If someone doesnโt value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesnโt value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?
Sam HarrisIt is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
Sam HarrisWhen the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.
Sam HarrisWater is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, โWell, thatโs not how I choose to think about water.โ? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesnโt share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesnโt value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesnโt value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?
Sam HarrisLife is a continuous flux. Our nonhuman ancestors bred, generation after generation, and incrementally begat what we now deem to be the species homo sapiens - ourselves. There is nothing about our ancestral line or about our current biology that dictates how we will evolve in the future. Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way. Very likely, they will not resemble us. We will almost certainly transform ourselves, likely beyond recognition, in the generations to come.
Sam HarrisAll I'm arguing for really is that we should have a conversation where the best ideas really thrive, where there's no taboo against criticizing bad ideas, and where everyone who shows up, in order to get their ideas entertained, has to meet some obvious burdens of intellectual rigor and self-criticism and honesty-and when people fail to do that, we are free to stop listening to them. What religion has had up until this moment is a different set of rules that apply only to it, which is you have to respect my religious certainty even though I'm telling you I arrived at it irrationally.
Sam Harris