Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.
Interpretation
Fear can lead to cruel behaviors, and it's understandable that cruelty can be intertwined with religious practices.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell suggests that fear often breeds cruelty in individuals and societies. He implies that when people are driven by fear, they may resort to cruel actions, and this is reflected in how some aspects of religion can perpetuate such cruelty, revealing a complex relationship between fear, morality, and religious beliefs.
In practice
During a debate on the influence of religion on morality, this quote could illustrate how fear affects ethical behavior.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
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.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Well, I write in exile because I cannot return to my country, so I have no choice but to see myself as an exiled writer.
People profess to have certain political positions, but their conservatism or liberalism is really the least interesting thing about them.
It's very difficult to escape your background. You know, I don't think it's necessary to even try to escape it. More and more, I start to think that it's necessary to see exactly what it is that you inherited on both ends of the stick: your timidity, your courage, your self-deceit, and your honesty - and all the rest of it.
Does anyone believe that Goldman Sachs is gonna give up a deal that would yield millions of dollars because someone fussed at them behind closed doors?
I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of many.
No pleasure is evil in itself; but the means by which certain pleasures_x000D_ _x000D_ are gained bring pains many times greater than the pleasures.
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