I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
Interpretation
Bertrand Russell critiques organized Christianity for hindering moral advancement.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell expresses his belief that the institutional structure of Christianity has historically obstructed the development of moral standards and societal progress. He argues that rather than serving as a guide to ethical living, organized religion has often been an obstacle, preventing people from embracing broader notions of morality that may challenge traditional beliefs.
In practice
During a debate on the influence of religion in modern society.
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.
All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.
I must achieve internal consistency.
I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.
But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.
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