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For other people with the same name, see Sam Harris (disambiguation).

Sam Harris
Harris in March 2016
Harris in March 2016
BornSamuel Benjamin Harris
(1967-04-09) April 9, 1967 (age 57)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
OccupationAuthor, cognitive neuroscientist, non-profit executive, philosopher
CitizenshipUnited States
EducationPhilosophy (B.A. 2000), Neuroscience (Ph.D. 2009)
Alma materStanford University
University of California, Los Angeles
GenreNon-fiction
SubjectNeuroscience, philosophy,[1] religion, ethics, spirituality
Notable works
Notable awardsPEN/Martha Albrand Award
Spouse
Annaka Harris
​
(m. 2004)​
Children2
Website
SamHarris.org

Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, podcast host, and neuroscientist.[2][3] His first book, The End of Faith (2004), is a critique of organized religion. In The Moral Landscape (2010), Harris argues that science can help answer moral problems and aid human well-being.[4] He published a long-form essay Lying in 2011, the short book Free Will in 2012, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion in 2014 and, with British activist Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue in 2015.

Harris is a critic of religion and proponent of the liberty to criticize it.[4] Harris is also a proponent of secular meditation practices adopted from Buddhism (especially Vipassana), having devoted two years of his life to silent practice in India.[5]. He has also praised Advaita Vedanta and Dzogchen, as "they contain empirical insights about the nature of consciousness that do not depend upon faith."[6] He is the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit organization that promotes science and secularism, and host of the Waking Up podcast.[7] He is considered a member of the "Four Horsemen of New Atheism", alongside Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

Harris has written articles for The Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, and the scientific journal Nature. His articles discuss topics including religion, morality, neuroscience, free will, terrorism, and self-defense.[8] He regularly gives talks around the United States and the United Kingdom, including two speeches at TED, where he has outlined arguments made in his book The Moral Landscape[9] and, more recently, his thoughts concerning the potential dangers of superintelligent AI.[10] Harris has made numerous television appearances, and has appeared in the documentary films The God Who Wasn't There (2005) and The Unbelievers (2013).

Early life and education

Harris was born on April 9, 1967 in Los Angeles,[11] the son of actor Berkeley Harris and TV producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created The Golden Girls.[12] His father came from a Quaker background and his mother is a secular Jew.[13] He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two.[14] Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular, and his parents rarely discussed religion, though it was always a subject that interested him.[15] Fellow critic of religion Christopher Hitchens once referred to Harris as a "Jewish warrior against theocracy and bigotry of all stripes".[16][17][18]

In 1986, while a student at Stanford University, Harris experimented with MDMA, and has written and spoken about the powerful insights he experienced under the drug's influence.[19][20]

Harris became interested in spiritual and philosophical questions when he studied at Stanford University. He was fascinated by the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs.[21] Leaving Stanford in his second year, he went to India, where he studied meditation with Buddhist and Hindu religious teachers,[21][22] including Dilgo Khyentse.[23] Eleven years later, in 1997, he returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000.[18][24][25] Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks.[18]

He received a Ph.D. degree in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles,[18][26][27] using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.[18][27] His thesis was titled "The moral landscape: How science could determine human values", and his advisor was Mark S. Cohen.[28]

Views

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Criticism of Abrahamic religions

Harris states that religion contains bad ideas, calling it "one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised".[29] He compares modern religious beliefs to the myths of the Ancient Greeks, which were once accepted as fact but which are obsolete today. In a January 2007 interview with PBS, Harris said, "We don't have a word for not believing in Zeus, which is to say we are all atheists in respect to Zeus. And we don't have a word for not being an astrologer." He goes on to say that the term atheist will be retired only when "we all just achieve a level of intellectual honesty where we are no longer going to pretend to be certain about things we are not certain about".[30]

Harris states that he advocates a benign, noncoercive, corrective form of intolerance, distinguishing it from historic religious persecution. He promotes a conversational intolerance, in which personal convictions are scaled against evidence, and where intellectual honesty is demanded equally in religious views and non-religious views.[31] He also believes there is a need to counter inhibitions that prevent the open critique of religious ideas, beliefs, and practices under the auspices of "tolerance".[32] He has stated on his blog that he has received death threats for some of his views on religion.[33]

In response to some of the most frequent criticisms of his work—many of which he says misunderstand or distort his true positions—Harris maintains a long and frequently updated post on his personal website where he addresses each claim.[34]

