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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Why Bertrand Russell was not a Christian
Message-ID: <398@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Oct-84 21:24:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.398
Posted: Thu Oct 18 21:24:35 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Oct-84 06:55:12 EDT
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> While BR writes for a Christian
> audience, and so uses Christian examples, in the preface of my edition he
> writes:

> "...I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are
> untrue... [ommitted list of evils of religions]... The above evils are
> independent of the particular creed in question and exist equally in all
> creeds which are held dogmatically...."

> BR makes those same points repeatedly through the text.

> Now, why don't you show how his arguments in the title essay under the
> headings "The First Cause Argument", "The Natural Law Argument", and
> "The argument From Design" are just rationalizations of his dislike for
> Christianity , as you suggest above?

> Mike Huybensz

All those arguements that Russell cites are from Aquinas, and, while admit
that he was a brilliant man, those arguements have been discredited among
the protestants for hundreds of years (and certainly in this century).  His
arguments are the equivalent of saying that since Democritus' idea of atoms
was mostly wrong, therefore the notion of atoms should be discredited.

The only parts of his argument that are worth a grain of salt are his
arguments referring to the evils men have done in the name of religion.
And the problem is that these arguments apply equally well to any
philosophical position that any large group of people have claimed
allegiance to or will do so to in the future.  Men revel in the practice of
evil regardless of religious persuasion; christianity has not made evil more
common.  It has made it more obvious.

Charley Wingate

P.S. Mike, you and I appear to have the same edition.