Sam Harris Quotes - Page 9

Quotes about:

• It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed (Aquinas).

  Sam Harris

  Religion, Church, Augustine

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

  4 Copy quote

• You cannot take death for apostasy seriously and be working for peace.

  Sam Harris

  Apostasy

  6 Copy quote

• The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity?

  Sam Harris

  Humanity, Religion, Important

  4 Copy quote

• Moderates want their faith respected. They don't want faith itself criticized, and yet faith itself is what is bringing us all this - this lunacy.

  Sam Harris

  Want, Lunacy, Moderates

  5 Copy quote

• All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.

  Sam Harris

  Civilized Nations, Earth, Condemnation

  "Sam Harris, the New Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus" by Glenn Greenwald, www.theguardian.com. April 3, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• If one doesn't value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

  Sam Harris

  Logical Arguments, Should, Prove

  6 Copy quote

• Religious faith is the only area of discourse where immunity through conversation is considered noble . It's the only area of our lives where someone can win points for saying, "There's nothing that you can do to change my mind and I'm taking no state of the world ultimately into account in believing what I believe. There's nothing to change about the world that would cause me to revise my beliefs.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Believe, Winning

  "The View From The End Of The World" by Sam Harris, December 9, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps.

  Sam Harris

  Company, Persons

  7 Copy quote

• Could there be any doubt that the Jews would seek to harm the Son of God again, knowing that his body was now readily accessible in the form of defenseless crackers?

  Sam Harris

  Son, Knowing, Doubt

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.99, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

• Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places. Principle #2: Do not defend your property. Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape.

  Sam Harris

  People, Principles, Dangerous

  4 Copy quote

• It is important to realize that our inability to answer a question says nothing about whether the question itself has an answer.

  Sam Harris

  Important, Inability, Answers

  Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• If Jesus does come down out of the clouds like a superhero, Christianity will stand revealed as a science . That will be the science of Christianity.

  Sam Harris

  Jesus, Clouds, Superhero

  "Religion, Terror, and Self-Transcendence". The Ethical Culture Society and the Center for Inquiry, New York, NY, Broadcast on CSPAN-2, November 16, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• This is how you play tennis without the net

  Sam Harris

  Play, Tennis

  4 Copy quote

• To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms. We're talking about Islam being a religion of peace that's been hijacked by extremists. If ever there were a religion that's not a religion of peace, it is Islam.

  Sam Harris

  Talking, Civilization, Islam

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  5 Copy quote

• Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

  Sam Harris

  Long, Puppets, Creeds

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

  4 Copy quote

• Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).

  Sam Harris

  Doe, Limits

  "Pope ‘Rottweiler’ Barks" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 17, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, War, Ideas

  "Science Must Destroy Religion" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 2, 2006.

  9 Copy quote

• Ten years have now passed since many of us first felt the jolt of history-when the second plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world-not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors.

  Sam Harris

  Years, Our World, Ignorant

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• Science has long been in the value business. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, scientific validity is not the result of scientists abstaining from making value judgments; rather, scientific validity is the result of scientists making their best efforts to value principles of reasoning that link their beliefs to reality, through reliable chains of evidence and argument.

  Sam Harris

  Reality, Objectivity, Best Effort

  "The Moral Landscape". Book by Sam Harris, 2010.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the needy. . . . While missionaries do many noble things at great risk to themselves, their dogmatism still spreads ignorance and death. By contrast, volunteers for secular organizations . . . do not waste . . . time telling people about the virgin birth of Jesus. Nor do they tell people in sub-Saharan Africa - where nearly four million people die from AIDS every year - that condom use is sinful.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Jesus, Ignorance

  10 Copy quote

• The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Guarantees That, Atheism

  6 Copy quote

• I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of value is really quite dangerous.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, People, Doubt

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. October 11, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

Page 9 of 10

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin