Pertinent (and impertinent) Bertrand Russell Quotes

[MineralMan]

Last edited Sat Nov 10, 2018, 02:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Bertrand Russell, the noted philosopher and Nobel Prize Laureate, is much-maligned by religionists. That's not surprising, I suppose, since he had much to say about religion in general. Here are a few quotes on that subject from a prolific writer and skeptic:

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"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." from Marriage and Morals, 1929

"Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case." from “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”

"We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions." from “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

"My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter." from Bertrand Russell on God and Religion

"Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic." from The New York Herald-Tribune Magazine, March 6, 1938.

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." from “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”

And finally,

"One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it." from Why I Am Not a Christian

[guillaumeb]

1. He is maligned not for his quotes, but for his intolerance.

But that type of intolerance is much favored by those who share it.

[MineralMan]

2. He was never intolerant.

He simply shared his opinion of things. And well-reasoned opinions they were, too.

[Major Nikon]

4. Russell was a champion for the repeal of anti-homosexuality laws

...during a time when few other intellectuals were doing so. While religionists not only originated such laws to begin with, but still are almost exclusively responsible for championing them to this day.

Very telling how someone calls Russell “intolerant” while simultaneously acting as a cheerleader for the pope who describes homosexuality as the work of the devil.

[MineralMan]

6. Yes. He was intolerant of intolerance.

I share that with him. Clearly our fellow DUer did not read the quotes in the OP for understanding.

[Major Nikon]

8. Tolerance does not require one to tolerate intolerance

Believing otherwise demonstrates subliteracy of the term.

[MineralMan]

10. Yes, exactly.

I am intolerant of many things, I admit. Racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and many others. I make no apology for that. Intolerance for things that harm others is right thinking.

[Major Nikon]

11. Even conflating those terms within the realm of religion is subliterate

One can simultaneously be intolerant of religious ideas while being tolerant of religionists. When one feels the need to continually pretend those two things are mutually inclusive, it simply demonstrates they have no idea what they are talking about and suggests they are a bit too emotionally attached to their mythology to entertain criticism of it.

[guillaumeb]

12. I am not surprised that you agree.

Given how your own opinions reflect his.

[Major Nikon]

20. Do you agree with Einstein?

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.”

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.

I find it utterly hilarious how you make a half-fast charge of intolerance against Russell while simultaneously holding up Einstein as a shining example of tolerance despite taking the exact same rhetoric even farther.

I wonder if you wish you could take back your latest train wreck of a thread. I'm going to favorite that one for times when I can use a good belly laugh.

[guillaumeb]

23. I agreed with the specific quote that I cited.

The one that you apparently misunderstood.

[Major Nikon]

26. Follow up to your revealing non-answer

Do you think Einstein is intolerant?

Your predictable non-answer here will be even more revealing.

[MineralMan]

29. Individual quotes are not the measure of a person.

You're just playing the "proof-texting" game here. Both Russell and Einstein have enormous bodies of work. Extracting a single quote that you think illustrates who they are is very, very weak sauce. In fact, your sauce has no flavor at all, due to its extreme dilution.

[guillaumeb]

43. You have discovered another phrase.

Have you abandoned whataboutism?

[MineralMan]

56. No. I have written a phrase,

note"discovered " one.

[Lordquinton]

39. Are you actually just flat ignoring these quotes?

This has to be the most hilarious thing you've done here.

[MineralMan]

40. Well, see, because I posted them, they are not relevant.

I probably made them up, anyhow...that's how it works.

guillaumeb is only interested in quotes that align with his opinion. Anything else is irrelevant, apparently.

[Major Nikon]

3. Your argument for his "intolerance" is nothing short of comedy gold

Please do keep repeating it for all those who have yet to fully realize the depths of such intellectual bankruptcy.

[MineralMan]

5. Words mean exactly what he wants them to mean

at any given moment.

[Major Nikon]

7. Subliteracy comes naturally

The cure is the ability to learn based on new information. Sadly such critical thinking skills are often indoctrinated against at an early age.

