Today in 1927, British philosopher Bertrand Russell (above) delivered a lecture called, ‘Why I am not a Christian’ to the National Secular Society at Battersea Town Hall. The lecture was later published as his classic essay of the same name.
‘Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear… 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 has gone hand-in-hand.’ Bertrand Russell
Martin Luther returned to Wittenberg today in 1522, where he had started the Reformation five years previously. He had spent the time in the Wartburg Castle, where Prince Frederick had kidnapped him for his own safety (despite being a devout Catholic who owned 20,000 relics). Luther came home because things were getting a bit out of hand with some of his followers smashing up church ornaments and others prophesying the slaying of the aristocracy.
St Ignatius Loyola had a vision at the altar today in 1544, in St Peter’s, Rome. He said: ‘I pictured the Divine Being Itself to myself always in the same bright colour, such that within me there was no not seeing it.’
The German Emperor issued the Edict of Restitution today in 1629. It concluded 11 years of war against Protestants, and legally cancelled 77 years of the Reformation. Its actual result was to turn the Eleven Years War into the Thirty Years War.
Image: Wikimedia Commons