Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (1872–1970) was a 20th century philosopher, mathematician and atheist and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 for his writings.

The evidence points to Bertrand Russell being a "weak atheist" or there is a remote possibility that he was an agnostic (Bertrand Russell wrote an essay entitled Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?). In 1927, Bertrand Russell wrote an irrational essay entitled "Why I am not a Christian" which was based on a lecture Russell gave the same year. Below are some works by Christian apologists which show the inconsistencies and logical fallacies of Bertrand Russell's essay:

• Critique of Bertrand Russell's essay "Why I am not a Christian" by Dr. Greg Bahnsen

• Why Bertrand Russell was not a Christian by Rev. Ralph Allan Smith (1996)

• Bertrand Russell and Christianity by the Christian Courier

Russell visited the Soviet Union and met Lenin in 1920. In a tract, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, he wrote "I believe that Communism is necessary to the world, and I believe ... Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind. But the method by which Moscow aims at establishing Communism is a pioneer method, rough and dangerous, too heroic to count the cost of the opposition it arouses. I do not believe that by this method a stable or desirable form of Communism can be established. Three issues seem to me possible from the present situation:

• The ultimate defeat of Bolshevism by the forces of capitalism
• The victory of the Bolshevists accompanied by a complete loss of their ideals and a régime of Napoleonic imperialism
• A prolonged world-war, in which civilization will go under, and all its manifestations (including Communism) will be forgotten.

Russell wrote further:

"To understand Bolshevism it is not sufficient to know facts; it is necessary also to enter with sympathy or imagination into a new spirit. The chief thing that the Bolsheviks have done is to create a hope, or at any rate to make strong and widespread a hope which was formerly confined to a few... I cannot share the hopes of the Bolsheviks any more than those of the Egyptian anchorites; I regard both as tragic delusions, destined to bring upon the world centuries of darkness and futile violence... I do not know whether Bolshevism can be prevented from acquiring universal power. But even if it cannot, I am persuaded that those who stand out against it, not from love of ancient injustice, but in the name of the free spirit of Man, will be the bearers of the seeds of progress, from which, when the world's gestation is accomplished, new life will be born."

Russell's most significant early work was a three-volume attempt to derive all mathematical principles from a well-defined set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic, entitled Principia Mathematica (1910-1913). He published this work with Alfred North Whitehead. Although the Principia is widely considered by one of the most important and seminal works in logic and philosophy, part of its success was in inspiring others to question its propositions. In 1931, Kurt Godel proved that what Russell attempted could not possibly be both consistent and complete.

During the Cold War he advocated nuclear disarmament, even if it were unilateral on the part of Western powers, a stance mocked as "better Red than dead."

A member of British nobility with the title of "Earl", Russell remained a hero to those on the political left, particularly in the English-speaking world, throughout his life. In his 1929 book Marriage and Morals, he argued that that sex between a man and woman who are not married to each other is not necessarily immoral if they truly love one another. In the 1960's he became a vocal critic of the Vietnam War.

Russell also famously encapsulated the dilemma faced by all those seeking objective moral truths in the face of almost overwhelming logical evidence to the contrary:

"I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it."

Philosophy, 1960, "Notes on Philosophy"

Contributions to Mathematics and Philosophy

Bertrand Russell was particularly known for the famous "Russell's Paradox", which wrecked havoc on intuitivistic set theory. The basic restatement of the paradox is the following: suppose there is a predicate "x is a set that does not contain itself", does the set that is the extension of that predicate contain itself. To solve this, Russell came up with the incomprehensibly complex theory of types, which was later abandoned in favour of the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms.

Russell's numerous writings had a significant influence on mathematical logic and philosophy. His works contributed to the many branches of science even though he discredited some of his earlier writings.

The Principles of Mathematics (1902) Principia Mathematica (1910-13) The ABC of Relativity (1925) Education and the Social Order (1932) A History of Western Philosophy (1945) The Impact of Science upon Society (1952) My Philosophical Development (1959) War Crimes in Vietnam (1967) Our Knowledge of the External World (1926) Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1962)