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
Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“Religious moderation springs from the fact that even the least educated person among us simply knows more about certain matters than anyone… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religious faith obscures uncertainty where uncertainty . . . exists, allowing the unknown, the implausible, and the . . . false to achieve primacy over the facts. — 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
The usefulness of religion - the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good - is not an… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“The concessions we have made to religious faith - to the idea that belief can be sanctified by something other than evidence… — 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
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
There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our… — 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
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
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
Religious faith is the only area of discourse where immunity through conversation is considered noble . It's the only area of our… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often… — 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
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
“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
All I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo… — 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
The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of… — 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
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
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
Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
“...religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse.” — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
While the religious divisions in our world are self-evident, many people still imagine that religious conflict is always caused by a lack… — Sam Harris Copy Share Image
The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a… — 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
In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or… — 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 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
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
Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on… — 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
![“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/quotes/img-quotes/efc/sam-harris-457_abortion_the-same-comparison-holds-true-within-th_1399107.jpg)
![“[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.” quote by Sam Harris](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/1c5/sam-harris-457_atheism_i-t-is-difficult-to-imagine-a-set-of-bel_835263.jpg)
![“Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern world. [...] The first thing to observe about the moderate’s retreat from scriptural literalism is that it draws its inspiration not from scripture but from…” quote by Sam Harris](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b44/sam-harris-457_bible_moderates-in-every-faith-are-obliged-to_6967.jpg)
