When considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't. Religion is one area of our lives where people imagine that some other standard of intellectual integrity applies.
Interpretation
The truth should be assessed with integrity, especially in matters like religion where biases often arise.
In this quote, Sam Harris emphasizes the importance of honesty and intellectual integrity when evaluating propositions, particularly in the context of religion. He highlights how people often apply different standards of scrutiny to religious beliefs compared to other areas of life, suggesting that a consistent approach to truth and evidence is crucial for genuine understanding.
In practice
During a discussion on faith and reason in a philosophy class.
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.
The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
[Women] tend to collect more pieces of data when they think, put them into more complex patterns, see more options and outcomes. They tend to be contextual, holistic thinkers.
One must live to build one's house, and not build one's house to live in.
In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.
That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.
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