fear, the foundation of religion...and what we must do

im kind of bitter over the fact that i never got to provide an immediate reflection to either the summer training or the college training. perhaps it will find a way to intercalate itself into my subsequent posts.

and so it passes. it was really enjoyable. i only wish it had more saving grace to push me out of a slump once and for all, so that i'd be guaranteed level ground for the remainder of the race. but i guess as humans, wounds take time to heal, just like how our afflicted earthen vessel requires an entire lifetime to be fully restored. and it's always that we may gain Christ.

i was doing mcat verbal passages the other night when i stumbled across an interesting article titled "Why I Am Not a Christian." it was written by Bertrand Russell: yes, THE acclaimed philosopher, social reform activist, inquisitive logician, and Nobel laureate in literature. seems like a guy with a lot of authority, and someone that I would have respect for:

"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."

something skeptical inside of me wants to think that the test prep writers slipped this passage in for a reason. i doubt it, but i have yet to see a passage that is pro-God in all of my practice.

either way, i still feel like Russell's understanding of the Bible and of God is dreadfully shallow. i decided to google the rest of this excerpt and came upon a paragraph in which Russell tries to elucidate Christ's defects. he makes an interesting statement. remember when Jesus told the disciples that they would by no means pass away until they saw the kingdom of God come in power? Russell states that this proves that Jesus thought his second coming was going to happen before the death of his disciples, and i guess the fact that im still sitting here writing this blog post is only more support to Russell's argument that Jesus was wrong.

well, maybe. i guess Bertrand Russell didn't have the luxury of realizing that Jesus himself was the kingdom of God. and the whole "come in power" portion refers not to His second coming, but corresponds to the very next set of verses, when Jesus was transfigured.

i am thankful for the unveiling that has been granted to me in today's age.