In human thermodynamics, Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) was a British mathematician noted for his second law of thermodynamics based dismal view of human future in the explanation of his rejection of religion. The source of his main opinion on the second law seems to stem from his 1927 book Why I Am Not a Christian; a book listed by the New York Public Library as one of the most influential 150 books of the 20th century. [1]

Purpose, god, and heat death
In his 1927 lecture “Why I Am Not a Christian”, delivered in London on a Sunday, in a subsection on objections to religions, Russell states his opinion on the relationship between conclusions of thermodynamics and religion as follows: [2]

“Considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me sufficiently marvelous … nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better. And then we have to reflect that even this result is only a flash in the pan. The earth will not always remain habitable; the human race will die out, and if the cosmic process is to justify itself hereafter it will have to do so elsewhere than on the surface of our planet. And even if this should occur, it must stop sooner or later.”

He then famously remarks, in a negation of religious thermodynamics, that:

“The second law of thermodynamics makes it scarcely possible to doubt that the universe is running down, and that ultimately nothing of the slightest interest will be possible anywhere. Of course, it is open to us to say that when the time comes God will wind up the machinery again; but if we do say this, we can base our assertion only upon faith, not upon one shred of scientific evidence. So far as scientific evidence goes, the universe has crawled by slow stages to a somewhat pitiful result on this earth and is going to crawl by still more pitiful stages to a condition of universal death.”

In conclusion, he says:

“If this is to be taken as evidence of purpose, I can only say that the purpose is one that does not appeal to me. I see no reason, therefore, to believe in any sort of God, however vague and however attenuated.”

Other
In his 1927 Analysis of Matter, to note, Russell was ambivalent on the possibility of reversibility of photon and electron movement according to quantum theory in relation to irreversibility in thermodynamics. [3]

A notable student of Russell’s was American mathematician Norbert Wiener who studied under Russell during a fellowship at Cambridge in 1912. [4]

Russell won the 1950 Nobel Prize in literature in recognition of “his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.” In his Nobel Lecture “What Desires are Politically Important”, Russell comments on the topic of desire that: [5]

“All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths.”

References
1. (a) Davies, Paul. (1997). The Last Three Minutes (pgs. 12-13). Basic Books.
(b) Diefendorf, Elizabeth and Bryan, Diana. (1997). The New York Public Library’s Books of the Century (Section: Mind & Spirit, pgs. 84-101, book: Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), pg. 92). Oxford University Press.
2. (a) Russell, Bertrand. (1927). Why I Am Not a Christian. Rationalist Association of South Africa.
(b) Russell, Bertrand and Edwards, Paul. (1957). Why I Am Not a Christian: and other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (keyword: second law, pgs. 32-33). Simon & Schuster.
(c) Why I Am Not a Christian – Wikipedia.
3. Russell, Bertrand. (1927). The Analysis of Matter (keyword: thermodynamics, pg. 381). Dover.
4. Campbell, Jeremy. (1982). Grammatical Man - Information, Entropy, Language, and Life (pgs. 24). New York: Simon and Schuster.
5. Russell, Bertrand. (1950). “What Desires are Politically Important.” Nobel Lecture, Dec. 11.

Further reading
● Russell, Bertrand and Seckel, Al. (1986). Bertrand Russell on God and Religion (thermodynamics, 168-69, 175-78, 202). Prometheus Books.

External links
● Bertrand Russell – Wikipedia.