Bertrand Russell Teapot Ichthys t-shirt

Bertrand Russell, the famous British mathematician, philosopher, historian, logician and social critic, famously coined an analogy about the burden of proof being on the person making the outlandish claim.

The analogy became known as Russell's Teapot, Celestial Teapot or Cosmic Teapot.

In the analogy, Russell stated that if he were to claim that between the Eart and Mars there were a china teapot, revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove it, providing he was careful to add that the teapot was too small to be seen with even the most powerful telescope.

Russell continued, "But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.  If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

He later went on to elaborate on this with regard to his own atheism, "I ought to call myself an agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist.  I do not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla.  To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice.  I think the Christian God just as unlikely."

This Bertrand Russell t-shirt shows his teapot theme, incorporated into the traditional Christian ichthys fish symbol.

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