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About this quote

What does it mean?
Accommodating faith in public policy will cause decades of preventable human suffering.
In plain terms
Letting faith shape policy will lead to unnecessary suffering.
What can you take from it?
Avoid making policy accommodations for faith that cause harm.

Where it applies

  • healthcare
  • lawmaking
  • public welfare

Putting it to work

  • prioritize human welfare
  • remove religious exemptions

Questions to consider

  • What is the cost of religious freedom in policy?
  • How do we weigh values against harm?

Another view

Others believe religious freedom is worth the cost.

More from Sam Harris

  1. Those opposed to therapeutic stem-cell research on religious grounds constitute the biological and ethical equivalent of a flat-earth society.[2]

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  2. The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury ha…

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  3. The point at which we fully acquire our humanity, and our capacity to suffer, remains an open question, but anyone who would dogmatically insist that these tra…

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