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.
In Christ there is no East nor West.
Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but to make up for that, let it be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one.
I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough
How easy it is to see your brother's faults, How hard it is to face your own. You winnow his in the wind like chaff, But yours you hide, Like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw. Dwelling on your brother's faults Multiplies your own. You are far from the end of your journey. The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. See how you love.
The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.
I always seek the good that is in people and leave the bad to Him who made mankind and knows how to round off the corners.
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