Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral - that is, when pressing these… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The idea, therefore, that religious faith is somehow a sacred human convention—distinguished, as it is, both by the extravagance of its claims… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
A kernel of truth lurks at the heart of religion, because spiritual experience, ethical behavior, and strong communities are essential for human… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have… — 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
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
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
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
One of the greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
We are free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being. Let no… — 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
Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
It is terrible that we all die and lose everything we love; it is doubly terrible that so many human beings suffer… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics.… — 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
The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Human experience depends on everything that can influence states of the human brain, ranging from changes in our genome to changes in… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“But the reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself—and directly, through first-person experience.” — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“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 Image
The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
