Russell's Glitch!

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

05.31.06.1307

Lo, cometh I—from the brief lapse of nonexistence. Would I exist here if record showed, or would the conceptual time dictate the condition of existence? Nay to the answer say I, for to know it is an abstract of perception; ergo the topic here is presented:

I have recently, and finally I might add, taken the desired “time” to buy and begin reading Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian. It is indeed a great read, and certainly a very easy one at that—that I could go on to argue that the ease of reading would be attributed to the possibility that Russell intended it to be understood even by the layman. However, the greatness of this avid collection of essays tailing the short and sweet speech is not truly the topic of this thread. I present, at the very least in my perception, a problem of context within Lord Bertie’s writing.

Russell does a good job often of supplementing his knowledge of Biblical context with actual reference to the verse which his argument is pertaining to. However, in some instances, he talks about something in the Bible without a referenced verse to back it up. Usually, I let these instances go because I, like anyone who has studied the Bible, understood to what context his thoughts were browsing upon. However, one instance—so far in my reading—I was rather slightly perturbed to read something that was not backed up; which should have been.

In the Touchstone Simon & Schuster publication of this work; under the essay: Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (Page 25: Continuation of Paragraph 2: Line 11)—Lord Russell states:
“Christ taught that you should give your goods to the poor, that you should not fight, that you should not go to church, and that you should not punish adultery.”

Okay… give goods to poor; check… no fighting; check… not go to church… uhm… and… not punish adultery? I am rather perplexed by these last two parts. The point of this thread is a request of clarification to back up these references. I’m not sure where in the New Testament of the Bible that Jesus say you should not go to church, but I can say that Matthew 5:27-30 states pretty clearly a rather morbid punishment to adultery.

So, I’d like some help finding where the Bible denotes Christ saying to not go to church; and if that too is a contradiction like the adultery comment, then what are your thoughts on this strange incorrect reference Russell has made?

Lo, the glitch I have found!

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Not that I spent all night with the project or anything, but I took a moment looking for Russell’s claims and, as yourself, had no results. It is a bit puzzling - and in turn, a rather nice find - insofar as it is such a blatant error on such a significant yet simplistic issue.

But then, I’ve never much cared for Russell anyway. I only own two of his books, and I don’t believe I finished either one.

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Christ inviting people to eschew ecclesial gatherings would be nonsense in a strict sense. An anacronism, if you may. Jesus was born in Bethleem and, as it goes, lived most of life living, travelling and preaching within Jewish lands. He was, after all, Jewish. Not only that, but He was raised Jewish, meaning that He had been taught to observe the Law. Consequently, the Law states nothing about church, the Jews having as primary veneration site The Temple, and various sinagogues for those living in diaspora. Churches appeared only after the implementation of Christianity on a social level (after Christ’s death), responding to the need of Christians to own and use a common meeting place. The Greek word for church, ecclesia, means gathering I think.

With waffle arguments like this, it might come up that Russell actually had no substantial reasons for not being a Christian.

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Hilarious, Scevola. =D>

Not only was Russell not a christian, but he was not even not a christian.

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06.01.06.1308

For not even taking the entire night, I still thank you for your comments. I found that Matthew 16:17-19 expounds on the building of a church in the name of Christ, and that Peter should inherit the keys to the Gates of Heaven, but as everything else in the Bible; vague explainations ensue a prismatic interpretation of perspectives. We should of course come to note that Russell is still human, and capable of even some error under the assumed circumstance of haste. It reflects a valuable lesson to writers—if you do not check your work, your readers will.

Oh, which two? Besides the one currently in question, I have his magnum opus—The History of Western Philosophy—an intriguing read to say the least.

Waffle argument… I don’t think I’ve heard that one before; but I do think I will join with the most honorable détrop in the humor you have created. Tell us Scevola, have you read Russell critically?

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Sagesound, Sceptical Essays and the volume in question are the ones I own, to get that out of the way.

