Sam Harris Quotes - Page 7

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• The fact that my continuous and public rejection of Christianity does not worry me in the least should suggest to you just how inadequate I think your reasons for being a Christian are.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Thinking, Worry

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

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• According to the most common interpretation of biblical prophecy, Jesus will return only after things have gone horribly awry. Imagine the consequences if any significant component of the U.S. government believed that the world was about to end and that its ending would be glorious. The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.

  Sam Harris

  Jesus, Believe, Biblical

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• Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance.

  Sam Harris

  Ignorance, Branches, Littles

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.173, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It is time we realize that belief is not a private matter. As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that you are a member of a chosen people, awash in the salacious exports of an evil culture that is turning your children away from God, believe that you will be rewarded with an eternity of unimaginable delights by dealing death to these infidels—and flying a plane into a building is only a matter of being asked to do it.

  Sam Harris

  Children, Believe, Men

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• Perhaps one day we will do “everything that we can to protect our people and the timeless values that we stand for.” But today, we won’t even honestly describe the motivations of our enemies. And in the act of lying to ourselves, we continue to pay lip service to the very delusions that empower them.

  Sam Harris

  Motivation, Lying, People

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• It is time we admitted that we are not at war with “terrorism.” We are at war with Islam.

  Sam Harris

  War, Islam, Terrorism

  "‘Mired in a religious war’" by Sam Harris, www.washingtontimes.com. December 1, 2004.

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• I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities which current cultures can't fully eradicate, which we would want to eradicate if we could. Let's say, a tendency for tribal violence. Or racism.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, Racism, Principles

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• Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

  Sam Harris

  Ignorance, Degrees, World

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.230, W. W. Norton & Company

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• You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you assert that we human beings cannot possibly rely upon our own intuitions to rightly guide us in the world.

  Sam Harris

  Rely Upon, Intuition, World

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

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• Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this “terrorism”), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this “collateral damage”). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all.

  Sam Harris

  Children, Differences, Parent

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• We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit validity to this status quo. People have morally identified with a subset of humanity rather than with humanity as a whole.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, People, Humanity

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• We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

  Sam Harris

  Faith, Science, Men

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.226, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.

  Sam Harris

  Science, Men, Names

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.227, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In the West, if you speak to yourself out loud all day long, you are considered crazy. But speaking to yourself silently - thinking incessantly - is considered perfectly normal.

  Sam Harris

  Crazy, Buddhism, Thinking

  "A Contemplative Science" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 2, 2006.

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• If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?

  Sam Harris

  Sex, Sin, Victim

  "Fly Fishing for Sharks". Book by Andrew Alexander, p. 81, October, 2008.

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• Our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own moral judgment (the dog) is driven by our own moral reasoning (the tail). The second illusion can be called the wag-theother-dog's-tail illusion: In a moral argument, we expect the successful rebuttal of an opponent's arguments to change the opponent's mind. Such a belief is like thinking that forcing a dog's tail to wag by moving it with your hand will make the dog happy.

  Sam Harris

  Dog, Atheist, Moving

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• Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.

  Sam Harris

  Impact, World, Morality

  "The Moral Landscape : Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 25, 2010.

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• To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say that I would have lived in a different universe had I been in a different universe.

  Sam Harris

  Different Universes, Done, Wanted

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

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• From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.

  Sam Harris

  Views, Long, Puppets

  YouTube Chanel "Freytrue"/ "Sam Harris at Sydney Opera House", www.youtube.com. January 13, 2013.

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• The deity who stalked the deserts of the Middle East millennia ago-and who seems to have abandoned them to bloodshed in his name ever since-is no one to consult on questions of ethics.

  Sam Harris

  Names, Middle East, Desert

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.172, W. W. Norton & Company

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• If history reveals any categorical truth, it is that an insufficient taste for evidence regularly brings out the worst in us. Add weapons of mass destruction to this diabolical clockwork, and you have . . . a recipe for the fall of civilization.

  Sam Harris

  Fall, Mass Destruction, Civilization

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.26, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death.

  Sam Harris

  Death, Truth Is, Happens

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.208, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious faith.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Real, Guarantees That

  "The Politics of Ignorance" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 2, 2005.

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• Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available.

  Sam Harris

  Spiritual, Atheist, Self

  "On Spiritual Truths" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 16, 2011.

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• We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas

  Sam Harris

  War, Blood, Ideas

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.53, W. W. Norton & Company

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