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From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings.

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
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More quotes by Sam Harris

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I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.
Sam Harris
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Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
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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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
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Values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.
Sam Harris
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Hope is easy knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.
Sam Harris
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We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.
Sam Harris
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Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you, dumbstruck by the Muslim hordes who chant death to whole nations of the living. But we stand dumbstruck by you as well--by your denial of tangible reality, by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God.
Sam Harris
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What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.
Sam Harris
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You don't get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don't know.
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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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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One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced.
Sam Harris
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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.
Sam Harris
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
Sam Harris
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George Bush says he speaks to god every day, & Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd.
Sam Harris