The Bookworm Report
In
1999, I finally found a belief system with which
I was – I think I should say – "the most
comfortable."
It was with the Palm Coast, Florida,
Freethinkers. I really didn’t know
what
a "Freethinker" was but the meetings of that
organization appealed to me.
After
talking with the chairperson, Mimi
Cerniglia, individually on a number of
occasions
over the next few months, she suggested
I read a book by Bertrand Russell
titled:
Why I Am Not a Christian. It was a book
that greatly helped solidify many of my
thoughts
regarding questions I had been asking
myself – directly and indirectly –
since
the mid 1950's. However, I was then confronted
with that ugly demon of truth that
Carl
Sagan has identified as the "Bamboozle Factor."
Carl
Sagan has describes this ugly factor
in his book, The Demon Haunted
World.
On page 241 this is found: "One of the
saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve
been
bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject
any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re
no
longer interested in finding the truth. The bamboozle
has captured us. It’s simply too
painful
to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that
we’ve been taken . . . "
This
book by Bertrand Russell – Why I
am not a Christian – enabled me to ask the
questions
– if only of myself – that I previously
had not even considered. For me,
the
facts pointed a way to easily surmount the
"Bamboozle Factor."
For
this "Bookworm Report," I will simply
lift the description of this book from
the
back cover of the paperback edition that is
dated 1957.
"Dedicated
as few men have been to the
life of reason, Bertrand Russell has
always
been concerned with the basic questions
to which religion also addresses
itself–questions
about man’s place in the universe
and the nature of the good life,
questions
that involve life after death, morality,
freedom, education and sexual
ethics.
He brings to his treatment of these questions
the same courage, scrupulous
logic
and lofty wisdom for which his other work
as philosopher, writer and teacher has
been
famous. These qualities make the essays
included in this book perhaps the
most
graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker’s
position since the days of Hume
and
Voltaire.
"‘I
am as firmly convinced that religions
do harm as I am that they are
untrue,’
Russell declares in his Preface and his
reasoned opposition to any system or
dogma
which he feels may shackle man’s mind
runs through all these essays in this
book,
whether they were written as early as 1899
or as late as 1954.
"The
book has been edited, with Lord
Russell’s full approval and cooperation,
by
Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department
of New York University. In an
Appendix,
Professor Edwards contributes a full
account of the highly controversial
‘Bertrand
Russell Case’ of 1940, in which Russell
was judicially declared ‘unfit’ to teach
philosophy
at the College of the City of New York.
"Whether
the reader shares or rejects
Bertrand Russell’s views, he will find
this
book an invigorating challenge to set notions,
a masterly statement of a
philosophical
position, and a pure joy to read."
– Russell
Pizer
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