Sam Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, blogger, and podcast host. He is a critic of religion and proponent of the liberty to criticize religion. He is concerned with matters that touch on spirituality, morality, neuroscience, free will, and terrorism. He is described as one of the "Four Horsemen of atheism", with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett.

Harris was born on April 9, 1967 in Los Angeles, the son of actor Berkeley Harris and TV producer Susan Harris (nee Spivak), who created The Golden Girls. His father came from a Quaker background and his mother is a secular Jew. He was raised by his mother following his parents' divorce when he was aged two. Harris has stated that his upbringing was entirely secular, and his parents rarely discussed religion, though it was always a subject that interested him. Fellow critic of religion Christopher Hitchens once referred to Harris as a "Jewish warrior against theocracy and bigotry of all stripes". While a student at Stanford University, Harris experimented with MDMA, and has written and spoken about the insights he experienced under its influence.  Though his original major was in English, he became interested in philosophical questions while at Stanford University after an experience with the psychedelic drug MDMA. The experience led him to be interested in the idea that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the use of drugs. Leaving Stanford in his second year, a quarter after his psychedelic experience, he went to India and Nepal, where he studied meditation with Buddhist and Hindu religious teachers, including Dilgo Khyentse. Eleven years later, in 1997, he 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. degree 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", and his advisor was Mark S. Cohen.

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