self in an ocean of tranquility does not mean that one's consciousness is immaterial or… — Sam Harris Copy Share
The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second… — Sam Harris Copy Share
“But the reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself—and directly, through first-person experience.” — Sam Harris Copy Share
“Whether or not one likes Huntington's formulation, one thing is clear: the evil that has finally reached our shores is not merely the evil… — Sam Harris Copy Share
Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have… — Sam Harris Copy Share
The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology,… — Sam Harris Copy Share
“What could possibly cause billions of human beings to reconsider their religious beliefs? And yet, it is obvious that an utter revolution in our… — Sam Harris Copy Share
