“...religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Some pleasures are intrinsically ethical—feelings like love, gratitude, devotion, and compassion. To inhabit these states of mind is, by definition, to be… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share… — 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
“In the best case, faith leaves otherwise well-intentioned people incapable of thinking rationally about many of their deepest concerns; at worst, it… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. [...] By failing to live by the letter of the texts… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Faith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering. Where certain actions cause no suffering at all, religious dogmatists still maintain that they… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim… — 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
“Religious unreason should acquire and even greater stigma in our discourse, given that it remains among the principal causes of armed conflict… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you, dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living. But we… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Faith drives a wedge between ethics and suffering. Where certain actions cause no suffering at all, religious dogmatists still maintain that they… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Over one million people died in the orgy of religious killing that attended the partitioning of India and Pakistan. The two countries… — 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
“Incompatible religious doctrines have Balkanised our world and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed,… — 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
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely to be more durable than one that conforms, at… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“There is a sense in which all cognition can be said to be motivated. One is motivated to understand the world, to… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“The fact that religious faith has left its mark on every aspect of our civilization is not an argument in its favor,… — 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
“Religious moderates are, in large part, responsible for the religious conflict in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“I would challenge anyone here to think of a questions upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“It is generally argued that our experience of free will presents a compelling mystery: On the one hand, we can't make sense… — 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
This is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments , and… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Many religious moderates have taken the apparent high road of pluralism, asserting the equal validity of all faiths, but in doing so… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religion has convinced us that there's something else entirely other than concerns about suffering. There's concerns about what God wants, there's concerns… — 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
“How is it that, in this one area of our lives [religion], we have convinced ourselves that our beliefs about the world… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“While religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction, it is… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Finding ourselves in a universe that seems bent on destroying us, we quickly discover, both as individuals and as societies, that it… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religion provides the only story that is fundamentally consoling in the face of the worst possible experiences - the death of a… — 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
![“Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. [...] By failing to live by the letter of the texts [scripture], while tolerating the irrationality of those who do, religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.” quote by Sam Harris](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/09f/sam-harris-457_faith-and-reason_religious-moderation-is-the-product-of-s_208391.jpg)
![“The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism, are especially plagued by [high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and infant mortality], while the…” quote by Sam Harris](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/efc/sam-harris-457_abortion_the-same-comparison-holds-true-within-th_1399107.jpg)
![“How is it that, in this one area of our lives [religion], we have convinced ourselves that our beliefs about the world can float entirely free of reason and evidence?” quote by Sam Harris](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/8de/sam-harris-457_faith_how-is-it-that-in-this-one-area-of-our-l_1600361.jpg)
