The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The problem of vindicating an omnipotent and omniscient God in the face of evil is insurmountable. Those who claim to have surmounted… — 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
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
The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Unreason is now ascendant in the United States - in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Meditation puts into question more or less everything you tend to do in your search for happiness. But if you lose sight… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception.… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, failure enjoys a natural advantage. Wrong answers to any problem outnumber right ones by a wide margin, and it seems that… — 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
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
As many critics of religion have pointed out, the notion of a creator poses an immediate problem of an infinite regress. If… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large,… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The problem that religious moderation poses for all of us is that it does not permit anything very critical to be said… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The problem is not that religious people are stupid. It's not that religious fundamentalists are stupid. I happen to think that you… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion, and even… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire… — 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
