(Continuing Bertrand Russell's "God and Religion")
Chapter 7 is "The Essence of Religion". Not much to say here.
Chapter 8 is "Religion and the Churches". I think Russell gives away his position on page 112, "The world is our world, and it rests with us to make it a heaven or a hell." This is works righteousness: our works, our deeds making the world right; making us right with God.
Chapter 9 is "A Debate on the Existence of God". There were a couple of interesting points brought out here, but overall, I found it overly complicated. Russell was debating F. C. Copleston (referred to as Father Copleston). On morality:
Copleston: "Yes, but what's your justification for distinguishing between good and bad or how do you view the distinction between them?"
Russell: "I don't have any justification any more than I have when I distinguish between blue and yellow..."
Russell sticks with this "blue versus yellow" analogy, which I don't understand. Blue is a range of wavelength of light (440-490 nm). He would be better off with "preferring ketchup versus mustard" or something...
But the main point is, he has no justification for distinguishing good and bad.
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2 comments:
"I think Russell gives away his position on page 112, "The world is our world, and it rests with us to make it a heaven or a hell." This is works righteousness: our works, our deeds making the world right; making us right with God."
Why am I not surprised that you don't understand what he's saying? He's saying that it is up to us to make this world a better or worse place, not some made up mythological figure.
"Russell sticks with this "blue versus yellow" analogy, which I don't understand."
No, you don't. He's not talking about preference.
"But the main point is, he has no justification for distinguishing good and bad."
Oops, forgot about this...
Why do you think Russell (or me by extension) has no justification for distinguishing good vs. evil? Where do you think you get it from? From god? If that were so, then slavery would not be evil, would it? I think you should try and answer Euthyphro's Dilemma.
Anyway, atheists can make objective determinations between good and evil, just as everyone else does. We get our morality from our culture, not the Bible. We also get it from evolution, as altruistic and moral behavior can be observed in other animals.
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