Friday, July 22, 2005

Quote of the Day: Intellectual Integrity and Social Importance

I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.
-- Bertrand Russell, "Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?" (1954)


Russell said it better than I could. Maybe that's why he was a great philosopher-mathematician and I'm just an anonymous blogger.

1 comment:

M-n said...

That quote is a restating of the definition of skepticism.