Quote

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.

Sam Harris

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sam Harris
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: April 9
Author
Blogger
Neuroscientist
Philosopher
Podcaster
Writer
LA
California
Samuel Benjamin Harris
Samuel Harris
Everything
Consciously
Caused
Agents
Entirely
Conscious
Events
Brain
Unaware
Free
Intend

More quotes by Sam Harris

Image
Unfortunately, failure enjoys a natural advantage. Wrong answers to any problem outnumber right ones by a wide margin, and it seems that it will always be easier to break things than to fix them.
Sam Harris
Image
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
Sam Harris
Image
We rely on faith only in the context of claims for which there is no sufficient sensory or logical evidence.
Sam Harris
Image
Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Faith enables many of us to endure life's difficulties with an equanimity that would be scarcely conceivable in a world lit only by reason.
Sam Harris
Image
People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power. The only thing we should respect in a person’s faith is his desire for a better life in this world we need never have respected his certainty that one awaits him in the next.
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.
Sam Harris
Image
When someone like myself points out the rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust, because he visits suffering on innocent people of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, we're told that? God is mysterious.
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
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.
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation he is unworthy even of man.
Sam Harris
Image
If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?
Sam Harris
Image
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
Image
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.
Sam Harris