Quotes from Sam Harris

Consider the case of alchemy: it fascinated human beings for over a thousand years, and yet anyone who seriously claims to be a practicing alchemist today will have disqualified himself for most positions of responsibility in our society. Faith-based religion must suffer the same slide into obsolescence.

When you are able to rest naturally, merely witnessing the totality of experience, and thoughts themselves are left to arise and vanish as they will, you can recognize that consciousness is intrinsically undivided.

The best way to undermine extremists' insistence that truth is on their side is to argue that theirs is merely one way of looking at things. The only truth is that there is no correct way to interpret scripture. When you open it up like that, you're effectively saying that there is no right answer. And in the absence of a right answer, pluralism is the only option. And pluralism will lead to secularism, and to democracy, and to human rights.

the U.S. House of Representatives voted effectively to ban embryonic stem-cell research on February 27, 2003.

I think it would be extremely helpful if people focused on the ideas being discussed here, rather than on calling you names—which is an easy way to ignore your ideas. Besides

All psychoactive drugs modulate the existing neurochemistry of the brain—either by mimicking specific neurotransmitters or by causing the neurotransmitters themselves to be more or less active. Everything that one can experience on a drug is, at some level, an expression of the brain's potential.

In 2005, a survey was conducted in thirty-four countries measuring the percentage of adults who accept evolution. The United States ranked thirty-third, just above Turkey. Meanwhile, high school students in the United States test below those of every European and Asian nation in their understanding of science and math. These data are unequivocal: we are building a civilization of ignorance.

A culture of resisting arrest would be a very bad thing to cultivate given that the only response to such resistance is for the police to increase their use of force.

came away convinced that lying, even about the smallest matters, needlessly

religious moderates are themselves the bearers of a terrible dogma: they imagine that the path to peace will be paved once each of us has learned to respect the unjustified beliefs of others.

We are the source of the love that our priests and pastors attribute to God ( how else can we feel it?). Your own consciousness is the cause and substance of any experience you might want to deem spiritual or mystical. Realizing this, what possible need is there to pretend to be certain about ancient miracles?

Let's say your life has gone off track. You used to be very motivated, inspired by your opportunities, and physically fit, but now you are lazy, easily discouraged, and overweight. How did you get this way? You might be able to tell a story about how your life unraveled, but you cannot truly account for why you let it happen.

I would argue that no approach to a text is without method—even what you would call literalism and what I call "vacuous literalism." (In

Where ethics are concerned, intentions are everything.

And they do not want anything too critical said about people who really believe in the God of their fathers, because tolerance, perhaps above all else, is sacred.

relationships

Merely being offended, or worried, isn't a counter-argument. It isn't a deep reason not to think about something or discover whether or not something is true or useful.

I don't think one has fully enjoyed the life of the mind until one has seen a celebrated scholar defend the "contextual" legitimacy of the burqa, or of female genital mutilation, a mere thirty seconds after announcing that moral relativism does nothing to diminish a person's commitment to making the world a better place.2

If a Muslim renounces Islam, even if a new convert reverts to his previous faith, the penalty is death.

Whatever the needs of the moment, I had a choice: I could do what was required calmly, patiently, and attentively, or do it in a state of panic. Every moment of the day—indeed, every moment throughout one's life—offers an opportunity to be relaxed and responsive or to suffer unnecessarily.

There is a price to be paid for changing my worldview, and that price is good evidence and good arguments. That's the coin of the realm. If you come to me with good evidence and good arguments, I am going to be swayed to the degree that you deliver the goods.

You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.15 You can do what you decide to do—but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

To say that someone freely chose to squander his life's savings at the poker tabile is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent

We have been slow to recognize the degree to which religious faith perpetuates man's inhumanity to man.