Bertrand Russell: What He Believed

Readers of this blog know that Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) is one of my intellectual heroes. In his short volume, What I Believe (1925), he sets out views on a variety of topics including religion. Here is some of his marvelous prose:

God and immortality … find no support in science… No doubt people will continue to entertain these beliefs, because they are pleasant, just as it is pleasant to think ourselves virtuous and our enemies wicked. But for my part I cannot see any ground for either … All the evidence goes to show that what we regard as our mental life is bound up with brain structure and organized bodily energy. Therefore it is rational to suppose that mental life ceases when bodily life ceases.

Still Russell knows that rational arguments will not convince most people. “Believers in immortality will object to physiological arguments [against personal immortality] on the ground that soul and body are totally disparate … I believe this to be a metaphysical superstition. ” And Russell believes that the desire for immortality is rooted in our fear of death

Fear is the basis of religious dogma … fear of nature that gives rise to religion … we cannot prevent death … [but] immortality removes the terror from death. People who believe that when they die they will inherit eternal bliss may be expected to view death without horror …

The most accessible source for Russell’s view on religion is the classic  is the classic Why I Am Not a Christian. I would highly recommend it to readers who want to investigate these issues further.