Sam Harris

Technology has a way of creating fresh moral imperatives. Our technical advances in the art of war have finally rendered our religious differences -- and hence our religious beliefs -- antithetical to our survival. We can no longer ignore that billions of our neighbours believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation, or any of the other fantastical notions that have lurked in the minds of the faithful for millenia -- because our neighbours are now armed with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that these developments mark the terminal phase of our credulity. Words like "God" and "Allah" must go the way of "Apollo" and "Baal", or they will unmake our world.