One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
Interpretation
The quote challenges the notion that religion inherently promotes virtue in people, suggesting otherwise based on personal observation.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell expresses skepticism towards the common belief that religion is a necessary foundation for virtuous behavior. He reflects on his experiences and observations, questioning whether religious beliefs truly lead to moral goodness. This statement invites a critical examination of the role of religion in ethics and encourages a broader understanding of human virtue beyond religious doctrine.
In practice
In a debate about the role of religion in moral education.
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.
Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way._x000D_ Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass... And then you see it._x000D_ Pippin: What? Gandalf?... See what?_x000D_ Gandalf: White shores... and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise._x000D_ Pippin: Well, that isn't so bad._x000D_ Gandalf: No... No it isn't.
A man is never as big as when he is on his knees to help a child.
Cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.
In the void is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.
To be oneself, simply oneself, is so amazing and utterly unique an experience that it's hard to convince oneself so singular a thing happens to everybody.
If nothing were substituted for everything, it would still be too much and too little.
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