The next essay is from 1930 and is titled "Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?"
Russell acknowledges two, only two, contributions he is willing to concede- the calendar and the Egyptian priesthood's discovery of how to predict eclipses.
After that, things go downhill.
Russell points out that regardless of any honor that might have existed in the founder of a religion, the belief devolves into power struggles among the religious elite, who use that power to their advantage. He also condemns the Christian religion in particular because of its attitude toward sex. "We sometimes hear talk to the effect that Christianity improved the status of women. This is one of the grossest perversions of history that it is possible to make." Women are subjected to even harsher moral codes than men; womankind is seen as the temptress and the "inspirer of impure lusts"; and a woman is denied birth control and expected to bear a child a year until she wears out (in certain religions anyway.) Venereal diseases are seen as God's punishment, rather than something that should be avoided with the proper precautions or cured. Sex education for the young is forbidden, even though "a person is much less likely to act wisely when he is ignorant than when he is instructed, and it is ridiculous to give young people a sense of sin because they have a natural curiosity about an important matter."
Russell was very forward-thinking about sex education for his time. The matter of venereal diseases reminds me of the way many religious leaders had no interest in cures for AIDS and no compassion for the sufferers. They deserved it and God was punishing them for their behavior. Not much has changed.
Russell goes on to discuss the religious sources for intolerance in the world, especially the belief that only one religion or one god is the correct one. Without this belief, people like Herodotus could travel the world and "in general he is hospitable to foreign gods and foreign customs." Christianity, on the other hand, has been very eager to punish those who think differently on Earth, while even harsher punishments waited after death. "It is true that the modern Christian is less robust, but that is not thanks to Christianity; it is thanks to the generations of freethinkers, who, from the Renaissance to the present day, have made Christians ashamed of many of their traditional beliefs. It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians. Nobody nowadays believes that the world was created in 4004 B.C; but not so very long ago skepticism on this point was thought an abominable crime." Except now in the 21st century there are plenty of young Earth creationists who do believe in that timeline! I think sometimes we are going backwards!
The Doctrine of Free Will. In this section I find a little disagreement with Russell. I might be reading it wrong, but he seems to be saying that, because we are all a product of our upbringing , and even the upbringing of our forbears, and influences of society, a person cannot be completely blamed for his actions. "No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When a car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you anymore petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and set it right." He compares this to the treatment of children, where they are sometimes severely punished for misbehavior instead of trying to find out why the child behaves that way. So far, I'm with him. When he carries this forward to adults, it's a little harder to take. "A man who is suffering from plague has to be imprisoned (I think he's referring to quarantine) until he is cured, although nobody thinks him wicked. The same thing should be done with a man who suffers from a propensity to commit forgery; but there should be no more idea of guilt in the one case than the other." Really? I think committing forgery does make you guilty. What in your upbringing or the society or your parents' attitudes gives you a pass on that? Now if you think of it in terms of prison reform, where people in prison should be helped to rehabilitate to society, rather than just warehoused as punishment for a number of years, I can see that, but they're still guilty.
Finally, he discusses the Idea of Righteousness. "Righteousness and unrighteousness must be taken together; it is impossible to stress the one without stressing the other also. Now, what is 'unrighteousness' in practice? It is in practice behavior of a kind disliked by the herd. By calling it unrighteousness, and by arranging an elaborate system of ethics around this conception, the herd justifies itself in wreaking punishment upon the objects of its own dislike, while at the same time, since the herd is righteous by definition, it enhances its own self-esteem at the very moment when it lets loose its impulse to cruelty. This is the psychology of lynching, and of the other ways in which criminals are punished. The essence of the conception of righteousness, therefore, is to afford an outlet for sadism by cloaking cruelty as justice."
Russell concluded this essay by describing ways in which society can evolve past these evils and advance to a higher ethics. He believed that religion was based on fear, conceit, and hatred. Russell believed that with reforms in education, economics, and politics many of the fears and hatreds and jealousies that society has suffered could be minimized to the extent that everyone could be fairly content. Russell believed that religion was the obstacle. "Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion." Wow!
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