From the Bookshelf of Atheists and Skeptics…

Religion and Science

Bertrand Russell

Discussion: General

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 145 topics — 4,882 comments total

General

* Goodreads/Group policies - Discussion Thread
By Will · 54 posts · 169 views

last updated Nov 07, 2024 11:34AM

"Religion: The Original Pyramid Scheme?"
By Brad · 1 post · 3 views

last updated Aug 16, 2025 12:14PM

What Members Thought

Mar 22, 2008 Mark Gowan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

With a title like "Religion and Science" one might be apt to believe that this is a book of comparative essays, conflicting viewpoints one might say. However, what Russell really does is to offer first a historical view of religion's relationship with science and then in latter writings, how that relationship went wrong.

From metaphyscial meanderings to epistemological epiphanies Russell points out that the truth of the matter is: religion has been in the business of either editing or censuring s ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 31, 2012 David S. T. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, philosophy

In this book Russell discusses Religion and Science with some of their historical conflicts. Russell was an atheist and I think one can easily guess who the victor was in any matter where religion and science conflict. Overall compared to some of the new atheist books this one wasn't very harsh on religion, I think at the time Russell was more concerned with the growing regimes in Germany (National Socialism) and Russian Communism. It seemed he was thinking that Christianity was taking a more to In this book Russell discusses Religion and Science with some of their historical conflicts. Russell was an atheist and I think one can easily guess who the victor was in any matter where religion and science conflict. Overall compared to some of the new atheist books this one wasn't very harsh on religion, I think at the time Russell was more concerned with the growing regimes in Germany (National Socialism) and Russian Communism. It seemed he was thinking that Christianity was taking a more tolerant and liberal approach, I'm not sure that's still the case.

As for the book itself, while slightly biased, I found it pretty interesting. It starts off with the Copernican revolution and I found the quotes from Calvin and Luther pretty interesting, basically both said that the earth is still and the sun revolves around it, to argue otherwise is to place the opinions of man over scripture. Luther -- "This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth". Calvin -- "Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"(p23) No doubt this sounds pretty familiar to today's young earth creationist who stand by their view of scripture over the scientific consensus and perhaps this embarrassing episode from two of the biggest Protestant founders should serve as a warning for today's theologians, their views on the rotation of the earth seem highly ignorant by today's standards.

I'm not going to go much deeper into the book. It's full of stories of scientific discoveries and the Christian / Islamic responses at the time. These days many of the scientific theories seem common sense today and its hard to imagine there being that much of a struggle over it (I remember one example where some Clergymen regarded vaccinations as "bidding defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God", now days if someone refused to get a shot because they're going against god, many of us would look at them like they were crazy(p104)). I liked getting this history lesson and I found the book to be a worthwhile read. ...more

1 like · Like · see review