Wednesday 2 July 2008

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell is often considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time and having been impressed by his teapot argument i thought i would try reading one of his books. So i bought 'why i am not a christian' So far it is really good, most of the arguments are ones i already know (such as who made god) but this one was new to me:

Christ tells us to become as little children, but little children cannot understand the differential calculus, or the principles of currency, or the modern methods of combating disease. To acquire such knowledge is no part of our duty, according to the church.

This bit is online here (although id recomed buying the book):

His most famous essay can be found here

This guy is an even bigger genius than I was expecting

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike, would you care to answer for Russell?

From the link you provided:

"My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."

So Mike, how do you suppose Russell would answer how he can know that religion is a disease?

According to the Bible, the disease is our Sin, and Sin is the reason that the disease is difficult to see.

God Bless,
johnny

Mike is Wright said...

well religion is bad and you catch it because of memes so it is a disease.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe Betrand Russel came up with such a crappy argument.

Anonymous said...

Although, I have to say, I'm impressed that you went and did SOME research. Well done!

Anonymous said...

MIKE said:
well religion is bad and you catch it because of memes so it is a disease.


Mike, if you keep that up, people are going to start naming fallacies after you.

OK, since you've begged many questions again, prove that religion is bad. (and that's going to be a very tough one for you to prove, even if you had B. Russell's mind) After you've proved that, then we can come back and have you prove that it can be caught.... and after that, you can then prove that memes 1)exist AND 2)are the only explanation for religions.

And, when you think that you've actually bailed your precious atheism out, then you get to prove that your atheistic beliefs are somehow immuned from the same accusations that you THINK religions fall under.


Like i said earlier, i'm still waiting for you to present an actual argument... can you do that?


God Bless,
johnny