rewhum talking about literally anything

Bertrand Russell was an Englishman active in the fields of philosophy and mathematics in the twentieth-century. He is remembered for pioneering analytical philosophy to counter British idealism and prioritising the logical aspects of mathematics over its numerical aspects. Steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning; instead of attacking a weak, non-existent caricature of an ideological opponent's argument, a steelmanner improves the opposing argument into its best version and then refutes it, even though the opponent did not argue the steelmanned version. Russell already had an impressive record of being a smart man, and he also made a well-known religion-targeted argument proving the philosophical burden of proof is on the one making claims. The analogy he used is called Russell's teapot, which I will explain and steelman to refute its application to arguments regarding religion. Steelmanning Russell's Teapot Bertrand Russell posited an analogy of him hypothetically clai...

In the seventeenth-century, French Catholic writer Blaise Pascal proposed a philosophical argument for the existence of God, known today as Pascal's wager, in a work of his known as the Pensées . Whilst I personally do not use Pascal's wager to reaffirm my belief in God, I do think it can generally work well with people who have little-to-no faith in God. Pascal's Wager's Premise and Flaws As mentioned earlier, Pascal's wager is a argument meant to demonstrate the existence of God. It states one must always strive to believe in God and serve Him, as doing so yields low risks and high potential rewards: God exists, and you believe in Him : Your reward (Heaven) is infinite. God exists, and you do not believe in Him : Your punishment (Hell) is infinite. God does not exist, and you believe in Him : Your loss (time spent on religion) is relatively small. God does not exist, and you do not believe in Him : Your reward (freedom from religious rules) is relatively small and...