As for the verse, similarly, I was able to find several suggestions relative to what ultimately reduces to ‘the world may serve as church’, but it’s worth noting many of the references to ‘church’ in the NT refer to ‘assembly’ which is the group of gathered people to worship Jesus, not the building in which they do so. Russell almost seems to be thinking of church in the modern sense, about which, as we’ve covered, Jesus says little to nothing.

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06.02.06.1309

I don’t think I’ve touched that one yet, but it sounds skeptical. (pun intended)

Point taken! Again I thank you for your insights on this matter. However, we can at least conceed to agree that still Russell seemed to have left the matter of adultery unattended. Perhaps, if we take your point into consideration, that adultery too was not meant literally. When Jesus appears before the crowd attempting to stone Mary Magdalene to death, a rather ludicrous scene as Magdalene is so vaguely displayed in the NT, his intervention hints one of noncondemnation. Perhaps this is what Russell was referring to?

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It doesn’t hint at noncondemnation, per se; it just implies the Father alone ought judge. Jesus still makes clear the act is sin, just not one whereby other sinners ought be in position to condemn (ie stone). He is saying ‘all sin is equal; all sinners, equal’. So when Russell says ‘you should not punish adultry’ [emphasis mine], he’s certainly not wrong in the strict sense.

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I made it up, although I’ve heard “waffle” being used pejoratively before.

Nope. I haven’t, sorry.

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.

Obviously christs words will have been taken differently by different people according to their own way of thinking . " Matthew 5:27-30 states pretty clearly a rather morbid punishment to adultery " . But this does,nt make Matthew right , he was just being himself , and those were the times the disciples lived in .

People should forget about attaching too much importance to the disciples I think and concentrate more on the Man Jesus himself if they are interested in christianity . The disciples are just that , followers , who have their own opinion , some of them wrong , we should,nt assume them all to be right , that would make a sham of the new testament . To understand we also need to use our instincts and intuition .

The fact that the gospels all say slightly different things if anything makes them all the more believable . This is the true nature of testament , that it is different

.

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Nietzsche’s classic argument:

translated from the non-published chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

One autumn dawn, Zarathustra came down from the mountain to the town of the Motley Fool. A single candle was still burning at the inn. He ventured over and entered the great room. The room was sparsely populated but his entrance was not noticed. Zarathustra sat down at the main table and the innkeeper took notice. “May I help you?” he inquired. Zarathustra was ravenous at this point having just walked down his mountain and he proclaimed “Why yes, I am quite hungry. Have you any waffles?” The inkeeper replied, “Waffles? What do you mean waffles?” “Well,” Zarathustra began, “waffles are like pancakes except they are better. Pancakes you know are simply flat and the butter and syrup run freely off the sides of them. Waffles have ridges and edges that trap the goodness of the butter and the syurp on the waffle. Waffles are the next step in the evolution of the pancake. Like the overman following the herd animal man, the waffle rises from the ashes after the death of pancakes. Have you not heard? The dead God is eating his dead pancakes under the catacombs of the church. Be like Zarathustra and eat the waffle.”

Stunned, the innkeeper looked at Zarathustra.

“Well,” intoned Zarathustra, “I suppose I am not going to get any waffles in this town.” And Zarathustra exited the inn thinking aloud, “Their dead god is eating their dead pancakes and I can’t get a bloody waffle. Maybe my friend the eagle can bring me some berries…”

-Imp

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Imp has finally got the right tone for this thread. Why I am Not A Christian is nothing but bilious spleen-venting. It is not a philosophical work, and is of no relevance to anything Russell accomplished in his nearly unparalleled career. His magnum opus was his Principaea, and this little volume was nothing more than a thoroughly personal invective - a perq of authors who can get even a dirty handkerchief published, which, in his prime, Russell could. The significance of this “find” is immeasurably small.

Given that, it would make a dandy journal aricle, as its importance is on a par with most of what is printed in these bedpans of the publish-or-perish crowd. I think you should consider that, sage.

