They burn people don't they

[Zeno]

I had thought of posting the following essay (by Bertrand Russell, early 1950s) in continuation of some thoughts I had posted about in another thread but Rick's new post prompted me to post it now. The essay is about ten pages. It is well worth reading whether you agree with the ideas or conclusions. The main themes are troubling but very timely. Religious and economic themes are flushed out and nationalism is also discussed.

Below is an excert from this essay that may prompt some comments.

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I think that the evils that men inflict on each other, and by resection upon themselves, have their main source in evil passions rather than in ideas or beliefs. But ideas and principles that do harm are, as a rule, though not always, cloaks for evil passions. In Lisbon when heretics were publicly burnt, it sometimes happened that one of them, by a particularly edifying recantation, would be granted the boon of being strangled before being put into the flames. This would make the spectators so furious that the authorities had great difficulty in preventing them from lynching the penitent and burning him on their own account. The spectacle of the writhing torments of the victims was, in fact, one of the principal pleasures to which the populace looked forward to enliven a somewhat drab existence. I cannot doubt that this pleasure greatly contributed to the general belief that the burning of heretics was a righteous act.

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Link to essay:
Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind


-Zeno