You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don’t know. - Sam Harris

A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings. If you doubt this, consider how your experience would suddenly change if you came to believe one of the following propositions:

1. You have only two weeks to live.
2. You've just won the lottery prize of one hundred million dollars.
3. Aliens have implanted a receiver in your skull and are manipulating your thoughts.

These are mere words- until you believe them. once believed, they become part of the very apparatus of your mind, determining your desires, fears, expectations, and subsequent behavior.

No culture in human history ever suffered because its people became too reasonable or too desirous of having evidence in defense of their core beliefs.

What we call reality is just when we all agree about our hallucinations.