 Perhaps most importantly, Russell opened the door to the demystification of religion, writing in plain language at a time when people had been told that serious discussions about religion required a detailed knowledge of Latin and church history. The result was twofold: first, that many people came to understand religion as a subject about which they were entitled to develop their own beliefs and views; second, that arguments from ecclesiastical authority suddenly became less formidable and less influential than they had been for centuries. In this respect, it is not too much to say that Russell did as much to usher in the twentieth century’s age of secularism as Luther did to usher in the sixteenth century’s age of Protestantism. As the Nobel Prize committee noted, the 1950 award went to Russell “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought” (Nobel Media 2020). Russell himself reports that he received the award primarily for his anti-religious book, Marriage and Morals (1969, 30). 