In positive book reviews of The End of Faith, Nina Burleigh agrees with Harris' premise that religious "faith" is leading humanity into ruin, and the world would be better off without the three major religions,[35] and Richard Dawkins cheers the fact that while the book won't "change the minds of religious idiots", it will encourage other intelligent people to come out and raise their voices.[36]

Islam

Harris speaking in 2010 at TED

Harris considers Islam to be "especially belligerent and inimical to the norms of civil discourse," relative to other world religions. He asserts that the "dogmatic commitment to using violence to defend one’s faith, both from within and without" to varying degrees, is a central Islamic doctrine that is found in few other religions to the same degree, and that "this difference has consequences in the real world."[37]

In 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Harris wrote, "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a dangerous fantasy—and it is now a particularly dangerous fantasy for Muslims to indulge. It is not at all clear how we should proceed in our dialogue with the Muslim world, but deluding ourselves with euphemisms is not the answer. It now appears to be a truism in foreign policy circles that real reform in the Muslim world cannot be imposed from the outside. But it is important to recognize why this is so—it is so because the Muslim world is utterly deranged by its religious tribalism. In confronting the religious literalism and ignorance of the Muslim world, we must appreciate how terrifyingly isolated Muslims have become in intellectual terms."[38][39][40][41] He states that his criticism of the religion is aimed not at Muslims as people, but at the doctrine of Islam.

Harris wrote a response to controversy over his criticism of Islam, which also aired on a debate hosted by The Huffington Post on whether critics of Islam are unfairly labeled as bigots:

Is it really true that the sins for which I hold Islam accountable are “committed at least to an equal extent by many other groups, especially [my] own”? ... The freedom to poke fun at Mormonism is guaranteed [not by the First Amendment but] by the fact that Mormons do not dispatch assassins to silence their critics or summon murderous hordes in response to satire. ... Can any reader of this page imagine the staging of a similar play [to The Book of Mormon] about Islam in the United States, or anywhere else, in the year 2013? ... At this moment in history, there is only one religion that systematically stifles free expression with credible threats of violence. The truth is, we have already lost our First Amendment rights with respect to Islam—and because they brand any observation of this fact a symptom of Islamophobia, Muslim apologists like Greenwald are largely to blame.[42][43]

Harris has criticized common usage of the term "Islamophobia". "My criticism of Islam is a criticism of beliefs and their consequences," he wrote following a controversial clash with Ben Affleck in October 2014 on the show Real Time with Bill Maher, "but my fellow liberals reflexively view it as an expression of intolerance toward people." During an email exchange with Glenn Greenwald, a critic of the New Atheists, Harris argued that "Islamophobia is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia. And it is doing its job, because people like you have been taken in by it."[38][44]

Christianity

Edited excerpts of Harris' remarks during a debate with William Lane Craig at the University of Notre Dame in 2011
See also: Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of the Bible, and Criticism of Jesus

Harris criticizes Christianity, with some Christian groups receiving more criticism than others. He has described Mormonism as less credible than most Christianity, because, in his words, "Mormons are committed to believing nearly all the implausible things that Christians believe plus many additional implausible things", such as Jesus returning to earth in Jackson County, Missouri. Harris has referred to Catholicism as "ghoulish machinery set to whirling through the ages by the opposing winds of shame and sadism", and asserts that the Catholic Church has spent "two millennia demonizing human sexuality to a degree unmatched by any other institution, declaring the most basic, healthy, mature, and consensual behaviors taboo." Harris has also criticized the Catholic Church's structure and forced celibacy within its ranks for attracting pedophiles, and blames its opposition to the use of contraception for poverty, shorter lifespans, and the proliferation of HIV/AIDS.[45]

Judaism

See also: Criticism of Judaism, Criticism of the Talmud, and Criticism of Moses

In The End of Faith, Harris is critical of the Jewish faith and its followers:

The gravity of Jewish suffering over the ages, culminating in the Holocaust, makes it almost impossible to entertain any suggestion that Jews might have brought their troubles upon themselves. This is, however, in a rather narrow sense, the truth. […] the ideology of Judaism remains a lightning rod for intolerance to this day. […] Jews, insofar as they are religious, believe that they are bearers of a unique covenant with God. As a consequence, they have spent the last two thousand years collaborating with those who see them as different by seeing themselves as irretrievably so. Judaism is as intrinsically divisive, as ridiculous in its literalism, and as at odds with the civilizing insights of modernity as any other religion. Jewish settlers, by exercising their "freedom of belief" on contested land, are now one of the principal obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

