Bertrand Russell on God

source: HumanistLife via Free Infidel 


If only there were more people like Bertrand Russell today...

As one of the world’s more famous atheists, Bertrand Russell always had the knack of combining a brilliant intellect and profound insights with a startling clear expression of his ideas. Here’s a classic example.

Bertrand Russell answers:

• Why are you not a Christian?  

• Is there a practical reason for having a religious belief?

• Is the ordinary person not strong enough to find a personal ethic and therefore has to have something imposed upon them from outside? 

• Do you have a fear of an afterlife? 

Peter Singer - Ethics

One of the most controversial and influential philosophers alive today, Professor Peter Singer writes a regular column for Free Inquiry magazine, and is the author of dozens of books, including Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, Animal Liberation, and Writings on an Ethical Life. In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Peter Singer explores how controversial or compatible his views are with religious thought and in what sense his ethics is informed by a naturalistic or Darwinian understanding of the origins of life. He discusses the value of human life as regards end-of-life questions such as doctor-assisted suicide, and offers justification for the involuntary euthanasia of severely disabled infants. He details what it means to be genuinely "pro-life." And he shares his views on stem cell research and abortion, arguing how that even though abortion is killing a human life, it is not unethical. He also explains what qualities of life would make killing it unethical.