Sam Harris Quotes

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

I never found much comfort in overly organized religion of any sort.

I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.

Religion is the root of so much misery in the world, and I've always thought there is lack of criticism against it.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand.

God save us from religion.

Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.

As a scientist I cannot help feeling that all religions are on a tottering foundation. None is perfect or inspired. As for their prophets, there are as many today as ever before, only now science refuses to let them overstep the bounds of common sense.

The moment religion organizes into a specific creed it becomes a political force. From Moses down to Brigham Young, every creed-founder has been a Statebuilder.

Religion has caused more misery to all men in every stage of human history than any other single idea.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion--several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven....

At no point do I ever remember taking religion very seriously or even feeling that the biblical stories were any different from fairy stories. Certainly, none of it made any sense. By comparison, the world in which I lived, though I might not always understand it in all aspects, always made a lot of sense.

I dislike religion quite intensely. It's been the cause of all the grief in the world ever since they discovered the first stone to worship.

Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language.

I was raised Catholic, and I have an aversion to anyone who takes religion to the extreme.

I hold that religion and faith are two different things.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

But you, who presume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best men, on whom you have pinned your credulity, you, who know that they are the best among all who have taught, do now teach, or shall in future teach other religions. Have you examined all religions, ancient as well as modern, taught here and in India and everywhere throughout the world? And, if you have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best since you can give no reason for the faith that is in you? But you will say, that you acquiesce in the inward testimony of the Spirit of God, while the rest of mankind are ensnared and deceived by the prince of evil spirits. But all those outside the pale of the Romish Church can with equal right proclaim of their own creed what you proclaim of yours.

For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith.

I just have a sense that, you know, I'm curious about what is religion about, you know? Why do some of us still engage it? It's not because it's a set of old beliefs or old ideas. Or even, particularly, the view that this is the only true religion. Many of us no longer accept those views.

I love religion and have contemplated going back to school to get a world religion degree.

In the forefront of science, there is not much difference between religion and science. People harbor beliefs. That's what happens when people believe something religiously.