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 has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the prioritization of theoretical moral considerations over the tangible suffering of individuals.
In this quote, Sam Harris argues that individuals who prioritize the moral status of a blastocyst—an early stage of human development—over the well-being of a child with a serious medical condition exhibit a troubling skew in their moral judgment. He suggests that such a viewpoint may be distorted by religious beliefs that place undue emphasis on potential life, to the detriment of recognizing and addressing the realities of suffering and injury in already living individuals.
In practice
During a debate on bioethics, this quote could be used to illustrate the conflict between moral philosophy and practical considerations.
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 their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
One's own self or material goods, which has more worth?_x000D_ _x000D_ Loss (of self) or possession (of goods), which is the greater evil?_x000D_ _x000D_ He who loves most, spends most,_x000D_ _x000D_ He who hoards much loses much
If globalization is to realise its potential as a force for good, we have to look more closely at the means by which we handle our growing interdependence. We do not have a world government, but we do have an increasingly complex network of institutions that are concerned with global governance. They are central to our future and international human rights law
Valar Morghulis - All men must die.
The human being is an unequal creature. That is a fact. And we start off with the proposition. All the great religions, all the great movements, all the great political ideology, say let us make the human being as equal as possible. In fact, he is not equal, never will be.
When you're at war, you think about a better life; when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one.
I think, in many people's minds, the Confederate battle flag is not only a memorial to our ancestors, which is perfectly OK, but also a symbol of white superiority and an inclination for people to believe that even slavery would've been OK.
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