… not if you’re the Buddha, there isn’t.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”
“Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair”
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”
Very often, both Christians and others praise Jesus for being a great moral teacher. It is not something that is often questioned. It was refreshing to see that quote from Russell.
ReplyDeleteWhy was it taken down.
Good question. I took it down because I think it is only really fair to quote it in the context of fundamentalist Christians claiming that hell exists. Otherwise it was a bit gratuitous. What brought the Russell quote to my mind, is that I was recently arguing with a fundamentalist Christian who claimed just that – that anyone who does not believe in God faces an eternity of damnation. But, in fairness to many modern Christians, many do not think hell exists – or they think of it as a state of mind, or that it is not eternal punishment, or something like that – they say that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. And they focus on the nicer things that Jesus said. So, being a tolerant type - if people want to be Christians, then my view would be that they are better off looking at it that way.
ReplyDeletePut another way – suppose I was to put up a quote criticising something cruel that is said in the Koran. Well, many Muslims might interpret the quote in a humane or "metaphorical" way. And I think they should be permitted to do so. So unless I am speaking directly with a fundamentalist Muslim who takes the quote literally, why engage in a gratuitous swipe at Islam in general?
Anyway, I’ll put the quote from Russell here, so that people can make of it what they like:
Bertrand Russell: `There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation.
"Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this World nor in the world to come." That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world, for all sorts of people have imagined that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thought that it would not be forgiven them either in this world or in the world to come. I really do not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would have put fears and terrors of that sort into the world … Then you all, of course, remember about the sheep and the goats; how at the second coming He is going to divide the sheep from the goats, and He is going to say to the goats, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." He continues, "And these shall go away into everlasting fire." Then He says again, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." He repeats that again and again also. I must say that I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty. It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world and gave the world generations of cruel torture; and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could take Him as His chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that.
I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.'