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.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the dangers of religious beliefs that may conflict with civil society, suggesting that such beliefs can lead to violence and division.
Sam Harris expresses deep concern over the societal taboos surrounding criticism of religious faiths. He argues that these taboos not only prevent open discourse but also pose a significant risk to civilization, as diverging religious doctrines can create conflict and lead to violence. Harris emphasizes that such divisions can endanger lives, making it crucial to address the incompatibilities that exist within these religious ideologies.
In practice
During a debate on religious tolerance, this quote can highlight the need for critical discussions.
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 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.
Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.
Heaven is author of the virtue that is in me
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
There is no use in deceiving ourselves. American public opinion rejects the market economy, the capitalistic free enterprise system that provided the nation with the highest standard of living ever attained. Full government control of all activities of the individual is virtually the goal of both national parties.
How do we transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into love?
All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.
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