Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> wrote in message

From the following link:

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/why.htm

This is Bertrand Russell talking about Butler's book...
"As I said before, I do not think that the real reason that
people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation.
They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it
is a very wrong thing to do to attack religion, because religion makes
men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it. You know, of
course, the parody of that argument in Samuel Butler's book, Erewhon
Revisited. You will remember that in Erewhon there is a
certain Higgs who arrives in a remote country, and after spending
some time there he escapes from that country in a balloon. Twenty
years later he comes back to that country and finds a new religion in
which he is worshipped under the name of the "Sun Child," and it is
said that he ascended into Heaven. He finds that the feast of the
Ascension is about to be celebrated, and he hears Professors Hanky
and Panky say to each other that they never set eyes on the man Higgs,
and they hope they never will; but they are the High Priests of the
religion of the Sun Child.
He is very indignant, and he comes up to them, and he says, "I am going
to expose all this humbug and tell the people of Erewhon that it was only I,
the man Higgs, and I went up in a balloon."

He was told, "You must not do that, because of all the morals of
this country are bound round this myth, and if they once know that you
did not ascend into Heaven they will all become wicked"; and so he
is persuaded of that and he goes quietly away.
That is the idea -- that we should "all be wicked" if we did
not hold to the Christian religion.
I find the idea that if some long-held tradition or belief
is exposed to be a lie or immoral or worse, that all people would
suddenly become wicked or even more immoral to lack any sort
of truth to it.
I'd think they'd consider themselves "free" instead, and be
able to abandon the things they found wrong with those rules or
ideas or beliefs that were passed on to them as being "holy" or
coming from some god or holy tribal leader.
I don't know any parent as I write this, that would actually encourage
and support the law about picking up sticks on the Sabbath
as being worthy of stoning to death by their own family or members of
the community, do you?

Russell doesn't seem to agree with my assessment, does he.

I don't know why that stuck in my mind. It could be I didn't
recognize the conclusion as parody, and it may be that I
accepted some critic's assessment. Could someone like Russell
ever be wrong? :-)

Elroy Willis wrote:

L. Raymond <badaddress@mylinuxisp.com> wrote in alt.atheism

The basic plot (I'm assuming you've not read either one) is that a
young man in New Zealand crosses a mountain range and enters the land
of Erewhon, where it is a crime to be sick or naive, and what we consider
criminal is treated as an illness.

A crime to be naive? That's interesting...
How exactly would that law be enforced?

The next case was that of a youth barely arrived
at man's estate, who was charged with having been
swindled out of a large property during his
minority by his guardian, who was also one of his
nearest relations. His father had been long dead,
and it was for this reason his offense came on for
trial in the Personal Bereavement Court. The lad,
who was undefended, pleaded he was young, inexperienced,
greatly in awe of his guardian, and without independent
professional advice.
"Young man," said the judge sternly, "do not talk nonsense.
People have no right to be young, inexperienced, greatly in awe
of their guardians, and without independent professional advice.

If by such indiscretions they outrage the moral sense of
their friends, they must expect to suffer accordingly."
He then ordered the prisoner to apologize to his guardian,
and to receive twelve strokes with a cat-o-nine-tails.

One of the other trials was of a man whose wife had just died. His
bereavement was grounds for prosecution, but his attorney argued he
didn't really love his wife and so shouldn't be jailed for his loss.
Unfortunately, the prosecution produced witnesses and proved he had in
fact loved his wife very much. Luckily, it was also demonstrated he had
recently insured his wife's life and was getting the full settlement
despite having only paid two premiums. That stroke of good luck offset
his bad luck, and he was let off with just a fine rather than six
month's hard labor.

I guess I should just read the books, eh?

Absolutely. Just the idea that the nearest neighbors to the
Erewhonians have a mortal fear of them based on the fact that when
they're captured they're sent to hospitals to be used as audiences for
the terminally boring is grounds for reading it.