Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American neuroscientist, philosopher, author, and podcast host. His work includes a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, determinism, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and he is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Harris's first book, The End of Faith (2004), won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction and remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks. He has since written six additional books: Letter to a Christian Nation (2006); The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (2010); the essay Lying (2011); the short book Free Will (2012); Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014); and (with British writer Maajid Nawaz) Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue (2015). His work has been translated into over 20 languages.
Since September 2013, Harris has hosted the Making Sense podcast (originally titled Waking Up). He also launched a meditation app called Waking Up, promoting secular mindfulness practices. Harris has debated with many prominent figures on religion, including Reza Aslan, David Wolpe, Robert Wright, Rick Warren, William Lane Craig, Jordan Peterson and Deepak Chopra. Some critics have argued that Harris's writings and public statements on Islam are Islamophobic; Harris and his supporters reject that characterization, arguing instead that the label is sometimes used to silence criticism.
Samuel Benjamin Harris was born in Los Angeles, California, on April 9, 1967. He is the son of the late actor Berkeley Harris, who appeared mainly in Western films, and television writer and producer Susan Harris (née Spivak), who created Soap and The Golden Girls, among other series. His father, born in North Carolina, came from a Quaker background, and his mother is Jewish. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was age two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular and that his parents rarely discussed religion, though he also stated that he was not raised as an atheist.
While his original major was in English, Harris became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with MDMA. The experience interested him in the idea he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychoactive experience, he visited India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with teachers of Buddhist and Hindu religions, including Dilgo Khyentse. For a few weeks in the early 1990s, he was a volunteer guard in the security detail of the Dalai Lama.
In 1997, after eleven years overseas, Harris returned to Stanford, completing a B.A. degree in philosophy in 2000. Harris began writing his first book, The End of Faith, immediately after the September 11 attacks. He received a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty. His thesis was titled The Moral Landscape: How Science Could Determine Human Values. His advisor was Mark S. Cohen.
Harris's writing concerns philosophy, neuroscience, and criticism of religion. He came to prominence for his criticism of religion (Islam in particular) and he is described as one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. He has written for publications such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (of London), The Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. Five of Harris's books have been New York Times bestsellers, and his writing has been translated into over 20 languages. The End of Faith (2004) remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 33 weeks.
In September 2013, Harris began releasing the Waking Up podcast (since re-titled Making Sense). Episodes vary in length but often last over two hours. Releases do not follow a regular schedule. The podcast focuses on a wide array of topics related to science and spirituality, including philosophy, religion, morality, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris has interviewed a wide range of guests, including scientists, philosophers, spiritual teachers, and authors. Guests have included Jordan Peterson, Daniel Dennett, Janna Levin, Diane Musho Hamilton, Peter Singer, and David Chalmers.
In September 2018, Harris released a meditation course app, Waking Up with Sam Harris. The app provides daily meditations; long guided meditations; daily "Moments" (brief meditations and reminders); conversations with thought leaders in psychology, meditation, philosophy, psychedelics, and other disciplines; a selection of lessons on various topics, such as Mind & Emotion, Free Will, and Doing Good; and more. Users of the app are introduced to several types of meditation, such as mindfulness meditation, vipassanā-style meditation, loving-kindness meditation, and Dzogchen. In September 2020, Harris announced his commitment to donate at least 10% of Waking Up's profits to highly effective charities, thus becoming the first company to sign the Giving What We Can pledge for companies. The pledge was retroactive, taking into account the profits since the day the app launched two years previously. Waking Up and Harris produced the 2026 documentary Unraveling the Dream: Psychedelics, Awakening, and the Brain.
Harris is generally a critic of religion, and is considered a leading figure in the New Atheist movement. Harris is particularly opposed to what he refers to as dogmatic belief, and says that "Pretending to know things one doesn't know is a betrayal of science – and yet it is the lifeblood of religion." While purportedly opposed to religion in general and their belief systems, Harris believes that all religions are not created equal. Often invoking the non-violent nature of Jainism to contrast with Islam, Harris argues that the differences in religious doctrines and scriptures are the main indicators of a religion's value.
Harris has often noted some positive aspects of Buddhist thought, especially in relation to meditation, such as Buddhism's emphasis that one's behavior and intentions impact the mind, and in order to achieve happiness, one needs to strive towards "overcoming fear and hatred" while "maximizing love and compassion". In 2019, while discussing his book Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion, Harris noted that the West could learn a lot from the East about the traditions of meditation found in Hinduism and Buddhism, though he considers that meditation can be practiced without any traditional religious beliefs.
Harris emphasizes that all religions are not the same and that if any religion can be considered a "religion of peace", it is not Islam, but rather Jainism, which emerged in India around the same time as Buddhism, and has non-violence as its core doctrine. He underscores that to be a practicing Jain, one has to be a vegetarian and a pacifist, while the Jain monks even wear masks in order to avoid breathing in any living thing. He argues that even the Jain religion has its problems, as Jains believe certain things based on insufficient evidence, which leads to some religious dogmas. Harris has participated in numerous debates on religion including with Robert Wright, Andrew Sullivan David Wolpe, Reza Aslan, and Jordan Peterson. In 2010, Harris joined Michael Shermer to debate with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on the future of God in a debate hosted by ABC News Nightline.
Harris is critical of the Christian right in politics in the United States, blaming them for the political focus on "pseudo-problems like gay marriage". He has described Christian philosophical arguments for the existence of God such as the Leap of faith and Pascal's wager which were developed by Blaise Pascal and Søren Kierkegaard as "epistemological Ponzi schemes". He is also critical of liberal Christianity – as represented, for instance, by the theology of Paul Tillich – which he argues claims to base its beliefs on the Bible despite actually being influenced by secular modernity. He further states that in so doing liberal Christianity provides rhetorical cover to fundamentalists.