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How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

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
Moment
Lives
Experience
Moments
Character
Pay
Present
Quality
Attention

More quotes by Sam Harris

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The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.
Sam Harris
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It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.
Sam Harris
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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.
Sam Harris
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Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
Sam Harris
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Fundamentalism is only a problem if the fundamentals are a problem
Sam Harris
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Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.
Sam Harris
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It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed (Aquinas).
Sam Harris
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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?
Sam Harris
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The point is that most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday.
Sam Harris
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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
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Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.
Sam Harris
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The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.
Sam Harris
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The freedom to think out loud on certain topics, without fear of being hounded into hiding or killed, has already been lost.
Sam Harris
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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.
Sam Harris
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Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.
Sam Harris
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Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.
Sam Harris
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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.
Sam Harris
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Everyone who has eyes to see can see that if the God of Abraham exists, He is an utter psychopath--and the God of Nature too. If you can't see these things just by looking, you have simply closed your eyes to the realities of our world.
Sam Harris
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We have Christians against Muslims against Jews. They're making incompatible claims on real estate in the Middle East as though God were some kind of omniscient real estate broker parsing out parcels of land to his chosen flock. People are literally dying over ancient literature.
Sam Harris
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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