Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell (a Nobel Prize winner in literature) did not believe in religion. He stated that religious documents are not verifiable. He claims that since religion causes so many wars and that it does more bad then good, it must be a fallacy and that we must face the facts that religion is not real, like Santa. I feel he does raise so fair points, but that does not prove anything. What we perceive as bad may actually be a good thing, we just don’t know. He also says that there is not life after death, and that there is no reason why there should be. Russell declares that there is no real evidence to prove religion, directly or indirectly. Russell explains on pages 15-16 of the handout, “The evidence for the Christian scheme of things is The Bible; the evidence for the scientific world is observation and induction. Science asks on what ground The Bible account should be accepted. Were the authors of the Pentateuch present at Creation? Obviously not. Can we believe that God revealed inquirer to know which to believe?” Russell stresses that the only reason people believe religion is fear and the religion controls people. I feel yes the may be true, but if people truly did not believe religion they would not have any fear at all. In conclusion, Russell does have a few good ideas against religion, but for me they do not prove to nonexistence of the matter.

Like Russell, Hume took the same view on religion. He took an opposed view on religion also. He felt that religion was just a mystical experience. Hume felt that religion was good, in the fact that it gave for a wonderful feeling for some, but that was all. There is no more to religion other then the feeling of bliss it can bring. Hume used Aquinas’ idea of the design argument. It said that in religion, nobody ever looks at the negatives, just the positive. He also used the idea, “cosmological argument”. Which said that we tend to use metaphors way too much and the way you think stuff works (like religion) depends on the metaphor you use? In the case of religion, the universe is looked at as a machine and someone had to start that machine (the universe). Furthermore, he argues that we should not believe religion because it is based on scriptures from something that was written down over 2,000 years ago. The reason we should not believe ideas from this time is because scribes tended to over exaggerate what they write. Although a weaker argument, Hume says that we should not believe because of miracles, which are based on ignorance. We should try to figure out why they occur and not use God as an escape.