Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018Mr. Russell was obviously a very intelligent man, and he chose his friends well, including Wittgenstein, Whitehead and many
others. In this book he presents his views and background on Christianity and religion in general. While brought up as a
rationalist, it seems that the decisive moment for him was reading Mill's rejection of the argument from first cause. A lot
of his arguments are worth reading because they express in a more sophisticated way what a lot of people think, such
as the views on sexuality, education and war and peace. Interestingly, he expected Catholics to dominate America and
especially Boston over the next 50 to 100 years (i.e. now) but the demographics changed due to birth control. He also
notes that Freud was highly rational but the Freudians tend to dismiss any notion that people might act out of rational
considerations. Since Russell rejected free will, why spend so much effort trying to will what is rational? And if religion
is made up for comfort, why does it include the possibility of hell as well as heaven? There also were some areas where
he could have done more research. For instance, he noted that because of Christianity's emphasis on the individual soul,
there have been no saints canonized for social justice. Well this was before Mother Teresa, but what about Vincent de Paul,
John of God, Frances of Rome and many others? Even John Chrysostom was highly oriented toward the love of neighbor.
At least he gave props to St. Paul on the hymn to love from 1 Cor 13. Finally, Russell's BBC debates with Frederick Copleston
were outstanding, and these days should be available at Youtube or elsewhere.
