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
“Religion raises the stakes of human conflict much higher than tribalism, racism, or politics ever can, as it is the only form… — 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
On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
If history reveals any categorical truth, it is that an insufficient taste for evidence regularly brings out the worst in us. Add… — 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
“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
120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Consider the case of alchemy: it fascinated human beings for over a thousand years, and yet anyone who seriously claims to be… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and… — 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
It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that… — 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
Religious ideas about good and evil tend to focus on how to achieve well-being in the next life, and this makes them… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power. The only… — 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
Although many things can be said in criticism of religious faith, there is no discounting its power. Millions among us, even now,… — 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
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
“If religion addresses a genuine sphere of understanding and human necessity, then it should be susceptible to progress; its doctrines should become… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will… — 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
