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.
Sam HarrisRead
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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the ways humans engage with the world to shape their emotional experiences.
In this quote, Sam Harris explores the motivations behind human actions, suggesting that everything we do is aimed at influencing our states of consciousness. From forming friendships to find connection and avoid loneliness, to choosing our food and reading for the joy of thought exchange, Harris highlights the profound relationship between our actions and the pursuit of specific emotional experiences.
In practice
In a discussion about mental well-being, one might say, 'Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness.'
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.
It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly marriage of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for.
Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.
PROCTOR--he knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what i sign to is not the same!
The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.
'Tis better to suffer wrong than do it.
I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.
Nurturing and cherishing creation is a command God gives not only at the beginning of history, but to each of us. It is part of his plan; it means causing the world to grow responsibly, transforming it so that it may be a garden, a habitable place for everyone.
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