Hi there. I'm Jason Gots, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Since 2008, Big Think has been producing short, iconic interviews with some of the brightest minds of our time.

The Think Again podcast is us shaking things up. The producers surprise me and my guests with short interview clips on every conceivable subject.

Space travel, xenophobia, sex, we have to discuss them. There is no escape.

My guest today is Sam Harris. He's the author of numerous, lucid, meticulous, engaging

books on the subjects of religion, morality, and consciousness, including the end of faith and waking up.

His latest book, co-authored with Majid Nawaz, is Islam and the Future of Tolerance, a Dialogue.

Welcome to think again, Sam.

Thanks, Jason. Happy to be here.

I'm really happy to have you on the show.

And one of the things I really admire about you as a thinker is that although you have some very strong convictions,

you always seem willing to dialogue with people who disagree with you.

On Tim Ferriss's podcast, you pointed out recently that debate as a format appeals to you less and less

because the emphasis isn't on learning anything, but on defending what you already believe.

And in your new book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, you talk rather than debate with

Majid Nawaz, a former Muslim extremist who now works to promote tolerance for and within Islam.

He believes that Islam isn't inherently incompatible with democratic and human rights values,

you're not so sure. I wonder whether you learned anything from that conversation, and if so,

what? Yeah, I learned a lot from Majid, and I continue to learn from him, and he's really now a friend.

It's really a great example of a conversation starting in a place where you really

had no reasonable expectation that much good would come out of it. And then it became a totally

pleasant and useful collaboration. So I encourage people to look at that book. I mean,

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