Authoritarianism-Religion

Religion is an Authoritarian institution.  If primordial man had been able to accept his finitude we would have been spared the religion of an imaginary afterlife with God (the Authoritarian) as an abstraction outside of human experience. Religion is opposed to the acceptance of the facts of existence and, instead, preaches the belief in a palliative eternal afterlife. Religion is an obstacle to authentic being. Bertrand Russell in his lecture, “Why I Am Not a Christian” warns of the harm that fear-motivated religion does to its followers.

Russell states, "Religion is based primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly 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."

Evangelicals have been the foremost ally of Donald Trump whose venality is on display every day. Eight out of ten Evangelicals voted for Trump in spite of issues such as infidelity towards his wife.  This infidelity is an element of his abiding misogyny towards and his objectification of women. Trump’s bigotry extends to anyone who is not white. His cruelty of anyone on the margins of society is his brutish approach.  Thus Trump and Evangelicals fit Russell’s description, “cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.” Although there are some who will criticize aspects of the Christian religion Russell is one of the few who demonstrates the irreparable harm it does to society.  The Catholic Church with its endemic pedophilia and with the subsequent cover-up is an example of just how evil can dwell within the organizational structure of the Christian religion. Even more moderate protestant religions practice dissembling dogma like “love the sinner and hate the sin” in pretending to minister to the spiritual needs of the LGBTQ community.  And much of Christian charity is “proselytizing charity” since it is given with the quid pro quo of obedience by the recipient to the authority of the Christian sect in question. Religion is dominated by authority and power, not empathy and love. If Jesus were to return today he would see the need to reform the religion that bears his name just as he had to do with the Pharisee dominated Jewish religion of his day.

Russell concludes with words of wisdom that represent the model for a life filled with authentic meaning, “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.” 

If we could follow these words of Russell another world, an ethical one, would be possible.

Bertrand Russell’s lecture can be found at this website:

https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html