Russell: Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?

(Originally written September 2, 2005 in Book 2)

Why I am not a Christian
Bertrand Russell
1957

Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?

It has made two:

1) Fixing the calendar
2) The ancient Egyptian religion chronicled the eclipses well enough to predict them.

Religion is a disease that comes from fear and is the source of misery.

Extreme Protestantism has distorted the word religion to denote any serious personal convictions as to the nature of the universe or to morality.

Religion originally (and mostly) is a social phenomenon.

All religious originators have had little influence over the ethics of the church they founded. Christ (founder of Christianity) has extraordinarily little influence on Christian ethics.

The most important thing about Christianity is the church.

Christ taught that you should give your goods to the poor, that you should not fight, that you should not go to church, and that you should not punish adultery. Neither Catholicism nor Protestantism follows these teachings regularly.

This is true of Buddhism as well as Christianity. Buddha was "amiable and enlightened", but Buddhist priests in Tibet have been known to be tyrannous and of the cruelest nature.

The difference between a church and its founder is not a coincidence. It is a natural occurrence of events. When an absolute truth is declared in the teachings of a certain man there is a body of people ready to interpret this absolute truth. The men who interpret these absolute truths hold the power of knowledge and become a privileged caste. With that power they wield and manipulate things to their advantage and work to oppose anything that restricts their power and influence, even if it encourages intellectual or moral progress.

Religion teaches ethical coeds that are not conducive to human happiness. Religions hold that morals have nothing to do with happiness.

"The church, as everyone knows, opposed the abolition of slavery as long they dared and with a few well advertised exceptions they oppose at the present day every movement toward economic justice. The Pope has officially condemned socialism" (Russell, 26).

Christianity and Sex:

The worst feature of Christianity is its attitude towards sex. It is morbid and pitiful.

One of the greatest perversions in history is the assumption that Christianity improved the status of women.

The Christian conception of sin is very harmful. It gives people outlets for their sadistic tendencies. Christians believe that sinners should be punished, even out to the wife and kids of the sinner.

God is responsible for all the pain in the world because He was all powerful in creating it and all knowing in foreseeing the pain that would become of his creation.

The objection to religion:

Two roots of religious objections: intellectual and moral

Intellectual objection is the omnipotence of a true God would have led to a better created world. Moral objection is the all-good nature of a true God would have led to a more just world.

The Soul and Immortality:

Social virtue is excluded from Christian ethics.

In Christianity the body is social and public, while the soul is the private parts of life.

By emphasizing the importance of the soul, Christianity has made ethics completely individualistic.

Sources of Intolerance:

Christianity spread intolerance as part of its belief structure.

The intolerance of Christianity is rooted in its birthing religion Judaism. The intolerance of Judaism comes from the developments during the captivity and exile of the ancient Jews. It was a reaction against losing their identity in a foreign or alien setting.

The prophets invented an emphasis on personal righteousness and an idea that it was wicked to tolerate any religion except their own. These two concepts have had a lasting and significant impact throughout the course of history, an "extraordinarily disastrous effect".

Christians regularly speak of the persecution they suffered under the Roman Empire before Constantine, but tend to omit the persecution from the time of Constantine to the Renaissance was at the hands of Christians. Modern Christianity is less robust in their persecutions thanks to generations of free thinkers who have made Christian's embarrassed of some of their traditional beliefs.

The Doctrine of Free Will:

A man with plague must be imprisoned until he is well, but he isn't wicked. A man with a propensity for forgery must be imprisoned until he is cured, but he too is not wicked. It is not sin that causes men to break laws, but a sickness.

The most important source of religion is "undoubtedly" fear. Anything that happens that causes alarm causes people to turn to God for security.

Religion appeals to self-esteem as well as terror or fear. If Christianity is true it is good for the self-esteem that us, wretched beings in the eyes of Christianity, are noticed by the Supreme Creator.

The Idea of Righteousness:

Many free thinkers want to keep the idea of righteousness despite the decay of dogmatic religion, but it is impossible to separate righteousness from unrighteousness.

Something is unrighteous if it disagrees with the majority and therefore it is a sin.

The 'righteous' punish the 'unrighteous' and feel satisfied in doing so. The concept of righteousness gives the religious an outlet for their sadism. It is a "psychological lynching" that those righteous impose on those whom they deem to be unrighteous.

The three human impulses embodied in religion are hate, fear and conceit. The purpose of religion is to give the sense of respectability to those feelings.

Christians argue that if hate and fear are inevitable then why not aim them through the Church at the Wicked. There are two refutations to this argument:

-First, the Church's views on what is righteous and what is not isn't the best view.
-Second, with modern techniques and knowledge of psychological processes both fear and hate can be eliminated altogether.

A Christian would claim that a man who was lazy and produced a child a year until his wife passed away from exhaustion and whose children perished from neglect is more virtuous than the man who stamped out yellow fever in an uncharted part of the world, but who had occasional sexual relationships with women to whom he was not married.

Counterpoint: A Christian would not claim that either man is virtuous. All men are not virtuous in the eyes of God. Compared to God we are all humbled. We are not measured against each other but compared to Jesus Christ, whom we all fall short of. The only virtue which is achievable by man is to accept the gift of Jesus Christ and through His redemption we will act virtuously.

In Christianity avoidance of sin is more important than positive merit. It is for these two reasons (the Christian's view of virtuousness and the avoidance of sin being the important thing to do) why the Church's view of righteousness is not the best.

Fear and hatred can be nearly totally eradicated from Humanity by education, economic and political reforms. Educational reforms must be the basis. To educate a child properly he/she must be treated with kindness, be put in an environment where initiation is possible without disastrous results, kept from adults with irrational fears and not be subjected to severe punishments, threats or reproof.

To save a child from developing hatred situations that could incur jealousy must be avoided. A child must feel warmth and affection, and must not be thwarted in his/her natural curiosities - NO TABOO ON SEX.

The properly educated and raised child will find himself isolated in the real world full of hate and fear.

War, pestilence and famine are preferential to contraception in the Church.

Religion prevents us from teaching ethical scientific evidence, removing the fundamental reasons for war and children from having rational education.

For man to enter a golden age religion must first be destroyed completely.