Bertrand Russell appreciation thread

[pokerfan]

[center]








Fear, the Foundation of Religion[/center]
[font color="black" face="georgia"]Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.[/font]

[center]What We Must Do[/center]
[font color="black" face="georgia"]We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

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Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian" [/font]

[libodem]

1. I remenber a large hard back book

Around our house, as a kid, with a dust jacket that had a picture of a statue of the 'thinker' on it. I think it was this author.

[freshwest]

11. I was given a black, white and yellow paperback of Russell's 'The Will To Doubt.'

After my father died as I turned 14 by a cousin. The book made sense to me.

[libodem]

13. A true treasure

You started your journey young and on the right foot.

[rhett o rick]

2. Makes way to much sense. Trying to figure things out is hard, having faith is easy.

Mr. Russell never drank the kool-ade.

[Scuba]

3. ...

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

[pokerfan]

5. That's one of my favorites

I believe the original form is:

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points. This was not always the case.

"The Triumph of Stupidity" (10 May 1933), p. 203-204.

[Scuba]

6. My grandmother shortened it to "A wise man will change his mind. A fool never will."

Still works.

[Orrex]

7. The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Last edited Sat Feb 16, 2013, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Are full of passionate intensity.

Not Russell, of course, but the sentiment is the same and just as certainly true, alas.

[Warpy]

4. I didn't kid myself that any of it was true by the time I was 10

and that made me feel isolated and ashamed.

At 12, I discovered Bertrand Russell, who not only told me there were other people like me, but that it was actually an advantage to put away childish fairy stories and concentrate on reality.

I will always be grateful to him and to the brave people who published his works at the height of their unpopularity.

[ReRe]

8. Bertrand Russell....

K&R

.... I read allot of Bertrand Russell in my younger days. Thank you so much for this appreciation thread, because he certainly deserves it. All you young whipper-snappers out there who have never heard of Bertrand Russell need to hit the stacks at the library and read his words. He will certainly open your mind and do some housekeeping, sweeping away all of those nasty preconceptions that clutter it up and hold you back from serious "thinking." He will defrag your mind.

[LeftishBrit]

9. k&r

[mr blur]

10. Listen to "Why I Am Not a Christian" by Bertrand Russell.

Read by Actor Terrance Hardiman:

Essential stuff.

[freshwest]

12. 'What We Must Do' - great.

[NeoGreen]

14. His book "Why I am Not a Christian...

... was one of the first "Atheist" I books I ever read.

It articulated ideas I had always known but could never find the way to properly express.

It still remains one of my favorites, and has a prominent place on my bookshelf.

Thank you Mr. Russell

and thank you pokerfan