The War On Faith - HQ - Bertrand Russell

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and
still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful
hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago
by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the
future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead which we trust will be far
surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

The usual Christian argument is that the suffering in the world is a purification for sin and is
therefore a good thing. This argument is, or course, only a rationalization of sadism; but in
any case it is a very poor argument. I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the
children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to
persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they
are suffering. In order to bring himself all feelings of mercy and c compassion. He must, in
short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes.

The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection
is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious
precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to
perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.

Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently
of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility
to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.

*****The usual argument of religious people on this subject is roughly as follows: "I and my
friends are persons of amazing intelligence and virtue. It is hardly conceivable that so much
intelligence and virtue could have come about by chance. There must, therefore, be someone
at least as intelligent and virtuous as we are who set the cosmic machinery in motion with a
view to producing Us." I am sorry to say that I do not find this argument so impressive as it is
found by those who use it.

*****Then again, considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me
sufficiently marvelous. Of course, I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than
I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless,
even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence
operating through all eternity might have produced something better.

*****It is true that he modern Christian is less robust, but that is not thanks to Christianity; it
is thanks to the generations of freethinkers, who, from the Renaissance to the present day,
have made Christians ashamed of many of their traditional beliefs.

The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most
vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of free-thinkers.

If we were not afraid of death, I do not believe that the idea of immortality would ever have
arisen.

In former days, miracles happened in answer to prayer; they still do in the Catholic Church,
but Protestants have lost this power.

In like manner, immortality removes the terror from death. People who believe that when
they die they will inherit eternal bliss may be expected to view death without horror, though,
fortunately for medical men, this does not invariably happen.

It would be ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are
pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet.

Sometimes the Divine commands have been curiously interpreted. For example, we are told
not to work on Saturdays, and Protestants take this to mean that we are not to play on
Sundays.

*****It is evident that a man with a scientific outlook on life cannot let himself be intimidated
by texts of Scripture or by the teaching of the church. He will not be content to say "such
-and-such an act is sinful, and that ends the matter." He will inquire whether it does any
harm or whether, on the contrary, the belief that it is sinful does harm. And he will find that,
especially in what concerns sex, our current morality contains a very great deal of which the
origin is surely superstitious. He will find also, that this superstition, like that of the Aztecs,
involves needless cruelty and would be swept away if people were actuated by kindly feelings
toward their neighbors. But the defenders of traditional morality are seldom people with
warm hearts, as may be seen from the love of militarism displayed by church dignitaries. One
is tempted to think that they value morals as affording a legitimate outlet for their desire to
inflict pain; the sinner is fair game, and therefore away with tolerance!

In all stages of education the influence of superstition is disastrous. A certain percentage of
children have the habit of thinking; one of the aims of education is to cure them of this habit.
Inconvenient questions are met with "hush, hush" or punishment.

Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts
which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.

The church does not mind hypocrisy, which is a flattering tribute to its power; but elsewhere
it has come to be recognized as an evil which we ought not lightly to inflict.