[MineralMan]

9. Perhaps. Some people reach their limit of

understanding early, and can go no farther, I think. A pity.

[guillaumeb]

13. You can rise above your indoctrination.

And everyone can learn.

[Major Nikon]

14. I wasn't indoctrinated

Were you?

Feel free to not answer if you are embarrassed about it.

[guillaumeb]

16. Of course you were. You simply cannot recognize it.

You were indoctrinated by your family, your schools, the society around you.

Perhaps you prefer the word "socialized".

[Major Nikon]

19. You should stay with canned responses

Indoctrination requires doctrine, and specifically teaching someone to accept a specific doctrine unquestioningly.

Along those lines, repeating this nonsense isn't indoctrination. It's just your usual argle-bargle.

[guillaumeb]

22. Again, you misunderstand.

[Major Nikon]

24. That was funny the first time. Now it's just banal.

[guillaumeb]

41. It was not meant to be funny.

It is a description.

[Major Nikon]

44. Pretty sad if that's the case

When you use the same lame excuse a hundred times or more at some point most folks are going to start to wonder why they are so often misunderstood and will start to look inward. If you really are serious, then really the best that can be said is you are unintentionally hilarious.

[guillaumeb]

46. The Chinese government indoctrinates Muslims

to become atheists.

[Major Nikon]

50. So where would I go to read atheist doctrine?

You keep repeating nonsense as if it’s going to become something else. Ironically this tactic can be found within various doctrines of propaganda which is actually what the Chinese are doing.

[guillaumeb]

51. Do you deny what the Chinese are doing?

[Major Nikon]

53. I just told you what the Chinese are doing

Are you suggesting I was indoctrinated into atheism?

[Mariana]

33. Gil really, really doesn't like it

when someone (correctly) uses the word "indoctrination" to refer to the process of teaching religion to children.

[Major Nikon]

35. When you define the word to mean everything, it means nothing

So the motivation is obvious, albeit childish in method.

It is possible to teach religion to children without indoctrination, but that would defeat the point.

[guillaumeb]

45. And some do not understand that indoctrination and socialization

describe much the same process.

[Mariana]

48. If that is true

why then do you object to the correct use of the word indoctrination?

[guillaumeb]

49. #13 and #14

[Major Nikon]

54. Perhaps to the subliterate

[MineralMan]

15. That is true, certainly.

From age 6, I was subjected to a standard Presbyterian Sunday School education. It made every attempt to indoctrinate me into the religious beliefs of that denomination of Christianity, including predestination, one of the hallmarks of Presbyterianism. For almost 12 years, I absorbed that indoctrination.

Eventually, though, I began questioning it. As I learned more about things from other sources, including school and my own voracious reading, it became more and more difficult to integrate the myths of Christianity with what I was learning elsewhere. Being a curious sort of young person, I sought more and more information to help me work out the conflicts between mythology and the real world that was being described elsewhere.

Integration was eventually clearly impossible A choice had to be made. Either the mythology was correct or the information about reality was correct. It was a simple decision, really. I did rise above that indoctrination, and by the time I was 19, I was an atheist, and put aside all of that indoctrination.

Now that I am 73 years old, I have continued my education, both formally and as the autodidact that I turned out to be. Nothing has ever led me toward returning to the mythology I learned so well as a child. Indeed, everything I have learned has led me in the other direction.

So, you are correct. It is possible to learn one's way out of myth and indoctrination. I highly recommend doing so. It clarifies everything.

[guillaumeb]

17. But that reading depends on your ability to choose what you read,

and to understand what you read.

And to understand the limits of your own ability to arrive at a correct conclusion.

[MineralMan]

18. Yes, and...?

[guillaumeb]

21. I thought it was quite clear.

[MineralMan]

30. Your thought was incorrect.

You have no idea what my education consists of, nor what I have read, nor how I selected what to read. Your assumptions are incorrect because of your lack of knowledge of me.

