That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
(from Bertrand Russell's lecture
Why I Am Not A Christian, March 6, 1927,
later published with other essays in 1957)
1 comment:
I am enjoying your series on Bertrand Russell. he was one of the people I read when I was first coming out of my religious stupor. :)
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