It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that to achieve a better future, humanity must overcome the limitations imposed by religion.
Bertrand Russell argues that while humanity may be on the brink of a significant advance or 'golden age', achieving this potential requires addressing and overcoming the challenges posed by religion. He metaphorically refers to religion as a 'dragon' that guards the door to progress, implying that without confronting and addressing the influence and constraints of religious beliefs, true liberation and advancement may remain out of reach.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the role of religion in modern society.
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.
Hell is not fire and brimstone, not a place where you are punished for lying or cheating or stealing. Hell is wanting to be something and somewhere different from where you are.
Even a soul submerged in sleep _x000D_ is hard at work and helps _x000D_ make something of the world.
Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
What can I say without touching the earth with my hands?
Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.
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