In 1952, the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, wrote a paper entitled 'Is there a God?' in which he argued that the burden of proof of an unverifiable statement remained with the person making the claim, rather than on an observer attempting to prove the statement's falsehood. The analogy he used was that of a teapot, orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars. Simply put, he argued that just because an observer could not prove the teapot didn't exist, that did not mean it did exist.
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| the Russellian solar system, with orbiting teapot, courtesy of Prima |
Personally, I believe Bertrand Russell was an entertaining and challenging writer and thinker. I do not endorse his views on all subjects, nor do I seek to force them on others.
My daughter Prima is fascinated by Russell, and in homage to his paper, she created a teapot in his honour.
And because we are all flawed beings, we failed to spell his name correctly:
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