Rationalist Annual 1945

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE FAITH OF A PANTHEIST By JAMES ALLANSON PICTON ET me say at the outset that in the following observations I accept a distinction, endorsed by the New English Dictionary, betweenfaifh and belief; which latter word corresponds with creed. Now, it is not the creed of the Pantheist that I am to expound. For that is abundantly done by various popular manuals in addition to more learned works. But I fear that the faith of the Pantheist has been somewhat neglected. What, then, do I mean by it? The above-mentioned dictionary, in dealing with the specially moral sense that I desire to emphasise, tells us that this particular connotation of the word faith has been variously defined by theologians, but there is a general agreement in regarding it as a conviction practically operative on the character and will, and so distinguished from mere intellectual assent to religious truth. For instance, the average British Christian gives his intellectual assent to the Sermon on the Mount as the very word of God. But when it comes to the practical application thereof in, say, South Africa, or the miserable Egyptian village of Denshawi?well, that is outside my subject. But at any rate it is suggestive of many and marked differences between the average British Christian's belief and the same man's faith, in the sense of a conviction practically operative on his character and will. So, then, by the faith of a Pantheist I do not mean his creed, but the moral efficiency of his creed; and it is that alone with which I deal. But, of course, one cannot fairly discuss the moral efficiency of a creed without having that creed distinctly in mind; nor can any one understand such a discussion without having at least an elementary knowledge of the belief in question. In this case, however...

This volume collects together Russell's philosophical writings during the period from 1947-68. For about half of this period Russell worked steadily at philosophy but after the publication of My Philosophical Development in 1959 he retired from academic philosophy for the second time. After that date, only the occasional philosophical piece appeared, as he was preoccupied with political writings. In this volume there are a handful of papers dated later than 1959, and all of these were certainly written by Russell himself.This volume contains Russell's writings on diverse philosophical interests, including autobiographical and self-critical papers, critiques of other philosophers and his controversial opinions on Christianity.

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