Bertrand Russell
After watching Expelled last night, I felt the need for some more intelligent discourse today, so I've been reading from the other side of the debate today. Here are some selections from Bertrand Russell's "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish" (reprinted in Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist):I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious--for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply, "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious. (184)
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. (201)
I admire especially a certain prophetess who lived beside a lek in Northern New York State in the year 1820. She announced to her numerous followers that she possessed the power of walking on water, and that she proposed to do at 11 o'clock on a certain morning. At the stated time, the faithful assembled in their thousands beside the lake. She spoke to them, saying: "Are you all entirely persuaded that I can walk on water?" With one voice they replied: "We are." "In that case," she announced, "there is not need for me to do so." And they all went home much edified. (206)
Watching Russell poke fun of the oddities of religious thought and misplaced certainty is great fun (and I particularly love the prophetess of the third quote; I still wish that logic of faith would work on my professors), but the next quote is more serious. It presents an idea that was for me one of the first movements away from my religious upbringing:I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures [e.g., not allowing people dying from cancer to choose euthanasia and end their suffering]; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity. (184)
The first real questions I had about religion were wrapped up in this very difficulty. A God who could condemn people to hell forever for not agreeing with Him is not the kind of God I want to believe in and not the kind of God I was taught to believe in as a child.
Thanks to Bertrand Russell for effectively ridding my mind of the Ben Stein aftertaste.
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. (201)
I admire especially a certain prophetess who lived beside a lek in Northern New York State in the year 1820. She announced to her numerous followers that she possessed the power of walking on water, and that she proposed to do at 11 o'clock on a certain morning. At the stated time, the faithful assembled in their thousands beside the lake. She spoke to them, saying: "Are you all entirely persuaded that I can walk on water?" With one voice they replied: "We are." "In that case," she announced, "there is not need for me to do so." And they all went home much edified. (206)
Watching Russell poke fun of the oddities of religious thought and misplaced certainty is great fun (and I particularly love the prophetess of the third quote; I still wish that logic of faith would work on my professors), but the next quote is more serious. It presents an idea that was for me one of the first movements away from my religious upbringing:I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures [e.g., not allowing people dying from cancer to choose euthanasia and end their suffering]; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity. (184)
The first real questions I had about religion were wrapped up in this very difficulty. A God who could condemn people to hell forever for not agreeing with Him is not the kind of God I want to believe in and not the kind of God I was taught to believe in as a child.
Thanks to Bertrand Russell for effectively ridding my mind of the Ben Stein aftertaste.