Famous Thinkers: Russell and Gates - Research Paper Example

? Famous Thinkers Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell is known as one of the most prominent logicians of the twentieth century. Though his major contributions were on logic and philosophy, he did contribute his thoughts on religion, history, education, sciences, humanities and hosts of other subjects. In "Why I Am Not a Christian" (Russell, 1927), Russell delivered his thoughts on Christianity that were full of logic and great insight. According to the common belief, the word Christian means a person who believes in God and immortality. He states since he does not believe in God and immortality, he is not a Christian. On existence of God, his logics were exemplary. To prove existence of God, Catholic Church put forward the argument of first cause that says that everything in the world has a cause and while going backward one arrives at the ‘First Cause’ and this First Cause is known as God. He sees fallacy in this argument as he says “When everything must have a cause then God must have a cause" ((Russell, 1927). What he concludes is that things not necessarily must have a beginning and the world could have come into being without a cause. “There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all” (Russell, 1927).The very basic idea that things must have a beginning is fundamentally a faulty thinking; this certainly reveals a highly creative way of his thinking! He is candid and straight forward in proposing that Christ is not "the best and wisest of men" (Russell, 1927). Christ believed in everlasting punishment for those who were not listening to his preaching creating hell for them. Commenting on the Christ's argument about "wailing and gnashing of teeth" and "two hands to go into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" (Russell, 1927). he states that such doctrines bring cruelty into the world and Christ is partly responsible for all the cruelty that the world has today. He had moral courage to criticize Christ on this ground that shows his creative genius against established religious practices. Moralists say that the existence of God is necessary so that justice can be imparted in this world. He is categorical in defying this argument by stating that there is great injustice in this world because wicked people are seen to prosper and he says “so far as that goes that is a reason for supposing that justice does not rule in the world; and therefore so far as it goes it affords a moral argument against deity and not in favor of one" (Russell, 1927). A profound boldness in the argument and creative thinking can be seen in above lines even by his opponents. On the contrary, he fulminated against organized Churches for they are the greatest enemy to the mankind. His objective thinking can be seen when he says that the very basis of religion is to instill fear among the people; that fear could be of any kind – the fear of death, the fear of defeat or something that is unknown. Fear cannot bring any good to mankind. People need to see the world as it is without getting afraid of it. The concept of God is "unworthy of free men", he says. He is a future oriented person because for him, past is dead and future is far superior that our intelligence can create. He has a great faith in science for that can help mankind overcome all imaginary ideas that people are nurturing for ages. He says knowledge, courage, and kindliness can create a good world for all. His insight and thoughts are remarkable for anyone to think objectively in the life and to make progress. Bill Gates Those were the years in '80s when Bill Gates was working on a user-friendly computer operating system that was about to bring computer revolution in the world. Then IBM was the company in 'mainframe' business catering to the needs of large institutions and never even had an inkling that small personal computer market could be so large in the years to come. The market was simply waiting for some easy-to-operate functioning system and that fact no one else could grasp better than Bill Gates. As a smalltime developer in 1981, Bill Gates' Microsoft began licensing a newly developed operating system MS-DOS to IBM, a giant in computer and mathematical modeling field (Kreit and Wanke, 2008). Bill was never satisfied with this operating system as that was unable to fulfill his vision of future that envisaged "A computer on every desk and in every home" (The Economist, 2008). His self-belief was at its zenith when he said profit would follow selling a lot of them cheaply rather than servicing only a few at higher price (The Economist, 2008). Bill was at his creative best during '80s when his whole focus was on to the development of a revolutionary and most user-friendly operating system. While he introduced Windows in 1983 as an extension to its MS-DOS operating system, he realized that he will need to go public for his funds requirement. When someone has a great idea; there is no dearth of funds. In a free market system when someone comes forward with an extraordinary invention that can change the life of masses, money lenders and equity risk-takers rush to them in flocks. It was not a small feat that after his maiden public issue in 1986, Bill, at age 31, was the youngest billionaire the world ever seen (Kreit and Wanke, 2008). Revising and improving his Windows System, in 1995, he came out with the most successful operating system under the name ‘Windows 95’ that changed the ways people made use of the computers. In first five weeks only after a launch, a record 7 million copies of Windows 95 were sold across the world (Windows, 2013) and Bill became the richest man on this planet with personal wealth crossing $13 billion in the year (Kreit and Wanke, 2008). In 1995 only, he came out with the internet browser Internet Explorer that opened new vistas for commerce, trade, education, health and myriads of other sectors. In 2005, Queen Elizabeth II conferred on Bill Gates an honorary knighthood award and said, "Microsoft software had had a profound impact on the British economy" (Kreit and Wanke, 2008). Renouncing his huge wealth in 2006 to ‘The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’ for cause of eradicating disease, and inequity speaks not only about his philanthropic prowess but creative genius too. While receiving an honorary degree from Harvard, his drive for humanitarian cause is clearly visible as he states “Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity” (Kreit and Wanke, 2008). References The Economist, (2008). The Meaning of Bill Gates. Retrieved March 30, 2013 from http://www.economist.com/node/11622119 Kreit, A. and Wanke, J. (2008). Timeline: Bill Gates. Retrieved March 30, 2013 from http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2008/june/bill_gates/gates_timeline_04.html Russell, B. (1927). Why I Am Not A Christian. Retrieved March 30, 2013 from http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html Windows (2013). A history of Windows. Retrieved March 21, 2013 from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/history Read More