Religion and Science
2. The Views of Bertrand Russell
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man and the trees. But this has never shaken man’s
belief that it takes anything from twelve to eighteen
years for a baby to grow to full adult height, followed
by a process of maturation which goes on for many
more years, or that it can take more than half a
century for a tree to grow from a seed to its greatest
height. In order to believe in Almighty God, it has
never been thought necessary to believe that the man
and the tree came into existence all of a sudden.
Even if, in future, research proves that the
phenomena of life did not appear abruptly, but
came into existence by means of a long evolutionary
process, there can be no question of a rethinking of,
far less a rejection of religion.
A FINAL WORD
The above-quoted statements of Bertrand Russell,
an avowed atheist, serve as an acknowledgement
of the truth of religion in principle. He admits that
there is design in the universe, and that design can
prove the existence of a designer. But in order to
reject this argument based on design, he has had
to have recourse to Darwinism, which means
rejecting his own accepted position on very flimsy
