Bertrand Russel on Religion

[DaMalakandGhar]

My Religious Reminiscences
p40
At the age of fourteen I became convinced that the fundamental principle of ethics should be the promotion of human happiness, and at first this appeared to me so self-evident that I supposed it must be the universal opinion.

p41
Until the age of eighteen I continued to believe in a Deist's God, because the First-Cause argument seemed to me irrefutable. Then in John Stuart Mill's Autobiography I found that James Mill had taught him the refutation of that argument-namely, that it gives no answer to the question "Who made God?"

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http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Bertrand_Russell/God_Religion.html

[badmash_khel]

My Religious Reminiscences
p40
At the age of fourteen I became convinced that the fundamental principle of ethics should be the promotion of human happiness, and at first this appeared to me so self-evident that I supposed it must be the universal opinion.

p41
Until the age of eighteen I continued to believe in a Deist's God, because the First-Cause argument seemed to me irrefutable. Then in John Stuart Mill's Autobiography I found that James Mill had taught him the refutation of that argument-namely, that it gives no answer to the question "Who made God?"

...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Be..._Religion.html

Who made God? Thats a stupid question because by definition God is uncreated.
If God is created that means he is no longer a God because there is a higher authority than him who created him. Being created means temporary and since God is eternal by definition, this question doesn't even make sense.

Bertrand Russel seems extremly stupid for a philosopher.

[Pakhtunzai]

I would ignore the lot of these type of people, they are the ones who sit there wondering why they are so depressed and they are "lacking" something in their life. As a result they spew this tosh...

[DaMalakandGhar]

Who made God? Thats a stupid question because by definition God is uncreated.
If God is created that means he is no longer a God because there is a higher authority than him who created him. Being created means temporary and since God is eternal by definition, this question doesn't even make sense.

Bertrand Russel seems extremly stupid for a philosopher.

You are presuming an eternal God (rather two suppositions; a supreme being; and his eternal existence) without any rational or empirical explanation). If a self-existing universe doesn't make sense for you, how a self-existing supreme being can?

Furthermore, in logic and mathematics, once you set a proof-process, you cannot abruptly end it as convenient to you. A system of proof must be internally coherent, complete, consistent, and not self-negating. Now your reasoning runs like this.

"Because everything in the universe has a cause, so the universe must also has a cause ---and that cause is God".

Once you set that rule, the question that inevitably arises is "who or what caused/created God?". You cannot answer this question by simply saying "God is self-existing" because that is the violation of the rule i.e. "every thing must have a cause" you sat up in first place to prove the existence of God.

[badmash_khel]

You are presuming an eternal God (rather two suppositions; a supreme being; and his eternal existence) without any rational or empirical explanation). If a self-existing universe doesn't make sense for you, how a self-existing supreme being can?

I don't know where to start with this but how on earth can you compare universe with God? Science teaches us that nothing comes from nothing. Everything physical which exists (universe) comes from something, everything physical must have a begining. That is not the case with God since God is not bound by time and space. The universe needed a start in time (big bang) which means it needed an outside cause for its existance since it can't create itself. A self sustaining, supreme being is the only logical explanation for the birth and existance of the universe. Science is concerend with physical entities and concepts inside the universe and since God is neither a physical entity nor bound by time and space you can't really have an empircal explanation for his existance. Once you go upto the Big Bang, you leave the realm of Science and enter meta physics. So Science is of no use in discussing meta physical entities.

Furthermore, in logic and mathematics, once you set a proof-process, you cannot abruptly end it as convenient to you. A system of proof must be internally coherent, complete, consistent, and not self-negating. Now your reasoning runs like this.

"Because everything in the universe has a cause, so the universe must also has a cause ---and that cause is God".

Once you set that rule, the question that inevitably arises is "who or what caused/created God?". You cannot answer this question by simply saying "God is self-existing" because that is the violation of the rule i.e. "every thing must have a cause" you sat up in first place to prove the existence of God.

Yes you are right, Everything in the universe has a cause because everything in the universe is temporal created in time and bound by the laws of the universe. Unfortunately for you, God is NOT in the universe. So you can't apply the same rules to him.

Just for arguments sake let's say that God is created by another entity, who created that other entity would be the next step following your logic. Where do we stop then? This is like a never ending loop which is logically absurd because we know that the universe is not infinte. There has to be uncaused cause or necessary existant. The universe is the effect not the cause.

[randolph85]

self existing universe lol

there is a reason most scientists don't study what happened before the big bang or even what caused it, because they have no idea and they would have no way of conducting research.

[faye]

who made god? is not a stupid question from a certain point of view. assuming or believing that we are created by god and that god is infinite, eternal etc. has not been proven nor disproved.
i personally believe in being a part of a higher consciousness/god/allah so i am therefore a part of the creator/creation and the creator is a part of me and everything. if we are created then we are logically created from a consciousness/god/allah which has created everything and is everything.

[DaMalakandGhar]