The Incomplete Cynic

Wittgenstein told his audience that what he was doing was ‘persuading people to change their style of thinking’. He was, he said, ‘making propaganda’ for one style of thinking as opposed to another. ‘I am honestly disgusted with the other’. The ‘other’ he identified as the worship of science…

‘Russell and the parsons between them have done infinite harm, infinite harm.’ Why pair Russell and the parsons in the one condemnation? Because both have encouraged the idea that a philosophical justification for religious beliefs is necessary for those beliefs to be given any credence. Both the atheist, who scorns religion because he has found no evidence for its tenets, and the believer, who attempts to prove the existence of God, have fallen victim to the ‘other’ - to the idol-worship of the scientific style of thinking. Religious beliefs are not analogous to scientific theories, and should not be accepted or rejected using the same evidential criteria.