Since most of us no longer attend Sunday services, we do not benefit from wise, well-considered homilies. The following advice from the philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1959 resonates now more than ever, and would be a welcome message from most pulpits today, except, of course, from the hatemongering and crazed evangelicals so popular in Amerika these days.
In 1959 BERTRAND RUSSELL was asked what message he would most like to pass on to future generations.
H/t Michael Warburton
"only the facts and what the facts bare out not what you wish to believe or what you think would have social effects if it was to be believed ... look only and solely at the facts"
ReplyDeleteThis would get him branded as a transphobic , racist in any comment section.
Facts like "Gender affirming care = puberty blockers = stunting of human development = never becoming adult" or "penis = male; removed penis = male with no penis" ad infinitum .
Love over hatred is good , but I heard no mention of letting those who are incapable of his first plea for adherence to factuality dictating behavior to those who can separate fact from fiction.
Bertrand would be a vilified voice in the wilderness in this 1984 War is Peace; Truth is Lies; Up is Down world.
And here I thought that my comment was going to be about the "wise, well-considered homilies" which only coached the obedience to the invisible missing man in the sky.
I suspect that much of Russell's comments about facts came from the fact that he was also a mathematician and expert in logic, lunta. Views and interpretations of facts are variable. After all, when Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?", the Galilean offered no response.
DeleteThe 'truth' be it a daily diet a Saturday diet or a Sunday diet has never been the truth!
ReplyDeleteBertrams well meaning words are routed in his religious beliefs and not in the absolute truth of his mathmatics.
TB
It is advice, whether religious or not, that we would all do well to observe, TB, in my view.
DeleteAdvice for the ages, indeed, Lorne. Lots of us living today don't know who Russell was.
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have forgotten much in this age, Owen. Bromides and instant solutions, I guess, are preferred over the hard work of thinking thorough our actions.
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