Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain -- from cosmology to psychology to economics -- has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture. Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes religious texts for misrepresenting the universe and advocates for valuing scientific knowledge over religious beliefs.
In this quote, Sam Harris argues that the teachings of major religious texts fail to accurately reflect the true nature of the cosmos and our existence. He posits that every field of science has either replaced or eclipsed the insights offered by these religions, suggesting that the meaningful gains from religion can be achieved through a more honest, evidence-based approach to understanding the world. Also, he implies that clinging to unfounded beliefs can lead to self-deception rather than genuine understanding.
In practice
During a lecture on the conflict between science and religion, this quote can serve to highlight the importance of evidence-based understanding.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
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.
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.
I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!
Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.
It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.
I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
Just as 'Islam' literally means 'peace,' none of the 99 names of Allah mean violence. Similarly, every religion in the world stands for peace, compassion, and brotherhood.
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