It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are scarcely more private than actions are, for every belief is a fount of action in potential. Sam Harris More Quotes by Sam Harris More Quotes From Sam Harris My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's not to say that all religious people are lunatics or idiots. It's anything but that. Sam Harris religious believe people Indeed, what is startling about the notion of a victimless crime is that even when the behavior in question is genuinely victimless, its criminality is still affirmed by those who are eager to punish it. It is in such cases that the true genius lurking behind many of our laws stands revealed. The idea of a victimless crime is nothing more than a judicial reprise of the Christian notion of sin. Sam Harris christian law ideas Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see tht there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality. Sam Harris morality physics christian The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost. Sam Harris topics hiding thinking We are free to burn the Qur’an or any other book, and to criticize Muhammad or any other human being. Let no one forget it. Sam Harris muhammad forget book 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 best-effort objectivity reality The truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. Sam Harris truth-is happens death We are now in the 21st century: all books, including the Koran, should be fair game for flushing down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal. Sam Harris toilets games book 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 welfare-programs giving country If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won't matter how successful you become or who is in your life - you won't enjoy any of it. Sam Harris confused successful matter 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 ignorance christian jesus Reason is nothing less than the guardian of love Sam Harris guardian reason We are all prisoners of our thoughts. Sam Harris our-thoughts prisoner A true spiritual practitioner is someone who has discovered that it is possible to be at ease in the world for no reason, if only for a few moments at a time, and that such ease is synonymous with transcending the apparent boundaries of the self. Sam Harris self spiritual ease 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 guarantees-that atheism atheist 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 civilization past religion I think when you say to someone You are fool not to believe in evolution or a fool to believe the universe is 6000 years old. I think that gets translated as You are a fool to think that your daughter who died in a car accident is really in heaven with god. Sam Harris daughter believe thinking The atheist, by merely being in touch with reality, appears shamefully out of touch with the fantasy life of his neighbors. Sam Harris fantasy atheist reality What are the chances that we will one day discover that DNA has absolutely nothing to do with inheritance? They are effectively zero. Sam Harris one-day dna zero What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about 'right' and 'wrong,' or 'good' and 'evil,' and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important? Sam Harris our-world evil worry
