Sam Harris Quotes About Atheism

Quotes about: Atheism

• In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, People

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, 2006.

• Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Stars, War

• While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about. It is telling that this aura of nobility extends only to those faiths that still have many subscribers. Anyone caught worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, will be thought insane.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Believe, Sea

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

• When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Believe, Differences

• We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, War, Two

• The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, People, Religion

• Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

• Theology is ignorance with wings.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Ignorance, Wings

• It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, Civilization

• What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.

  Sam Harris

  Inspirational, Motivational, Spiritual

• Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle.

  Sam Harris

  Philosophy, Views, Atheism

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, p. 51, September 19, 2006.

• Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, People

  "There is No God (And You Know It)" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 6, 2005.

• [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.

  Sam Harris

  Faith, Religious, Lying

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.72, W. W. Norton & Company

• Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

  Sam Harris

  Strong, Atheist, Atheism

• Some ... sexist evil probably predates religion and can be ascribed to our biology, but there is no question that religion promulgates and renders sacrosanct attitudes toward women that would be unseemly in a brachiating ape.

  Sam Harris

  Attitude, Evil, Atheism

• Atheism is just a way of clearing the space for better conversations.

  Sam Harris

  Space, Atheism, Way

  YouTube Chanel "Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc"/ "Sam Harris - Death and the Present Moment", www.youtube.com. June 2, 2012.

• Countries with high levels of atheism are . . . the most charitable both in terms of the percentage of their wealth they devote to social welfare programs and the percentage they give in aid to the developing world.

  Sam Harris

  Country, Welfare Programs, Giving

• 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 to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal consistency was authored by an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent deity.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, Book, Beer

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.17, W. W. Norton & Company

• To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world - to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish - is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.

  Sam Harris

  Ignorance, Our World, Luxury

  "The End of Faith". Book by Sam Harris (pages 22-23), 2004.

• It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Hurricane Katrina struck shared your belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God. But what was God doing while Katrina laid waste to their city? Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there.

  Sam Harris

  Prayer, Men, Elderly

• Advance warning of Katrina's path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn't have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina's survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God.

  Sam Harris

  New Orleans, Wind, Atheism

  Sam Harris (2011). “Letter To A Christian Nation”, p.53, Random House

• If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Believe, Thinking

• What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Atheism, Belief

• The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Atheism, Belief

• We rely on faith only in the context of claims for which there is no sufficient sensory or logical evidence.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Atheism, Logical

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