Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the blind faith people can have in narratives and creations, suggesting it leads to division and absurdity.
Sam Harris challenges the reader to reflect on the absurdity of human belief systems and the consequences they can have on society. He uses the examples of films and software to illustrate how easily people can attribute divine or sacred significance to human creations, leading to conflict and division similar to that seen in religious ideologies. This quote serves as a warning about the dangers of our uncritical acceptance of ideas and the potential for those ideas to incite violence and strife among differing groups.
In practice
During a debate on the influence of technology on society, one might quote this to caution against blind faith in digital creations.
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.
To ask whether the mainstream media has a conservative or liberal bias is like asking whether al-Qaida uses too much oil in their hummus. It's - I think they might use too much oil in their hummus - but it's the wrong question.
But most it is presumption in us when the help of heaven we count the act of men.
Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time you're stepping into the labyrinth inside.
None are so poor that they have nothing to give...and none are so rich that they have nothing to receive.
If I say most people are pretty decent that may sound nice and warm but actually it's really radical and subversive and that's why, all throughout history, those who have advocated a more hopeful view of human nature - often the anarchists - have been persecuted.
I believe that the unity of mind and body is an objective reality. They are not just parts somehow related to each other, but an inseparable whole while functioning. A brain without a body could not think.
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