Sam Harris Quotes

I don't take any responsibility for the lunatic fringes of my own religion.

To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world - to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish - is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.

Among the more irritating consequences of our flagrantly religious society is the special dispensation that mainstream religions receive. We all may talk about religion as a powerful social force, but unlike other similarly powerful institutions, religion is not to be questioned, criticized or mocked.

An interesting thing about the religious people who run Iran is that one of their problems with Ahmadinejad, who they thought would be one of their guys because he's so religious, is that he actually has some really nutty ideas about religion. He's too religious. He's too literal. I mean, there are plenty of people in Iran who like Ahmadinejad's religious beliefs, just as there are plenty of Christian fundamentalists in America who like George W. Bush's beliefs. But there are also plenty of people who are very uncomfortable with his overt religiosity.

In religious matters it is now fashionable to define tolerance as the absence of criticism of any standard religion. All too often, this absence of criticism degenerates into a conspicuous absence of thought.

A lot of Christian extremism has done a great deal to discredit religion; the main religious traditions have abandoned their own intellectual cultures so drastically that no one has any sense of it other than the fringe.

I regard Christian and Jewish fundamentalism, and all other forms of fundamentalism, as the enemies of God - and I hope you'll quote me on that.

Islamic fundamentalism in its activist manifestation is bad news. Religious fundamentalism in general is bad news. We know about religious fundamentalism in South Africa. Calvinist fundamentalism has been an unmitigated force of benightedness in our history.

No ideology should ever get a pass simply because it is cloaked in a religious robe.

What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

Religious fundamentalists are unaware that freedom of religion necessarily brings with it the freedom to mock religion.

As long as we accept the principle that religious faith must be respected simply because it is religious faith, it is hard to withhold respect from the faith of Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers

there is no fanatic like a religious fanatic.

The worst thing about religion was religious people.

People who follow their religion to the letter of the law are just silly. I mean, I want to tell Hasidic Jews I promise you, God will not mind if you wear a nice cotton blend in the summer.

What excellent fools religion makes of men.

No one can know how long this dumbing-down of American religion will persist. But so long as it does, citizens should probably be more vigilant about policing the public square, not less so. . . . [Y]ou cannot sustain liberal democracy without cultivating liberal habits of mind among religious believers. That remains true today, both in Baghdad and in Baton Rouge.

The most important thing is to know how to awaken in the still undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious questions and an intelligent criticism of religions.

All forms of dogmatic religion should go. The world did without them in the past and can do so again.

There is no doubt that religious fanatics have done more to prejudice the cause they affect to advocate than have its opponents.

There is a split between Muslims who want to practice their faith in peace and tolerance with other religions and other people, and these extreme, radical fundamentalists who have shown a total lack of tolerance for people with different views, starting with people who they don't think are good Muslims, and going on to include Christians and Jews.

There is, in fact, nothing about religious opinions that entitles them to any more respect than other opinions get. On the contrary, they tend to be noticeably silly.

In the eyes of the Associated Press, American Christianity, which springs from the Protestant Reformation, is fundamentalist. And Christian Fundamentalists, radical Muslims, Hindu extremists, and fanatical Zionists are all the same - bloodthirsty lunatics.

Faith in public life does not mean that God tells you to bomb another country or to go get Saddam Hussein. Faith in public life means that every child, regardless of their religious belief, should have health care and be able to go to school. Because my faith saying I can bomb Iraq is the same as your faith saying you can take over a passenger plane and fly it into the World Trade Center.

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.