Quotes from Lord Bertrand Russell

[Foster Zygote]

You claim that quotes have been taken out of context, and were actually intended as sarcasm, as if Russell "sarcastically" believed in culling the population, for example, but your assertions are incorrect.

And the source is Russell's autobiography.

I suspect that an examination of the text in context will reveal that you (or rather your sources) are misrepresenting him.

Allow me to quote from the prologue to Russell's autobiography.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Russell never advocated the extermination of large portions of the human species. He advocated birth control as the only sound means of preventing overpopulation.

 

[The Atheist]

He's 56 years old, and you are ignorant of things of which he is not ignorant. I like how you know nothing about him but feel arrogant enough to call him ill-educated. It shows class.

When my class is compared to an ignorant fool who manages to suck a few children into his childish theories, I'm happy to be judged, anytime. And he's 56? That would make an even bigger fool than I thought. I can forgive callow youth a level of ignorance. At 56, he's clearly beyond help. And what else might I need to know about him? That he's a deluded cowardly liar is demonstrable. That's plenty for me.

So you listened to all of the mp3s in less time than the length of the mp3s? I find that impossibility rather difficult to believe.

No, now even your reading comprehension is letting you down. I said I have no interest in listening to his lies.

Wonderfully wrong. I am amused by arrogance combined with ignorance, and you seem to be royalty.

Wrong in what way? They are cowards. That fact is quite obvious. Arrogant? Sure I am. The arrogance of being right when faced with a puerile load of lies spread by people of limited intellectual means.

Are we still talking about the 56-year-old ill-educated child you know nothing about, or are we now in the vague realm of his "ilk", being comedically hypocritical?

There are, alas, people even older than 56 who are still cowardly, slanderous, deluded pieces of garbage. The age guess, as I noted above, is because ignorance is often youthful and I was trying to be kind. Now that I know how old he is, I can refer to him in terms which both of you may understand. Vyzygoth may have a certain animal cunning to find equally-deluded people to foist his vomit onto and he seems to find a few who lap it up, but I stick by my comments that he is a coward who is seeking attention. Nothing more.

Carry on criticising Avery and Jones if you feel the need, as if I value their opinions. It simply highlights the somewhat stereotypical position from which you speak. I wouldn't be surprised if you played the anti-semitic card ASAP.

Hmm, it's just funny how all of the sites link to 9/11 CT. If you're not into 9/11 CT, then there may be hope for you. As to anti-Semitism, you're confusing me with the Troofers and Illuminatists.

Uncanny. Maybe next you could play the "CTers are mentally ill" card.

I wouldn't go that far, although anecdotal evidence of CT posters here certainly suggests a link. I prefer to stick to what is actually demonstrated by posters and their links. "Cowardly lies" covers pretty much everything I've seen of yours so far.

Incidentally, the second half of that quote and the 19-hijackers-overcame-America's-$40billion-defense-system-with-some-box-cutters conspiracy theory go together like arrogance and superiority complexes, dont'cha think?

Odd, it now appears that you are a 0/11 CTist as well...

There is another Russell quote that goes quite nicely here too:
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

Utterly irrelevant. Noy surprising, though, given your lack of ability to post any kind of evidence outside of quotes mined for suitability.

I know you get a bit excited easily and like to make these sweeping statements, but you simply don't know enough about me to make these statements. And what absurd claims have I made about Orwell?

That you or any of your heroes have any idea what Orwell meant.

Clever, I like it. What about war (on terror) is peace? Did that one not register with you?

More proof of the total lack of understanding of Orwell and 1984. Just sufficient literacy to be able to assume fallacies.

That anybody would choose to suggest that speaking out about 9/11 is simply a symptom of having no friends is pretty desperate. And when you consider that many of those who lost their loved ones e.g. the people who made 9/11 Press For Truth, have also spoken out, it's actually quite a disgusting thing to say. You might as well go and find them and spit on them.

Have no fear, I would certainly go and spit on them.

I realise that there are still some people who are, yes. Most people have worked out that they have been lied to by now.

You mean like Avery lied about missiles being launched, people lying about no plane hitting the Pentagon, WTC being brought down by CD? Those type of lies? Yes, I think the vast majority of the world's sentient population recognises those as complete lies now.

Where did LC:FC premier again? New York? LA? Toronto?

There's really no need to apologise. You are just wrong.

Well trained in the school of, "I'm right because you're wrong."

Unluckily, the facts don't back you up in the slightest. Even Michael Moore won't touch you with a barge-pole.

I'm not sure what you think he has said about Orwell, or why it is wrong, but I would like to know what you think the function of the book was.

