What I Believe: 3 Complete Essays On Religion by Bertrand RussellMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Before World War II, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York (CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the college due to his opinions—notably those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals (1929). According to Russell, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for Marriage and Morals.:
When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the Nobel Prize -- somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals -- I was apprehensive, since I remembered that, exactly 300 years earlier, Descartes had been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina in the winter time and had died of the cold.
Thus, the godly got their revenge on Russell in. 1940, when a New York court overturned his appointment at. City College on the grounds that he taught 'immorality'. "What I Believe" was part of the evidence his enemies appealed to. That all seems quaint now, as there is nothing here as provocative as a single episode of South Park, or a Nicki Minaj video. Actually, and this is my second reading, pearls of wisdom leap out to me:
* "Some saints, it is true, have called [pests] 'pearls of God', but what these men delighted in was the opportunity of displaying their own sanctity.
* "The practical need of morals arises from the conflict of desires, whether of different people or of the same person at different times or even at one time."
and much more!
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