'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.

Pandit Nehru's speech on 14th August, 1947
I
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

II
The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!
We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom
that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.
To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.
JAI HIND.

What is knowledge? Is knowledge what everyone tells you to be true?
If everyone says that 'this building is white', whereas you see it as blue are they lying or can you not diffrentiate between white and blue? Everyone is taught that 11 + 2 is 13, so then how come when one refers to the time 11 + 2 is considered as 1??
According to Plato, and what is widely accepted as one of the best definitions for knowledge, knowledge is defined as "justified true belief". But knowledge can be acquired in more than one way. The mode of acquisition of knowledge often affects one's 'belief'...hence altering what one 'knows'.

9 knowledge claims are listed below.
· I know it is raining
· I know 2 + 2 is 4
· I know my mother is older than I am
· I know to speak French
· I know I will pass the test
· I know stealing is wrong
· I know my tooth hurts
· I know she doesn't like me
· I know God exists

These are 9 claims most would have never thought to be arguable or questionable (other than the last claim, of course).
However, when one thinks about it, how can one say that one knows it is raining or that one knows his tooth hurts? These two claims are based on personal feeling and perception. One knows its raining because one has been told that when water falls from the sky it is called 'rain'. What about when one is standing under a building and water falls on the person…before he/she verifies that it is water from the building and not from the sky does he/she not “know” for that second that it is rain. In the same way, if someone comes up with substantial evidence to refute one’s claim that it is raining, would the person claim that he knows it is raining be considered wrong?? Similarly when one says that his tooth is hurting, how can he be sure of it? If he/ she has just been through an incident after which the tooth is ‘supposed’ to hurt, it is likely that he/ she can imagine the tooth hurting. This is something that one feels – it is based on the processes in one’s brain – and hence can very rarely be disproved, nor can it be proved very easily for that matter.
2 + 2 is 4. This is one form of knowledge by description. How can one know that 2 + 2 is 4. What is ‘2’…what is ‘4’? This however is something that has been defined and is used in math, world over. It can never really be justified, but it is something that has been defined and to refute it, one would be completely changing the laws of math which would disrupt the normal working of life. Hence, ‘knowledge’ such as these have to be taken to be true because they have been defined by man to be able to have something common at the basis of a concept and in order to go further in the subject on the basis of it – 4 + 2 = 6.
There are some claims that I feel are fairly irrefutable. By irrefutable, I don’t mean that there is no counterargument, I mean that there is no reasonably strong argument that can contradict the truth of the statement enough to convince me into believing that the statement cannot be classified as a knowledge claim. One of the claim in the list - I know my mother is older than me - is one of this. It is a scientific fact that a woman cannot give birth to a child before reaching maturity. So far from there being any argument on the mother being older than the child, the mother cannot be less than 13-14 years older than her child.
The only case in which there is any scope of argument is when you consider this statement to refer to the mother that you ‘call’ mother. You might say that “how do u know that your ‘mother’ is you biological mother?” In practicality this seems stupid too because it is absolutely unheard of for someone to be a ‘mother’ to someone older than she is, but in theory it is still arguable. But when some says “I know my mother is older than I am” and if he/ she refers to his/ her biological mother, then I see no argument against this knowledge claim.
Saying “I know stealing is wrong” is probably one of the most relative statements in the list of the 10 given. Any opinion on this is a moral one and is subjective to the upbringing of the person concerned. In most well-to-do families, like mine and everyone’s in the class, a child is always brought up with a very distinct belief that stealing is wrong. After all it is illegal in every country with a stable government, which automatically makes it something ‘wrong’. How often are unlawful actions considered ‘right’? On the other hand, for someone whose brought up in extreme poverty and has no other way of earning 2 square meals a day…stealing might be the only option he/ she has and it might not seem all that wrong to them even though they may be looked down upon by society. Therefore, “I know stealing is wrong” can be called knowledge statement because it is a JTB (Plato’s definition of knowledge) for some people even though it may not apply to everyone.

"I know she likes me" - as teenageers i'm sure we all have had or are having this dilemma in our lives. how do u kno the answer to this vital question. the answer which can affect everything you do about the issue. as we've just studied...every piece of knowledge we have gained is becuase of all four ways of knowing (language, reason, perception and emotion) working together. and in such a case - this interconnection is very obvious. language - wat she tells you and the way you'll communicate. maybe you can even talk about this with a friend of her's and based on what you'll communicate your thoughts can be altered. reason - based on your communication, the way she behaves and a number of different observations you make you reason it out within your head. perception and emotion in this case are absolutely interwoven. your perceptions is greatly affected by your emotion and vice versa. if you really like a girl and really want her to like you too you perceive her actions to be such that she does indeed like you (if you're optimistic, i.e.), and depending on what you perceive (and reason out) your emotions might get more, or less, intense. but even if everything points to the idea that she does like you, you can NEVER be sure that this is absolutely true. in fact, even if she tells you that she likes you, you can still NEVER know for sure if this is true bcos she might be a an excellent liar.

--to be completed--