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Actually, I was thinking the brief exchange between Sagesound and myself had, to some extent, deomstrated Russell’s findings as at least somewhat accurate.

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My point is this: Who cares? Or, to put it another way: So what? Russell was pissed at the church. I admire no philosopher more than I do Russell. But this book is just his angry babblings about the Anglicans. But there’s nothing like doing some hardcore biblical research to check out the claims of an angry atheist. Russell came to believe that he was an authority on everything, and his publishers encouraged that. It is an insignificant work by a monumentally important thinker. That is my only point.

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A fair point, dear Faust.

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Russell? What did he ever do to deserve so much of your respect, Faust? I would have thought that Russell epitomised everything you hated about philosophy - an overeducated, upper middle class cretin who thought that his every impression was worth publishing. He was also a liar and a philanderer and his intro to Witty’s Tractatus is the most laughable misunderstanding of a philosophical work that I’ve ever read (Witty himself said this). I’m baffled as to what he did that you consider to be so important…

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You got a wry smirk out of me with this one, and wry smirks are one of my most venerated forms of laughter…

:smiley:

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See Frank Zappa’s “St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast.”

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saitd - I have this type of opinion about a lot of philosophers. Hegel and Rawls - they are models of technique, but ultimately wrong. But you can learn from someone’s technique. There are those that think that philosophers are just jotting down opinions - perhaps, but how they jot is what makes them philosophers. Nietzsche is as important as a guidebook on how to think as he is an exponent of actual thoughts.

As to Russell, I do not care a whit what kind of person he was. I don’t care what kind of person Eminem is - he’s a genius, and my interest is in his music and poetry, not in him. I do not think less of him because he chose, tragically, to sing a couple of songs. (Okay, yes I do.)

Yes, Russell had an ego worthy of its own zip code. But his logic was almost always very good, which is more than can be said for any greek, Kant (The World’s Greatest Philosopher), Descartes (a mathematician!) or many other great names. Along with others, Russell set the stage for the conception of logic that is almost universally employed to this day. Plain-language, Logical Positivism - every logician has to deal with Russell, and has to have read him.

His “popular” works are tripe, for the most part. He didn’t understand his own relationship to Nietzsche (okay, that’s another post to sell that idea, but I believe there was an instrumental link between the two). His criticisms of some others might not be right, but I have no respect for Wittgenstein, so that one doesn’t trouble me, although I cannot say for sure if I have even read it - I read a lot of Russell in my youth. Where is this piece?

Russell demystified philosophy, which is the only accomplishment attributable to his unfortunate musings on such matters as childrearing and architecture. His attacks on metaphysics are mostly indirect, but effective. Besides Sartre, perhaps, who I don’t rank as even a good philosopher, Russell is the most widely-read, or was at one time, writer in the field.

But mostly, his technique was flawless - he wrote in order to be clear - Aristotle, Plato, Kant, even Hume (with his hidden agenda) cannot claim this. I can’t help but think that Rawls, who along with Hegel, is maybe the clearest of all in his expository technique, was influenced by Russell. Maybe that’s a stretch. But I think that any novice can read Russell and know what he is talking about, where he is coming from and where he is going. This is an exeedingly rare quality for a philosopher.

I try my best to state my positions as clearly as possible. No surprises, no mystique. Many posters here seem to wish to mystify. Rationalists seem to want to sneak their stuff in after gaining some seemingly innocuous provisional agreement. I hate passive-aggressive philosophy.

Nietzsche and Russell are manly philosophers, like Sibelius and Howard Hanson are manly composers. I admire that. By the way, I view his History of Philosophy as a singular accomplishment, enriching for philosophisers as well as the general reading public. That’s pretty good, right there.

I do not read philsophers for the truth - not even Nietzsche. I read them for technique. That’s what philosophy is, a practise, an activity, a technique. I think Russell has contributed to both the field and to culture in general, just by being good at what he does, albeit a big fat jerk, sometimes.

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Where do you get your “truth” from, then ?

Waffle as this may seem, it is a serious question.