April 3, 2008

• Russell's teapot

  sometimes called the Celestial Teapot, was an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970),  In an article entitled "Is There a God?",  commissioned (but never published) by Illustrated magazi, Russell wrote:

  If I were tosuggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a
  china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody
  would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add
  that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful
  telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion
  cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of
  human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking
  nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in
  ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled
  into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its
  existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter
  to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the
  Inquisitor in an earlier time.

  The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike
  belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential,
  tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend
  themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years
  memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools
  don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot.
  Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates,
  teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn
  their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.

  

  

  • 3:20 pm
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