Harris has said he holds somewhat paradoxical views about Israel and Judaism, and is still genuinely undecided on some things. "I don't think Israel should exist as a Jewish state. I think it is obscene, irrational and unjustifiable to have a state organized around a religion. So I don't celebrate the idea that there's a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. I certainly don't support any Jewish claims to real estate based on the Bible. Though I just said that I don't think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, the justification for such a state is rather easy to find. We need look no further than the fact that the rest of the world has shown itself eager to murder the Jews at almost every opportunity. So, if there were going to be a state organized around protecting members of a single religion, it certainly should be a Jewish state. Now, friends of Israel might consider this a rather tepid defense, but it's the strongest one I've got. I think the idea of a religious state is ultimately untenable."[46]

On atheism

Harris has been referred to, along with Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens, as one of the "new atheists", but he considers the term "atheist" to be problematic. He has stated, "while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one [...] I think that 'atheist' is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don't need a word for someone who rejects astrology."[47]

On spirituality

Despite his anti-religion sentiments, Sam Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have."[21]

Science and morality

In his third book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Harris says that "Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors—ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics." Harris says that it is time to promote a scientific approach to normative morality, rejecting the idea that religion determines what is good. He believes that once scientists begin proposing moral norms in papers, supernatural moral systems will join "astrology, witchcraft and Greek mythology on the scrapheap".[48]

A number of scholars and scientists have criticized Harris' arguments in the media.[49][50][51][52][53][54] Harris responded to some of the criticisms in an article for The Huffington Post.[55] In a review of Harris' book, anthropologist Scott Atran stated that "Contrary to Harris’s latest screed, there is no such thing as a science-based universal morality. And abolishing religion will do nothing to rid mankind of its ills.[56]"

Free will

Harris says the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent.[57][58] According to Harris, science "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet."[59] People's thoughts and intentions, Harris says, "emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control." Every choice we make is made as a result of preceding causes. These choices we make are determined by those causes, and are therefore not really choices at all. Harris also draws a distinction between conscious and unconscious reactions to the world. Even without free will, consciousness has an important role to play in the choices we make. Harris argues that this realization about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Social and economic politics

Harris describes himself as a liberal, and states that he supports raising taxes on the very wealthy, the decriminalizing of drugs and same-sex marriage. He was critical of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, fiscal policy, and treatment of science.[60]

During the 2016 United States presidential election, Harris came out strongly in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy.[61]

Organizational affiliations

In 2007 Harris and his wife, Annaka Harris, founded Project Reason, a charitable foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society.[62]

Harris is a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America,[63] a national lobbying organization representing the interests of nontheistic Americans.

Neuroscience

Building on his interests in belief and religion, Harris completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at UCLA.[22][27] He used fMRI to explore whether the brain responses differ between sentences that subjects judged as true, false, or undecidable, across a wide range of categories including autobiographical, mathematical, geographical, religious, ethical, semantic, and factual statements.[64]

In another study, Harris and colleagues examined the neural basis of religious and non-religious belief using fMRI.[65] Fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers were scanned as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions. For both groups, statements of belief (sentences judged as either true or false) were associated with increased activation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in emotional judgment, processing uncertainty, assessing rewards and thinking about oneself.[27] A "comparison of all religious trials to all nonreligious trials produced a wide range of signal differences throughout the brain," and the processing of religious belief and empirical belief differed in significant ways. The regions associated with increased activation in response to religious stimuli included the anterior insula, the ventral striatum, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the posterior medial cortex.[65]

Writings and media appearances

Harris's writing focuses on neuroscience and criticism of religion, for which he is best known. He blogs for the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, and formerly for Truthdig, and his articles have appeared in publications such as Newsweek, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the British national newspaper The Times.[66]

Harris has made numerous TV and radio appearances, including on The O'Reilly Factor, ABC News, Tucker, Book TV, NPR, Real Time, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show. In 2005, Harris appeared in the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There. Harris was a featured speaker at the 2006 conference Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival. He made two presentations and participated in the ensuing panel discussions. Harris has also appeared a number of times on the Point of Inquiry radio podcast. Harris engaged in a lengthy debate with Andrew Sullivan on the internet forum Beliefnet.[67] In April 2007, Harris debated with the evangelical pastor Rick Warren for Newsweek magazine.[68] In April 2011, he debated William Lane Craig on the nature of morality.[69][70]