I gave a summary of my early indoctrination and of how I escaped from that into a more enlightened state. I provided no reading lists or other information. Just a summary. From that, you draw false conclusions.

[Major Nikon]

37. You also thought deism is just another form of theism

Not you mention your most recent train wreck of thinking Bertrand Russell was "extremely intolerant".

I find it quite telling you frequently accuse others of not understanding you. It's not as if that condition isn't recognizable. Amazing what you reveal about yourself without even trying, eh?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

52. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,

“it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that's all.”

[MineralMan]

57. Just what I was thinking about. Thanks!

I had forgotten the reference.

[trotsky]

27. PLEASE show an example of what YOU think illustrates Russell's "intolerance."

I bet you won't, though.

[MineralMan]

31. He showed you one quotation from Russell. One.

Out of an enormous body of work. It might well be the only quotation he has to work with. It meets his preconceptions, though, so he uses it to illustrate those misconceptions of the man.

Others have presented other statements of Russell's, as well as other statements by Einstein, who he fallaciously compares with Russell, again with a single often-used quotation. He was not aware of the other things Einstein said, which were similar to Russell's statement. The two men were familiar with each other and had high regard for each other.

They even collaborated on a manifesto against warfare and the use of nuclear weapons. I referenced that in another post. But, guillaumeb has one quotation from each of them to offer, and no more.

[trotsky]

32. Oh didn't dive in far enough.

That's it??

It takes a remarkable persecution complex to imagine that's "intolerance." Did he bother looking up the meaning of the word, or just hastily craft his own custom definition as usual?

[MineralMan]

34. Someone posted a video of Bertrand Russell calling for tolerance.

In reality, Russell was a person who promoted tolerance. However, he opined about religion and those who followed it. He looked at religious belief from a logical perspective and found it wanting. Many of us feel the same way.

He wrote about such things, and spoke about them. He was a philosopher. That's what they do. Intolerance requires some sort of action that affects others. I doubt anyone will find any evidence that Bertrand Russell ever displayed actual intolerance. Why? Because intolerance is no more logical than religious belief. Indeed, religious belief often leads to intolerance. Of that there is ample evidence throughout history.

It's always amusing when the dominant religion in a particular society cries out that it is being persecuted. Amusing, because it is almost always that dominant religion that is doing the persecuting. Common sense dictates that one not poke at a bear with a stick. It's unsafe to do so. The dominant philosophy or religion of a culture is dominant for a reason. They are not going to be the persecuted, but rather the persecutor.

It would be funny if it were not so sad and frightening, really.

[guillaumeb]

42. Bertrand Russell on tolerance:

The white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence…. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary. ––The Prospects of Individual Civilization, 1923

In extreme cases, there can be little doubt of the superiority of one race to another. North America, Australia and New Zealand certainly contribute more to the civilisation of the world than they would do if they were still peopled by aborigines. It seems on the whole fair to regard Negroes as on the average inferior to white men, although for work in the tropics they are indispensable, so that their extermination (apart from the question of humanity) would be highly undesirable. ––Marriage and Morals, 1929

https://greatmindsonrace.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/bertrand-russell/

Luckily, he evolved from these positions.

[Major Nikon]

36. It gets even better

He doubled down on his half-fast allegation of "extreme intolerance" by claiming "Russel's(sic) intolerance for theists is well known.". When asked for anyone else who thought so, his response was predictably <crickets>.

As he doesn't seem to be capable of much original thought, I suspect some mindless fanatic said so and he's simply regurgitating the ignorance.

[MineralMan]

38. When the pool that is available is very shallow,

deep dives are ill-advised, i think.

[Permanut]

25. And finally, a not so short quote..

from "Why I am not a Christian":

“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. 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 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 fit place to live in, instead of the place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

[MineralMan]

28. Thanks for adding that!

[guillaumeb]

47. Have you ever read Russell's early quotes about the races?

Interesting reading.

[Cattledog]

55. Great quotes.