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Sam Harris
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Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The Moral Landscape. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction.

Mr. Harris' writing has been published in over fifteen languages. He and his work have been discussed in Newsweek, TIME, The New York Times, Scientific American, Rolling Stone, and many other journals.

Mr. Harris has made frequent appearances on television and radio to talk about the conflict between religion and science and about the danger that religious dogmatism now poses to modern societies. His writing has appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times ,The Los Angeles Times, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Nature, Foreign Policy, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere.

Mr. Harris is a graduate in philosophy from Stanford University and has studied both Eastern and Western religious traditions, along with a variety of contemplative disciplines. He received his Ph.D in neuroscience from UCLA. He is also a Co-Founder and Chairman of Project Reason (www.project-reason.org).

Website: http://www.samharris.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sam-Harris/22457171014

Blog Entries by Sam Harris

Drugs and the Meaning of Life

Posted July 6, 2011 | 7/6/11

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(Photo by JB Banks)

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...

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On Spiritual Truths

Posted June 16, 2011 | 6/16/11

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(Photo by Matthew C. Wright)

One day, you will find yourself outside this world which is like a mother's womb. You will leave this earth to enter, while you are yet in the body, a...

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You Do Not Choose What You Choose

Posted June 9, 2011 | 6/9/11

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(Photo by H.koppdelaney)

Many readers continue to find my position on free will bewildering. Most of the criticism I've received consists of some combination of the following claims:

  1. Your account assumes that mental events are, at bottom, physical events....
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Free Will (And Why You Still Don't Have It)

Posted June 1, 2011 | 6/1/11

2011-06-01-balloonlake.jpg

(Photo by H.koppdelaney)

My last post on free will elicited a very heated response. Many readers sent emails questioning my sanity, and several asked to be permanently removed from my mailing list. Many others wrote to share the...

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Morality Without "Free Will"

Posted May 30, 2011 | 5/30/11

Many people seem to believe that morality depends for its existence on a metaphysical quantity called "free will." This conviction is occasionally expressed -- often with great impatience, smugness, or piety -- with the words, "ought, implies, can." Like much else in philosophy that is too easily remembered (e.g. "you...

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The Perils of the Print Interview

Posted May 24, 2011 | 5/24/11

Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects. Janet Malcolm examines these fraught encounters in a fascinating book, The Journalist and the Murderer, which focuses on the relationship between Joe McGinniss, the best-selling author of Fatal Vision,...

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How to Meditate

Posted May 12, 2011 | 5/12/11

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(The one who does not judge, by h.koppdelaney)

There are many forms of introspection and mental training that go by the name of "meditation," and I have studied several over the years. As I occasionally speak about the benefits...

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Why I'd Rather Not Speak About Torture

Posted April 29, 2011 | 4/29/11

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Photo by DOH4

I have long maintained a page on my website where I address various distortions, misunderstandings, and criticisms of my work. I take it to be either a sign...

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My Response to Rep. Keith Ellison

Posted March 15, 2011 | 3/15/11


In the aftermath of the House hearing on American Muslims, Representative Keith Ellison appeared on HBO's Real Time to further testify to the benign nature of Islam. Attempting to bring some glint of...

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A Response to Critics

Posted January 29, 2011 | 1/29/11

Among the many quandaries a writer must face after publishing a controversial book is the question of how, or whether, to respond to criticism. At a minimum, it would seem wise to correct misunderstandings and distortions of one's views wherever they appear, but one soon discovers that there is no...

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A New Year's Resolution for the Rich

Posted December 29, 2010 | 12/29/10

While the United States has suffered the worst recession in living memory, I find that I have very few financial concerns. Many of my friends are in the same position: Most of us attended private schools and good universities, and we will be able to provide these same opportunities to...

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Can There Be a Science of Good and Evil?

Posted October 3, 2010 | 10/3/10

Since the publication of my first book, The End of Faith, I have had a privileged view of the "culture wars" -- both in the United States, between secular liberals and Christian conservatives, and in Europe, between largely irreligious societies and their growing Muslim populations. Having received tens of thousands...

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The Moral Landscape: Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms

Posted August 25, 2010 | 8/25/10

The following is a series of 12 questions relating to my forthcoming book, The Moral Landscape, and my answers to them.

1. Are there right and wrong answers to moral questions?

Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and...

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Bringing the Vatican to Justice

Posted May 10, 2010 | 5/10/10

I confess that, as a critic of religion, I have paid too little attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Frankly, it always felt unsportsmanlike to shoot so large and languorous a fish in so tiny a barrel. This scandal was one of the most spectacular "own...

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Toward a Science of Morality

Posted May 7, 2010 | 5/7/10

Over the past couple of months, I seem to have conducted a public experiment in the manufacture of philosophical and scientific ideas. In February, I spoke at the 2010 TED conference, where I briefly argued that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science. Normally, when one...

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Moral Confusion in the Name of "Science"

Posted March 29, 2010 | 3/29/10

Last month, I had the privilege of speaking at the 2010 TED conference for exactly 18 minutes. The short format of these talks is a brilliant innovation and surely the reason for their potent half-life on the Internet. However, 18 minutes is not a lot of time...

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Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Posted May 5, 2008 | 5/5/08

Geert Wilders, conservative Dutch politician and provocateur, has become the latest projectile in the world's most important culture war: the zero-sum conflict between civil society and traditional Islam. Wilders, who lives under perpetual armed guard due to death threats, recently released a 15 minute film entitled Fitna ("strife" in Arabic)...

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What Barack Obama Could Not (and Should Not) Say

505 Comments | Posted March 21, 2008 | 3/21/08

Barack Obama delivered a truly brilliant and inspiring speech this week. There were a few things, however, that he did not and could not (and, indeed, should not) say:

He did not say that the mess he is in has as much to do with religion as with...

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In Defense of Witchcraft

Posted June 26, 2007 | 6/26/07

Imagine that the year is 1507, and life is difficult. Crops fail, good people suffer instantaneous and horrifying turns of bad luck, and even the children of royalty regularly die before they have taken their first steps. As it turns out, everyone understands the cause of these calamities: it is...

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Jewcy's Big Question: Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Posted November 29, 2006 | 11/29/06

Earlier this year, Newsweek religion columnist Marc Gellman confessed that atheists had lately befuddled him: "What I simply do not understand is why they are often so angry," Gellman lamented. "I just don't get it."

Why are atheists so angry? Sam Harris and Dennis Prager inaugurate Jewcy's "Big Question"...

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