Meditation

Harris' practice developed from Vipassana and Dzogchen. He states the key meditation aim is to see that self is an illusion.[71][72]

Personal life

Harris was a serious student of the martial arts and taught martial arts in college. After more than twenty years, he began practicing two forms of martial arts again,[73] including Brazilian jiu-jitsu.[74] Harris was at one point a vegetarian, but gave it up after six years, citing health concerns.[75] In 2015, he returned to vegetarianism for ethical reasons, with the intention of eventually going vegan.[76] After discussing Peter Singer's drowning child thought experiment and the philosophy of effective altruism with William MacAskill on his podcast, Harris pledged to donate several thousand dollars of the revenue generated by each new podcast episode to effective charitable organizations.[77]

Harris has been reluctant to discuss personal details such as where he now lives, citing security reasons.[78] In 2004, Harris married Annaka Harris, an editor of nonfiction and scientific books.[79] They have two daughters.[80][81]

The Waking Up podcast

In September 2013, Harris began the Waking Up podcast, in which he discusses his views, responds to critics, and interviews guests. The podcasts vary greatly in length of time, anywhere from 8 minutes to over 3 hours. The podcast has no regular release schedule, although the frequency of releases has increased over time.[82] In 2017, the UK Business Insider included it in their list of "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior" and PC Magazine included it in their list of "Podcasts You Should Download Now".[83][84] The Waking Up podcast won that year's Webby Award for "People's Voice" in the category "Science & Education" under "Podcasts & Digital Audio".[85]

Books

  • The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (2004). ISBN 0-393-03515-8
  • Letter to a Christian Nation (2006). ISBN 0-307-26577-3
  • The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (2010). ISBN 978-1-4391-7121-9
  • Lying (2011) ISBN 978-1940051000
  • Free Will (2012). ISBN 978-1451683400
  • Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014) ISBN 978-1451636017
  • Islam and the Future of Tolerance (2015) ISBN 978-0674088702

