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About this quote

What does it mean?
Religion replaces good concepts with bad ones and denies the vastness of human ignorance through hope and fear.
In plain terms
Religion keeps bad ideas instead of good ones and ignores how much we do not know.
What can you take from it?
Religion masks ignorance with false hope.

Where it applies

  • existential reflection
  • religious critique
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • challenge religious concepts
  • accept ignorance
  • evaluate hope and fear

Questions to consider

  • How does religion address ignorance?
  • What role does fear play in belief?

Another view

It assumes religion is solely about concepts rather than community or comfort.

More from Sam Harris

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  2. The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology, and art eve…

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  3. The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking…

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