British philosopher Bertrand Russell, for example, commends people like Copernicus of the 16th century who had the honesty and courage to question traditional beliefs.

5, 6. (a) Since 1914, how has the situation in Christendom resembled that in Judah just before its destruction? (b) What message has the modern Jeremiah carried to Christendom?

⁵ British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell commented some 40 years ago: “Ever since 1914, everybody conscious of trends in the world has been deeply troubled by what has seemed like a fated and pre-determined march toward ever greater disaster.”

“When a child was born,” says philosopher Bertrand Russell, “the father brought him before the elders of his family to be examined: if he was healthy, he was given back to the father to be reared; if not, he was thrown into a deep pit of water.”​—History of Western Philosophy.

Even the atheist Bertrand Russell talked about having “a curious wild pain​—a searching for something beyond what the world contains.”

Later, in December 1931, Lord Bertrand Russell, the renowned British mathematician and philosopher, spoke on pacifism.

9. Why is Christian confidence particularly important today?

⁹ Is Christian confidence any less important in our day, in a world where, to quote British philosopher Bertrand Russell, ‘an easy and elegant skepticism is the attitude expected of an educated adult’?

As the English philosopher, Bertrand Russell, expressed it: “Ever since 1914 the world has been reeling drunkenly toward disaster.”

Bertrand Russell said that in England “the Anglican Church has upheld every Government view including those concerning war and killing.”

Jesus and Paul were quoted from the pulpit now and then, but they had lots of competition from Bertrand Russell, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and whomever else the minister chose to echo.

Recently Bertrand Russell, the well-known philosopher, estimated “the odds at forty percent in favor of survival and sixty percent against.”

Bertrand Russell, eminent philosopher, described the march as one that seemed predetermined, destined for our time.

2. From a worldly standpoint, why would previous death be better than survival of another world war, and so why ought we to be thankful for having the Bible?

² Back in 1952, the then eighty-year-old British author, philosopher, mathematician, Lord Bertrand Russell, was reported as saying: “I should like to live another ten years provided there is not another world war meanwhile.