My thoughts on Bertrand Russell's essay on the contribution of religion to society are, briefly, these: he takes the position that religion has done little more for society than fix certain calendar dates and predict eclipses. This outright ignoring of the multiple and varied contributions of religion is puzzling considering the depth of Russell's thinking on other subjects and betrays, to my mind, more prejudice than presenting of historically accurate facts.
He can't, for example, have been ignorant of the fact that it was church men who preserved for posterity multiple works of Aristotle, Plato, and by extension Socrates, thus making it possible for the very endeavor of philosophy in the West to persevere to become what it has become, and, ironically, make it possible for men like Russell to question the relevance of religion. Moreover, religious inspiration was and is behind much of the art produced in the West, from the visual medium to cinema. One need only cite examples like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Kierkegaard, Milton, and Russell himself, for one can hardly criticize what hasn't been an inspiration to one in some way or other.As already alluded to, philosophy itself owes a huge debt to men like Augustine, Aquinas, and Descartes.The very ethical viewpoint of the West owes a debt to Christian thinkers from Christ on down to the present, whatever one may think of the content of that body of thought it is hard to deny that "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" hasn't in some way influenced how people have thought about how to treat others. One need only think of the ethical atmosphere of the Roman Empire before the conversion to see the changes made as a result of the advent of Christianity. So, whatever one's position on the claims made by religions of the world, it is just not accurate to state such a minimal influence on humanity.
What strikes me, also, isn't only what Russell says about the negative effects of religion as compared to the humanistic projects incorporated in scientific and rationalist movements since the Renaissance, but also what he doesn't say. He spends a great amount of time giving examples of the negative effects of religion but says nothing about its positive effects. It may not be earth shattering change, but the hope and sense of ultimate purpose it has given people and indeed continues to give to people, founded or not, is, to my mind worth something. Yes, it is true that the religious impulse has inspired great acts of inhumanity, but it has also inspired acts of charity and a sense of fellow feeling in times of mutual trial. It has inspired acts of love and tolerance as well as acts of war and cruelty. The focusing of Russell on the chasm between religious ideas and religious peoples' acts as a way of showing that religious ideas are somehow empty is fallacious. Ideas should be judged on their own merit and not on how well or ill they are practiced. Russell spends as much time praising reason and science, moreover, as the panacea to all of our social ills, conveniently leaving out the fact that it has been people of reason and science that have been responsible as much as anyone else for war and suffering as these have been the ones responsible for the designing of such weapons as are capable of killing people en masse, devising strategems for waging battles, and for rationalizing motivations for conquest and genocide.
No, I think Russell is wrong about religion and about science and reason. Neither of these are the culprits of human suffering, only the vehicles through which negatively motivated people exert their desires.
