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We must continually remind ourselves that there is a difference between what is natural and what is actually good for us.

Sam Harris

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Sam Harris
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: April 9
Author
Blogger
Neuroscientist
Philosopher
Podcaster
Writer
LA
California
Samuel Benjamin Harris
Samuel Harris
Actually
Natural
Must
Good
Continually
Remind
Difference
Differences

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Science, in the broadest sense, includes all reasonable claims to knowledge about ourselves and the world.
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To not believe in God is to know that it falls to us to make the world a better place.
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You don't get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don't know.
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We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).
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The perpetrators of the Inquisition - the torturers, informers, and those who commanded their actions - were ecclesiastics of one rank or another. They were men of God - popes, bishops, friars, and priests.
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All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.
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Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings.
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We are faced with the task of convincing a myth infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient and you don't have to delude yourself and frighten yourself with Iron Age fairy tales. This is a monumental task. I don't think there is an intellectual struggle more worthy of our efforts.
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A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
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The fact that one can lose one's sense of self in an ocean of tranquility does not mean that one's consciousness is immaterial or that it presided over the birth of the universe.
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There's no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity. This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does.
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It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
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It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.
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I think it [getting a gun] should be like getting a pilot's license. I think you should require training to get a license to have a gun.
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How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.
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It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
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In my own case, the most inflammatory statements I have ever made are ones that I have written and remain willing to defend.
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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.
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Recently , crowds of thousands gathered throughout the Muslim world - burning European embassies, issuing threats, taking hostages, even killing people - in protest over twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper. When was the last atheist riot?
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Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don't have American science versus Canadian science versus Japanese science.
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