I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
Interpretation
Bertrand Russell expresses skepticism about the truth of religions and believes they cause harm.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell articulates his strong conviction that organized religions are not only false but also detrimental to society. He suggests that the beliefs and practices surrounding religion can lead to harm, whether through dogma, conflict, or the suppression of critical thought. Russell's perspective invites us to consider the impacts of religious belief on both personal and societal levels, advocating for a more rational and evidence-based understanding of the world.
In practice
In a debate about the role of religion in society, one might cite this quote to argue against the influence of religion on morality.
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.
We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.
He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.
Why do we focus so intensely on our problems? What draws us to them? Why are they so attractive? They have the magnet power of love: somehow we desire our problems; we are in love with them much as we want to get rid of them . . . Problems sustain us -- maybe that's why they don't go away. What would a life be without them? Completely tranquilized and loveless . . . There is a secret love hiding in each problem
To rewrite history on the bases of hypotheses which have not materialized is not only a fruitless task, but, in my eyes, meaningless.
Light-skinned privilege is largely through a white lens. It is exploited by oppressive forces... It was always a facade.
The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence; the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden...A belief in invisible cats cannot be logically disproved although it does tell us a good deal about those who hold it.
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