I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the reliance on faith or religion as a means to face life's challenges, equating this reliance to cowardice.
Bertrand Russell suggests that an individual's need for faith or religion to cope with life reflects a form of cowardice. He argues that such reliance should not be deemed admirable simply because it pertains to spirituality, but should instead be recognized as a weakness, challenging societal norms that praise faith while disregarding the necessity for personal courage and rationality in facing life's uncertainties.
In practice
In a debate on the necessity of belief, one might quote Russell to emphasize the importance of individual courage over blind faith.
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.
The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice.
Dreams are not without meaning wherever they may come from — from fantasy, from the elements, or from another inspiration.
People of different religions and cultures live side by side in almost every part of the world, and most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are, without hating what – and who – we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray.
Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?
Nanny's philosophy of life was to do what seemed like a good idea at the time, and do it as hard as possible. It had never let her down.
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