How Bertrand Russell Became An Atheist

[Shad]

I propose that we all let specific concrete humans talk instead of abstracts like physics and astrophysics talk, because they can't talk at all, they are just concepts in our mind.

So in regard to the existence of time, I submit that all humans experience the existence of time, for example, you and I we are using up our time, we even measure time.

You don't agree with me?

Consider that you need time to get to office, so you have to reserve the time needed for you to get to office, otherwise you will not get to office, and you could miss your daily wage if you happen to be a daily wage earner.

Another example of the continuous experience of time by humans: every government is waiting for the time when the coronavirus will cease its pandemic hold over mankind at the present time.

So, you cannot just dismiss the existence of time as "an assertion based on nothing."

Time exists, it is based on our experience of time: in fact you can lose time and you can gain time, and you can waste time.

Look up space-time and try again. My point went over your head. Nothing you posted was on point. It was just babble as you didn't bother looking up what I was talking about.

 

[Pachomius]

Dear Shad, you say, "My (your) point went over your (my) head," I believe that perhaps you can develop what is my point and what is your point, okay?

Then you and I can expound on your point and my point whatever it is, to the greater enhancement of readers' knowledge.

Anyway, my point is that time really exists because we have continuous experience of time, there, that is my point.

Your point the way I read you, is that time does not exist, for it is based on nothing.

You see, dear Shad, I always believe that all parties to a conversation should work together to get things cleared up - with arriving at concurrence on what their each one's point is all about.

Look up space-time and try again. My point went over your head. Nothing you posted was on point. It was just babble as you didn't bother looking up what I was talking about.

 

[Shad]

Dear Shad, you say, "My (your) point went over your (my) head," I believe that perhaps you can develop what is my point and what is your point, okay?

Then you and I can expound on your point and my point whatever it is, to the greater enhancement of readers' knowledge.

Anyway, my point is that time really exists because we have continuous experience of time, there, that is my point.

Your point the way I read you, is that time does not exist, for it is based on nothing.

You see, dear Shad, I always believe that all parties to a conversation should work together to get things cleared up - with arriving at concurrence on what their each one's point is all about.

I told you to look up Space-time. You are using an outdated model of time.

 

[Pachomius]

Dear Ponder This, what do you say, will you concur with me that Bertrand Russell was without evidence in his ipse dixit statement, namely:

""The universe is just here, and that's all."

Perhaps some folks here can enlighten readers starting with of course myself, on where Bertrand Russell had evidence, from what he had written in his long lifetime, that "The universe is just here, and that's all."

You see, the man was such a darling of simple reading folks, that he said many things without ne'er any evidence, except all inside his self-certainty that his views are to be accepted by mere mortals, without challenge.

Just to clarify Bertrand Russel's thinking here...
"There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all." - Bertrand Russell
That is to say, if you suppose that something can have no beginning (as, indeed, you suppose God to have no beginning), then there remains no reason to suppose the universe had a beginning.

I would also note that John Stuart Mill was being impressed upon by his Father to reject "priestly tyranny for liberty of thought" (from John Stuart Mill's Autobiography same paragraph).

There is some reason to consider that the universe had a beginning. The Big Bang Theory was proposed by Georges Lemaître in 1927 and evidence was found to support his theory in 1929 and again in 1964. But this is not enough to convince Bertrand Russell who adopted Victor Stenger's proposition that the universe may have "emerged from nothing". Bertrand Russell said, "The universe is just here, and that's all." (from the Copleston-Russell debate on the existence of God)

The notion of First Cause goes back to ancient Greece. Aristotle pointed out that if the universe had come to be its first motion would lack an antecedent state and Parmenides said "nothing comes from nothing". So Aristotle concluded that at least one unmoved mover must exist.
Bertrand Russell is contesting the notion that "nothing comes from nothing". Bertrand is asserting that the universe came into being without a cause.

 

[Pachomius]

Dear Hubert, I believe you can and should elucidate on how a circular chain of causes is a weird idea but it's not illogical.

The way I see a circular chain of causes is that it is pure fiction; still I can also imagine that God exists inside your circular chain of causes as the first and ultimate cause of everything else that is not God Himself - there.

So in the status of existence, God and all His creation make up the universe, here the universe is all in man's mind and it is all a circle, that is the wonder that is man's mind.

