II The Views of Bertrand Russell

Russell clearly asserts that even such beliefs are valid as have not been experienced, and he has committed himself to such ‘beliefs’, for instance, as concern the most ancient and least explored parts of the earth, as well as the furthermost reaches of the universe, which have been studied by astronomy. Here is a quotation from his book, Human Knowledge: “I commit myself to the view that there are valid processes of inference from events to other events .... more particularly, from events of which I am aware without inference to events of which I have no such awareness.” (p. 10) He takes the same line in his book, My Philosophical Development: “I do think that there are forms of probable inference which must be accepted although they cannot be proved by experience ...” (p. 132) According to this clear admission on the part of Russell, religion is not something, which cannot be proved by argument: in the above quotation the criterion held valid by him is the same criterion as is used to prove the truth of religion. What is more surprising is that Russell, although indirectly admitting here that such inferential arguments as he terms scientific do exist in favour of religion, he actually rejects those arguments on quite casual grounds. Here I quote from his book, Why I am Not a Christian: I think all the great religions of the world—Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism—both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true. With very few exceptions, the religion which a man accepts is that of the community in which he lives, which makes it obvious that the influence of environment is what has led him to accept the religion in question. It is true that Scholastics invented what professed to be logical arguments proving the existence of God,