Even Bertrand Russell made this mistake

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Feb 3, 2022 at 17:45

Dear Dr Pipes, M Tovey is entirely correct when he said that criticism of religion can sometimes include criticism of spirituality.
When I said that criticism of religions is vitally important, I did not mean the criticism of spirirituality. I believe that spirituality and faith must be protected from criticism much as possible.

What should be open to criticism, however, are religions' intrusions in relatively secular subject matters like law, finance, personal habits, medicine and such. Islam intrudes into these areas like none other and that is what I am questioning.

On a related note, confusing between religion and spirituality is entirely possible. Bertrand Russell - as smart as he was - thoroughly messed up this issue in his famous essay, "Why I am not a Christian". His entire essay was a criticism of faith, God, and theism. He did not criticize Christianity much in that essay any more than he criticized theism as a matter of practice. Russell should have entitled his essay, "Why I am not a theist".

Spirituality is what can unite different religions and make them respect each other. Unfortunately, not many religions realize this simple fact.

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