Sam Harris: Trending quotes (page 4)

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Sam Harris: 302   quotes 6   likes

“It is generally argued that our experience of free will presents a compelling mystery: On the one hand, we can't make sense of it in scientific terms; on the other, we feel that we are the authors of our own thoughts and actions.”

Sam Harris

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 64

Feeling , Sense

“As a general matter, I believe we should be very slow to make conclusions about the nature of the cosmos based upon inner experience – no matter how profound these experiences seem.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, Drugs and the Meaning of Life http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/ (5 July 2011)
2010s

Nature

“What would the Israelis do if they could do what they want? They would live in peace with their neighbors, if they had neighbors who would live in peace with them. They would simply continue to build out their high tech sector and thrive. What do groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and even Hamas want? They want to impose their religious views on the rest of humanity. They want to stifle every freedom that decent, educated, secular people care about. This is not a trivial difference. And yet judging from the level of condemnation that Israel now receives, you would think the difference ran the other way. This kind of confusion puts all of us in danger. This is the great story of our time. For the rest of our lives, and the lives of our children, we are going to be confronted by people who don't want to live peacefully in a secular, pluralistic world, because they are desperate to get to Paradise, and they are willing to destroy the very possibility of human happiness along the way. The truth is, we are all living in Israel. It's just that some of us haven't realized it yet.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, "Why Don't I Criticize Israel?" http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-dont-i-criticize-israel (27 July 2014)
2010s

Children , People , Truth , World

“Some researchers have speculated that religion itself may have played an important role in getting large groups of prehistoric humans to socially cohere. If this is true, we can say that religion has served an important purpose. This does not suggest, however, that it serves an important purpose now. There is, after all, nothing more natural than rape. But no one would argue that rape is good, or compatible with a civil society, because it may have had evolutionary advantages for our ancestors. That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization.”

Sam Harris

Source: 2000s, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), p. 90-91

Religion , Nature , Past

“So you can't take credit for your talents, but it really matters if you use them. You can't really be blamed for your weaknesses and your failings, but it matters if you correct them. Pride and shame don't make a lot of sense in the final analyses. But they were no fun anyway. These are isolating emotions. What does make sense are things like compassion and love: caring about well-being makes sense; trying to maximize your well-being and the well-being of others makes sense. There is still a difference between suffering and happiness, and love consists in wanting those we love to be happy. All of that still makes sense without free will.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris at Sydney Opera House Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2012, Discussion on Free Will http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3raA1EwrI.
2010s

Love , Sense , Suffering , Happiness

“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

Sam Harris, "The View From The End Of The World" (9 December 2005)
2000s

World , Faith , Change

“Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.”

Sam Harris

2000s, The End of Faith (2004)

“On one level, wisdom is nothing more than the ability to take your own advice.”

Sam Harris

Quoted in Tim Ferris, "Tools of Titans" (2016), p. 454
2010s

Wisdom

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

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, "Death and the Present Moment", speech at the Global Atheist Convention (April 2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums&t=12m28s
2010s

Way

“A hatred of infidels is arguably the central message of the Koran.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, "Sleepwalking Toward Armageddon" (10 September 2014) http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/sleepwalking-toward-armageddon
2010s

“There are ideas within Buddhism that are so incredible as to render the dogma of the virgin birth plausible by comparison.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, "Killing the Buddha" http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=2903&Itemid=247 (March 2006)
2000s

Idea , Birth

“You are happily being misunderstood in your use of the word "God."”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris in debate against Deepak Chopra on ABC Nightline (23 March 2010) "Does God Have a Future?"
2010s

God

“Whatever its imagined virtues, faith is the enemy of open and honest inquiry. Remaining open to the powers of conversation - to new evidence and better arguments - is not only essential for rationality. It is essential for love.”

Sam Harris

2010s, Lying (2011)

Love , Faith , Imagination

“The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.”

Sam Harris

[Sam Harris, 2 January 2006, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/science-must-destroy-reli_b_13153.html, "Science Must Destroy Religion", The Huffington Post, 2006-10-16]
2000s

Religion , Passion , Science

“The Bible … does not contain a single sentence that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.”

Sam Harris

Sam Harris, Reply to a Christian http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=sharris_26_4 (May 2006)
2000s

“Unreason is now ascendant in the United States—in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. 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

[Sam Harris, 2 August 2005, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-politics-of-ignorance_b_5053.html, "The Politics of Ignorance", The Huffington Post, 2006-10-16]
2000s

World , School , Problem

“The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence.”

Sam Harris

[Sam Harris, 7 February 2006, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060207_reality_islam/, Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam, Truthdig.com, 2006-10-16]
2000s

Truth

“I do not choose to choose what I choose.”

Sam Harris

Source: 2010s, Free Will (2012), p. 39

“Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker.”

Sam Harris

2000s, The End of Faith (2004)

Death , Christ , Cheating

“Mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.”

Sam Harris

Source: 2010s, The Moral Landscape (2010), p. 3