Are you never afraid of God's judgement in denying him? Most certainly not. I also deny Zeus and Jupiter and Odin and Brahma, but this causes me no qualms. I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the idea that doubt in the existence of God is not inherently wrong and should not invoke fear of judgment.
Bertrand Russell points out that many individuals do not believe in God or deities such as Zeus and Odin, yet they do not face punishment for their disbelief. He suggests that if a supreme being existed, it is unlikely that such a being would be so insecure as to take offense at those who question or deny their existence, thus inviting a rational discourse on faith and doubt.
In practice
This quote can be used in a debate about the nature of belief and skepticism.
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.
Fear must be entirely banished. The purified soul will fear nothing.
To be able to function in late capitalism without being a psychological wreck, it is necessary to accept the insane as standard.
The genocide (in Rwanda) was a collective act. What made it possible, what made that final political crime possible, was the absence, the erasure, of seeing the other. Of knowing, of feeling, of being with the other. And when that's removed, then politics_x000D_ can become genocidal.
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That's a good thing.
Capitalism stands its trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets. They are going to pass it, whatever the defense they may hear; the only success victorious defense can possibly produce is a change in the indictment.
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