There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments … - Sam Harris

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance — and it has no bona fides, in religious terms, to put it on a par with fundamentalism.

This is a constraint of evolution. We weren’t built to acquire new cognitive abilities de novo. The only materials used for modern human cognition are these ancient structures that have to be commandeered to new purposes. Everything we do is built on the back of these apeish structures. Here we’re talking about the insular cortex, which receives the inputs from the viscera. You find rotting food disgusting — that’s the tale told by the insula. And the only way to build a mind that can find abstract ideas unacceptable is to repurpose, or extend the purpose, of those brain areas.

You need an argument, and the nature of any argument is that its validity doesn't depend on who you are. [...] When talking about violence, again, the facts are whatever they are – how many people got shot, how many died, what was the color of their skin, who shot them, what was the color of their skin. Getting a handle on these facts does not require one to say, 'As a black man, I know x, y, and z .' The color of your skin simply isn't relevant information.

When talking about the data – that is, what is happening throughout a whole society – your life experience isn't relevant information. And the fact that you think it might be is a problem. [...] Now this isn't to say that a person's life experience is never relevant to a conversation [...] it can be used to establish certain kinds of facts. I mean, if someone says to you, 'Catholics don't believe in hell', it's perfectly valid to resort, 'Actually my mom is a Catholic, and she believes in hell'. Of course there's a larger question of what the Catholic doctrine actually is – but if a person is making a statement about a certain group of people and you are a member of the group, you might very well be in a position to falsify his claim on the basis of your experience.

But a person's identity and life experience often aren't relevant when talking about facts. And they're usually invoked in ways that are clearly fallacious.