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Sam Harris Quotes about Ignorance

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Theology is ignorance with wings.

Theology is ignorance with wings.

Sam Harris
Atheist, Ignorance, Wings

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

Sam Harris
Religious, Atheist, Ignorance
Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

Rather than bring the full force of our creativity and rationality to bear on the problems of ethics, social cohesion, and even spiritual experience, moderates merely ask that we relax our standard of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos, while otherwise maintaining a belief system that was passed down to us from men and women whose lives were simply ravaged by their basic ignorance about the world.

Sam Harris
Spiritual, Creativity, Ignorance
Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

Unreason is now ascendant in the United States - in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

Sam Harris
Believe, School, Ignorance
"The Politics of Ignorance". www.huffingtonpost.com. August 02, 2005.

Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction.

Sam Harris
Religious, Ignorance, Possibility
Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.223, W. W. Norton & Company

Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. The roiling mystery of the world can be analyzed with concepts (this is science), or it can be experienced free of concepts (this is myticism). Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is the denial-at once full of hope and full of fear-of the vastitude of human ignorance.

Sam Harris
Believe, Ignorance, World

For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on early spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools.

Sam Harris
Powerful, School, Ignorance

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.

Sam Harris
Ignorance, Ugly, Produce
Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.123, Simon and Schuster

Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance.

Sam Harris
Ignorance, Branches, Littles
Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.173, W. W. Norton & Company

Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world.

Sam Harris
Ignorance, Degrees, World
Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.230, W. W. Norton & Company

To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world - to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish - is antithetical to tolerance as moderates currently conceive it. But we can no longer afford the luxury of such political correctness. We must finally recognize the price we are paying to maintain the iconography of our ignorance.

Sam Harris
Ignorance, Our World, Luxury
"The End of Faith". Book by Sam Harris (pages 22-23), 2004.

Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the needy. . . . While missionaries do many noble things at great risk to themselves, their dogmatism still spreads ignorance and death. By contrast, volunteers for secular organizations . . . do not waste . . . time telling people about the virgin birth of Jesus. Nor do they tell people in sub-Saharan Africa - where nearly four million people die from AIDS every year - that condom use is sinful.

Sam Harris
Christian, Jesus, Ignorance

Each increment of knowledge imparted in this way is so satisfying-and one's ignorance at every stage so consequential-that the process of learning BJJ can become remarkably addictive. I have never experienced anything quite like it.

Sam Harris
Ignorance, Mma, Way

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