In fact, we can directly experience that consciousness is never improved or harmed by what it knows. Making this discovery, again and again, is the b… - Sam Harris

Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and ground for any experience we may wish to call “spiritual.” No myth needs to be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshipped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.

If, as I contend throughout this book, all that is good in religion can be had elsewhere — if, for instance, ethical and spiritual experience can be cultivated and talked about without our claiming to know things we manifestly do not know — then all the rest of our religious activity represents, at best, a massive waste of time and energy.

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