References

  1. ^ Paul Pardi (May 15, 2012). "An Analysis of Sam Harris' Free Will". Philosophy News. Retrieved April 17, 2016.
  2. ^ Bullivant, edited by Stephen; Ruse, Michael (2013). The Oxford handbook of atheism (First edition. ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. pp. 246, 255. ISBN 978-0199644650. the American philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris", "Dawkins is a biologist, Dennett a philosopher, Harris a philosopher and neuroscientist, Hitchens a journalist and a cultural critic." {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ The David Gregory Show (May 12, 2016). "Sam Harris". Soundcloud (Podcast). Event occurs at 02:44. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
  4. ^ a b Don, Katherine (October 17, 2010). "'The Moral Landscape': Why science should shape morality." Salon.
  5. ^ https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate. Retrieved June 19, 2017. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ^ Harris, Sam (2015). Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 23, 132.
  7. ^ "Sam Harris Podcast". January 28, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2017.
  8. ^ Harris, Sam (November 5, 2011). "The Truth about Violence: 3 Principles of Self-Defense". Sam Harris.
  9. ^ Harris, Sam (2010). "Science can answer moral questions." TED. February 2010.
  10. ^ Harris, Sam (2016). "Can we build AI without losing control over it?" TED. June 2016.
  11. ^ Current Biography, January 2012, Vol. 73 Issue 1, p37
  12. ^ Anderson, Jon (October 20, 1985). "'Girls' Series is solid gold for Harris". Chicago Tribune TV Week. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  13. ^ Samuels, David. May 29, 2012. Q&A: Sam Harris. Tablet. Retrieved: 6 October 2014. "I was never a religious Jew. My mother is Jewish, so for some people I count as a Jew. But for me, being Jewish amounts to little more than just getting all the jokes in a Woody Allen movie. So, for the people for whom my Judaism is relevant, those people tend to be either overtly anti-Semitic or concerned about crazy conspiracies. The YouTube comments that reference my Judaism are completely crazy. For the most part, for anyone who is seriously engaging with my ideas, the fact that I was born to a Jewish woman who herself was not religious nor were her parents religious is completely irrelevant."
  14. ^ "I'm Not the Sexist Pig You're Looking For". www.samharris.org. Retrieved April 23, 2016.
  15. ^ Sam Harris - Extended Interview; PBS: Religion & Ethics Newsweekly; January 5, 2007; "I have an unremarkable history. I don’t have a religious upbringing that I’m rebelling against. I had a totally secular upbringing and was just encouraged to explore things as I saw fit. I was never raised an atheist as opposed to religious. It just was not an issue. In my teens I just got interested in spiritual experience and what happens after death and just began to see that religion is really the discourse that treats these phenomena and started exploring meditation and other specifically Eastern brands of religious thinking, but I have studied Western religion as well and have been interested in religion for decades."
  16. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (November 20, 2007). "'Martin Amis is no racist'". The Guardian.
  17. ^ "Does God Exist?". American Jewish University. November 6, 2007. Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ a b c d e Segal, David (October 26, 2006). "Atheist Evangelist". The Washington Post.
  19. ^ "Sam Harris." (2008). The Science Studio. Science Network. October 3, 2008. Transcript.
  20. ^ Harris, Sam (June 28, 2011). "MDMA Caution with Sam Harris".
  21. ^ a b c Miller, Lisa (2010). "Sam Harris Believes in God". Newsweek.
  22. ^ a b Segal, David (October 26, 2006). "Atheist Evangelist" .The Washington Post.
  23. ^ Harris, Sam (November 11, 2012). "Science on the Brink of Death". Retrieved November 14, 2012.
  24. ^ Rice, Lewis I. "The Iconoclast: Sam Harris wants believers to stop believing". Stanford Magazine.
  25. ^ "Sam Harris". The Information Philosopher. Retrieved April 30, 2016.
  26. ^ Greenberg, Brad A. (April 1, 2008). "Making Belief". UCLA Magazine. Retrieved October 28, 2009.
  27. ^ a b c d Healy, Melissa (September 30, 2009). "Religion: The heart believes what it will, but the brain behaves the same either way". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on January 24, 2014. Retrieved October 17, 2009.
  28. ^ Harris, Sam (2009). "The moral landscape How science could determine human values". ProQuest. Retrieved June 5, 2014.
  29. ^ Sam Harris (September 28, 2007). "The Problem with Atheism". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 6, 2007.
  30. ^ Harris, Sam (2005). "Interview: Sam Harris". PBS.
  31. ^ Harris, Sam. Does God Exist? A debate between bestselling authors Rabbi David Wolpe and Sam Harris. Jewish Television Network. Event occurs at 1:00:00. Archived from the original on May 20, 2009. Retrieved May 20, 2011. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  32. ^ Brian Flemming & Sam Harris, 2005. The God Who Wasn't There, extended interviews. Beyond Belief Media.
  33. ^ Harris, Sam (January 2, 2013). "The Riddle of the Gun". Sam Harris.
  34. ^ Harris, Sam (2008). "Response to Controversy." Version 1.7 (July 27, 2008), (accessed January 25, 2009)
  35. ^ Burleigh, Nina (December 8, 2005). "God and Christmas, Part One" The Huffington Post.
  36. ^ Dawkins, Richard (August 4, 2005) "Coming Out Against Religious Mania". The Huffington Post.
  37. ^ Harris, Sam (June 21, 2014). "Response to Controversy". Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  38. ^ a b Taylor, Jerome (April 12, 2013). "Atheists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris face Islamophobia backlash". The Independent.
