'Better the world should perish than that i, or any other human being, should believe a lie...that is the religion of thought in whose soothing flames the dross of the world is being burnt away' - Bertrand Russel.

p.s. "dross" = rubbish, garbage. i dint know it so i thot id make life easier for ppl with as poor a vocabulary as mine.

This is a very emphatic statement as it opens with the words "better the world perish". however, there is something that is clearly amiss in this quote in that Russel does not explain what a lie is. how does one know what is a lie? If one cannot know for sure what the truth is how can one know what to believe and what not to believe. if authority, for example a texbook in science or history states a "fact" a student at our level is going to take it for granted that whatever is written is true, even if it might not be.
however, what i think, Russel means by the "religion of thought" is the power of reasoning that the human mind is capable of. this supports his opening line about not believing a lie. what i thinks Russel is saying is that the human mind can decide for itself what it true and what is not. what Russel is probably saying is that, if a human mind has even the slightest doubt in the truth of the "true" statement, he/ she should not believe it becuase there are chances the statement is false.
But something that intrgues me is the why would anyone believe a lie? one only "believes" a lie is if he/ she is made to believe the truth. so is Russel trying to tell us not to believe anything at all without verification, without sufficient justification? i find this expectation very impractical because if one starts setting out to verify every second statement, it will lead to a considerable waste of time and energy. sometimes believing what one is told is not harmful. But one needs to be sure of the source and its validity.
This quote, on the other hand, also reflects the beliefs and morals of Bertrand Russel as well. When he talks about the "religion of thought (that makes one not believe lies) cleansing the world" it shows how inclined towards truth Russel is. But the problem is that Russel holds a very idealistic view of the world, where he expects a clear diffrentiation between truth and lies. However, in today's world, many people distort the truth for their own gains and it is often not upto the audience to distinguish whether whats being told to them is true or a lie.
here, id like to also bring in the quote by John Reseck, where he considers the possibility of one's belief being falsified. He simply expects one to take responsibility for one's beief in the event that it is falsified. Russel on the other hand completely disregards this possibility and expects one to always be right in their selection of what is true and what is a lie.