I've already suggested starting a thread about your revision of 1984. Go ahead - I'll be glad to come and skin you alive again in another thread.

That's an interesting lie. I didn't describe Russell as a paedophile,

Oh dear, I just love the way that cowards and liars always forget that their words are there to be repeated should they choose to back down from their previous position. You said:

Not only did he advocate sexual activity between pre-pubescent children, he played an active role in experimenting with it.

(bolding mine)

That would be a perfect description of a paedophile.

... and I still didn't slander him, even if you insist that I did. If it is slander, he slandered himself first.

Bertrand Russell was an elitist psychopath, working on behalf of The Establishment a.k.a. Huxley's "dominant minority".

Oh my word.

Just tell me one thing, please. Is there any lunacy you don't believe? Homeopathy? Christianity? Loch Ness Monster?

I've told you it's in Russell's autobiography. I'm not interested in whether or not you or anyone else believes it. If anybody wants to check into it, they can. Or you can pretend that it doesn't exist, or that his autobiography was taken out of context, or that the Jews did it, etc..

Or, to translate:

"I have no evidence at all to back up my slanderous attack on a dead man."

Thanks for that!

 

[matrixcutter]

You have no qualms about being dishonest. There are several examples in your previous post e.g. dishonesty by omission (of your assertion that Vyzgoth.com is bereft of evidence - a statement which requires you to have looked at everything in it), suggesting that people who do not value Jones and Avery's opinions must believe the government's provably false account of 9/11, arguing that playing an active role in experimenting with pre-pubertal sexual activity between children is the same thing as having sex with them, and there are other examples.

As for your question "is there any lunacy you don't believe?"
Yes, the provably false official 9/11 conspiracy theory, the provably false official 7/7 conspiracy theory, David Icke's reptilian nonsense, and many other things.

Is there any official explanation for any significant geo-political event, ever, that you do not accept unquestioningly?


As for your Orwell thread, there is nothing to stop you explaining your position here, or starting your own thread. I don't see the point in me starting another thread. It will probably either be moved or closed.

 

[Civilized Worm]

I'd like you to watch the 3-part BBC documentary on Operation Gladio, and then call it "woo". I'm sure you have it in you.

Pff, the BBC are in on it maaaaan!

 

[Foster Zygote]

You claim that quotes have been taken out of context, and were actually intended as sarcasm, as if Russell "sarcastically" believed in culling the population, for example, but your assertions are incorrect.

And the source is Russell's autobiography.

Yes, I believe Russell's intent was sarcasm. I believe this because after making a long argument in favor of the benefits of birth control to limit overpopulation, thus reducing famine, poverty and human suffering Russell, who was famous for his sardonic wit, suggests that another alternative is a massive plague. His point is that birth controle is the only sensible option.

And I've been searching for any evidence that Russell conducted experiments pertaining to, or even advocated, sex with pre-pubescent children. He did advocate sexual experimentation between adults prior to marriage (and to Victorian England this was quite radical enough) but I cannot find any evidence that he engaged in sexual experimentation with children.

 

[The Atheist]

Is there any official explanation for any significant geo-political event, ever, that you do not accept unquestioningly?

Yes, all of them. I like to accept when evidence when it's ratified, not when it's made up by someone with a desire to gain notoriety by cowardly accusations against dead people.

As for your Orwell thread, there is nothing to stop you explaining your position here, or starting your own thread. I don't see the point in me starting another thread. It will probably either be moved or closed.

Why would it be closed? If we start discussing it here, then it will be split off, but you're welcome to start a new thread, either in Current Events or Books. Even better, come to LitNet and discuss it - I have a couple of mates there who'd like a good laugh at "the secret" within 1984.

 

[Matt the Poet]

Since this is a lit thread, I would highly recommend (without much hope of the OP listening) Ray Monk’s excellent biography of Russell.

While he has a great deal of respect for Russell’s early work in mathematical philosophy, Monk is pretty clear (and persuasive) in arguing that much of his later thought on sociology and, partcularly, child-rearing, is dangerous gibberish – a deeply personal and ill-thought-out expression of the neuroses drilled into him by his weird, oppressive childhood and resulting lifelong obsession with mental illness. Indeed, he goes so far as to suggest that Russell’s attempt to apply these ideas practically was, ironically, a contributing factor to his son’s schizophrenia.

 

[dogjones]

OPer has clearly been convinced by the b0llox of Lyndon LaRouche?

 

[Civilized Worm]

Worse than that, Jordan Maxwell and Alan Watt.

 

[Megalodon]

I'm utterly convinced!!! And I thought nothing could shock me more that to find out that Ghandi was a genocidal canibal...

I want... to kill... humankind... and eat... everyone... especially... little children