The twin conceptions of sin and vindictive punishment seem to be at the root of much that is most vigorous, both in religion and politics.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the ideas of sin and retributive justice are fundamental to the strength found in both religion and politics.
Bertrand Russell's quote highlights the intertwined nature of sin and punitive responses as central themes in religious and political discourse. He argues that these concepts drive vigorous ideologies and actions, often leading to a robust engagement with moral and ethical frameworks. This assertion invites reflection on how such beliefs shape societies and the consequences they have for justice and governance.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the role of morality in political philosophy.
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.
Our Being is Becoming, not stasis. Our Science is Utopia, our Reality is Eros, our Desire is Revolution.
History is neither written nor made without love or hate.
People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery.
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks--it says, Goodbye.
It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faithβas mysterious as faith itself.
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