First off, very little of this will be in my own words, but in the words of Sam Harris. This is basically a transcript of the opening speech that Sam gave in a debate about religion. I know that if I tried I could not put it more beautifully, simply or more elegantly than he did. If I was tempted to call anything the poetry of rational arguments, this would be it.

Please don’t view this as an attack on what you believe – it’s not meant to be mean spirited. Picture as you read this,…

As a person who enjoys going out and harassing people with questions about their faith (yeah, I'm one of those guys) you either have to become really good at debating people who know what they're talking about, or you lose the debate.

I have a lot of little tricks I've picked up in my time debating people, and there's one question you can ask a religious person that really shakes up the conversation. When you ask it, they have no choice but to pause and rack their brain because you've…