| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"BLUERHYMER" |
| Date: |
03 Jan 2005 06:57:14 PM |
| Object: |
Slay the dragon that guards the door, |
On entering adult life, a young person so educated will find himself or herself
plunged into a world full of injustice, full of cruelty, full of preventable
misery. The injustice, the cruelty, and the misery that exist in the modern
world are an inheritance from the past, and their ultimate source is economic,
since life-and-death competition for the means of subsistence was in former
days inevitable. It is not inevitable in our age. With our present industrial
technique we can, if we choose, provide a tolerable subsistence for everybody.
We could also secure that the world's population should be stationary if we
were not prevented by the political influence of churches which prefer war,
pestilence, and famine to contraception. The knowledge exists by which
universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization for
that purpose is the teaching of religion. Religion prevents our children from
having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental
causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific
co-operation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is
possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will
be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is
religion.
--- Bertrand Russell
"Why I am not a Christian" (1936)
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (May 18, 1872 - February 2,
1970) was one of the most influential mathematicians, philosophers and
logicians working (mostly) in the 20th century, an important political liberal,
activist and a populariser of philosophy. Millions looked up to Russell as a
sort of prophet of the creative and rational life; at the same time, his stance
on many topics was extremely controversial. He was born in 1872, at the height
of Britain's economic and political ascendancy, and died of influenza in 1970,
when Britain's empire had all but vanished and her power had been drained in
two victorious but debilitating world wars. At his death, however, his voice
still carried MORAL AUTHORITY, for he was one of the world's most influential
critics of nuclear weapons and the American war in Vietnam.
In 1950, Russell was made Nobel Laureate in Literature "in recognition of his
varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and
freedom of thought
Let us prey
.
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| User: "Ike" |
|
| Title: Re: Slay the dragon that guards the door, |
04 Jan 2005 11:46:02 AM |
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"BLUERHYMER" <bluerhymer@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20050103195714.16224.00002693@mb-m02.aol.com...
On entering adult life, a young person so educated will find himself or
herself
plunged into a world full of injustice, full of cruelty, full of
preventable
misery.
Why wait till then?
The injustice, the cruelty, and the misery that exist in the modern
world are an inheritance from the past, and their ultimate source is
economic,
since life-and-death competition for the means of subsistence was in
former
days inevitable. It is not inevitable in our age.
Not inevitable? Prase the Lords!
With our present industrial
technique we can, if we choose, provide a tolerable subsistence for
everybody.
We could also secure that the world's population should be stationary if
we
were not prevented by the political influence of churches which prefer
war,
pestilence, and famine to contraception.
The damn churches won't let manking stop making fucking babies.
The knowledge exists by which
universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization
for
that purpose is the teaching of religion.
Utilization of universal happiness is being blocked by the naughty churces.
<Snipped a bunch of time-wasting drivel, not a moment too soon.>
--
The argument that everything had a Creator because it's too complicated, is
about as reasonable as saying that it couldn't have been created since it's
too complicated.
It's about like saying that a super flea created a dog. Then
the good fleas go to a great dog in the sky, while the bad unbelieving fleas
are scratched off into a super rug to be forever hungry. If you think dogs
weren't created by a Great Flea then you are an atheist flea.
.
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