  39. ^ Boorstein, Michelle (February 11, 2015). "Chapel Hill killings shine light on particular tensions between Islam and atheism". The Washington Post.
  40. ^ Harris, Sam (February 7, 2006). "Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam". Truthdig.
  41. ^ Kaufman, Scott (January 22, 2015). "Sam Harris: Liberals like Greenwald and Aslan support the 'thuggish ultimatum' of radical Islam". The Raw Story
  42. ^ "Huffington Post".
  43. ^ Response to Controversy Version 2.3 (April 7, 2013)
  44. ^ Harris, Sam, Can Liberalism Be Saved From Itself?, London, retrieved December 26, 2014
  45. ^ Bringing the Vatican to Justice; SanHarris.org; May 10, 2010
  46. ^ Harris, Sam (July 27, 2014). "Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?". Sam Harris.
  47. ^ Harris, Sam. "The Problem with Atheism". Sam Harris Blog. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 2, 2007.
  48. ^ Harris, Sam (October 20, 2010). "Morality: 'We can send religion to the scrap heap'". New Scientist.
  49. ^ Jollimore, Troy (October 22, 2010). "Reviews & Essays: The Moral Landscape". Barnes & Noble.
  50. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony (October 1, 2010). "Science Knows Best", The New York Times.
  51. ^ Robinson, Marilynne (October 2, 2010). "What Unitarians Know (and Sam Harris Doesn't)". The Wall Street Journal,
  52. ^ Horgan, John. (October 11, 2010). "Be wary of the righteous rationalist: We should reject Sam Harris's claim that science can be a moral guidepost". Scientific American.
  53. ^ Chopra, Deepak (October 18, 2010). "Beyond belief: Sam Harris imagines a 'moral landscape'". San Francisco Chronicle.
  54. ^ Foster, Peter (October 29, 2010). "Sam Harris's Brave New World". National Post
  55. ^ Harris, Sam (May 25, 2011). "A Response to Critics". The Huffington Post.
  56. ^ Atran, Scott (March/April 2011). "Sam Harris's Guide to Nearly Everything." The National Interest.
  57. ^ Pardi, Paul (May 15, 2012). "An Analysis of Sam Harris' Free Will". Philosophy News.
  58. ^ Harris, Sam. "Free Will and "Free Will"". SamHarris.Org. Retrieved December 18, 2016. [...] I believe that popular confusion on this point is worth lingering over, because certain moral impulses—for vengeance, say—depend upon a view of human agency that is both conceptually incoherent and empirically false. I also believe that the conventional illusion of free will can be dispelled—not merely ignored, tinkered with, or set on new foundations.
  59. ^ Nahmias, Eddy (August 13, 2012). "Does Contemporary Neuroscience Support or Challenge the Reality of Free Will?" Big Questions Online.
  60. ^ Harris, Sam (September 18, 2006). "Head-in-the-Sand Liberals: Western civilization really is at risk from Muslim extremists." Los Angeles Times. Archived at the Wayback Machine.
  61. ^ Harris, Sam. Trump in Exile. samharris.org, October 13, 2016. Retrieved April 22, 2017
  62. ^ "About Project Reason". Project Reason. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  63. ^ "Secular Coalition for America Advisory Board Biography". Secular.org. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  64. ^ Harris, S.; Sheth, S. A.; Cohen, M. S. (2008). "Functional neuroimaging of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty". Annals of Neurology. 63 (2): 141–147. doi:10.1002/ana.21301. PMID 18072236.
  65. ^ a b Harris, S.; Kaplan, J. T.; Curiel, A.; Bookheimer, S. Y.; Iacoboni, M.; Cohen, M. S. (2009). Sporns, Olaf (ed.). "The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief". PLoS ONE. 4 (10): e7272. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007272. PMC 2748718. PMID 19794914.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  66. ^ "About Sam Harris". Sam Harris. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  67. ^ Harris, Sam; Sullivan, Andrew (January 16, 2007). "Is Religion 'Built Upon Lies'?" Beliefnet.
  68. ^ Harris, Sam; Warren, Rick (April 8, 2007). "NEWSWEEK Poll: 90% Believe in God". Newsweek.
  69. ^ Schneider, Nathan (July 1, 2013). "The New Theist". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  70. ^ Harris, Sam (August 15, 2011). "The God Debate". Sam Harris.
  71. ^ https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/10-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821?mt=2
  72. ^ https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-path-and-the-goal
  73. ^ Harris, Sam (2012). Free Will. Free Press. ISBN 978-1451683400.
  74. ^ Wood, Graeme (April 24, 2013). "The Atheist Who Strangled Me". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
  75. ^ "Can You Defend Eating Meat with Sam Harris".
  76. ^ Harris, Sam. "Ask Me Anything #2".
  77. ^ Harris, Sam. "Being Good and Doing Good". Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  78. ^ Piccalo, Gina (October 2, 2006). "Oh, dear God—it's him again". Los Angeles Times.
  79. ^ "Project Reason Trustees / Advisory Board". Project Reason. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  80. ^ Harris, Sam. Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. For Annaka, Emma, and Violet
  81. ^ Harris, Sam (July 4, 2011). "Drugs and the Meaning of Life". Sam Harris. I have two daughters who will one day take drugs.
  82. ^ "Waking Up with Sam Harris". iTunes – Podcasts. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  83. ^ "8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior". uk.businessinsider.com. Business Insider Inc. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  84. ^ "Podcasts You Should Download Now". pcmag.com. Ziff Davis, LLC. PCMag Digital Group. Retrieved April 23, 2017.
  85. ^ "The 2017 Webby Awards for the best science and education podcasts". webbyawards.com. The Webby Awards. Retrieved April 26, 2017.
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