BilliardsBall said: ↑ For one, you have a problem of endless regression BOTH with God and without...
-----------------------

Well, we can get around this problem by proposing a circular chain of causes. It's a weird idea, as it would ultimately mean that events cause themselves, but it's not illogical.

 

[Pachomius]

Allow me to submit to everyone's consideration, the over all premise that must be in everyone's thinking, namely:

Existence is the default status of reality.

Thinking on that premise with everyone's posting here, that should prevent everyone from bandying charges of fallacies here against the first cause argument, like special pleading.

Then also I care to submit to everyone's consideration that everyone must be on the look-out for invalid analogies, like comparing God to a flying spaghetti monster, or with Bertrand Russell, to an orbiting teapot in space.

Just keep to the definition of God among theists, namely, that God is in His core function in the status of existence, the creator cause of man and the universe and everything with a beginning.

Do we have evidence supporting that definition of God?

Yes, start with babies and roses, they did not make themselves.

Okay, her comes the objection that is based on the concept of infinite regress, like with Hubert in his fiction of a circular universe of God and His creation.

Infinite regress is all in the mind of man who is prone to erroneous thinking, for it is an invalid concept.

An invalid concept in man's mind is one that is not productive of anything at all, even though a man can keep it inside his brain without suffering migraine - such is the wonder in a way with the human brain-mind.

 

[Revoltingest]

I found some interesting excerpts from "God and Religion" by Bertrand Russell on this site: God and Religion by Bertrand Russell. I remember hearing an old interview with Bertrand Russell in which he stated that he spent most of his free time between the ages of 15 and 18 thinking about Christian dogmas and discovering that they were not true.

I found it interesting to see that he continued to believe in a deistic god until age 18, when he became an atheist for this simple reason:

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?"

Russell was, as was I, born without belief in gods.
I never saw a reason to start.
So the more interesting question, which was answered in the
bold portion, is why he ever started believing in the first place.
Thus your post is informative.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Russell was, as was I, born without belief in gods.
I never saw a reason to start.
So the more interesting question, which was answered in the
bold portion, is why he ever started believing in the first place.
Thus your post is informative.

It is interesting and actually funny that Russell, being a brilliant mathematician and one of the smartest people who ever lived, didn't even think of asking the question "Who made God?" until the age of 18.

 

[Revoltingest]

It is interesting and actually funny that Russell, being a brilliant mathematician and one of the smartest people who ever lived, didn't even think of asking the question "Who made God?" until the age of 18.

I used to argue such religious topics with my friends even in elementary school.

 

[Pachomius]

Who made God?

That question means a lot for Bertrand Russell, according to our colleague here, Hubert Farmsworth: for at the age of 18 Bertrand Russell came upon that question from reading the Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, and he Bertrand Russell became an atheist.

I invite colleagues here who find that a refutation of the first cause argument for the existence of God, to sponsor a thread on this topic:

How the question Who made God toppled totally the first cause argument for God's existence.

From my own honest examination, that question to all appearances is a cop-out from serious engagement in the debate on the existence of God.

 

[rational experiences]

Humans, first in natural life are origin to self, a human, living in the same natural living conditions as all other bodies that they want to talk about and study.

And oxygenated water microbial atmosphere with burning gases claimed to be light, yet we live in a cooled burning light atmospheric body.

Natural first, origin of self, natural.

So discuss natural as relative, meaning it is relative only to self and presence of self...we live on a stone Planet, whose owned history says, created the planet atmosphere. Historically the stone planet was sitting in space first and origin in science themes.

Then the gas heavenly mass which we live inside of also sits in the state of space.

So if a male says relativity of God, I want, God the stone origins of is a stone planet sitting in out of space WITHOUT any gas atmosphere actually.

Coercive behaviour, was studied to be one of sciences own conditions named as Satanic, to lie about the presence God and planet as a stone philosophy.

For you might be present today as a human, but you are all inferring to the stone philosophy teachings of the past, no matter who you think you are personally today as a self.

Now if you look into the state natural space. And say space owns 2 conditions.

Extremely cold, pressure and emptiness.
And radiated mass in multi variations. You would see that information as a researcher.

And if you said in empty out of space conditions today, blasting and emergence still exist. Well congratulations on your observations. And if you say, therefore I think that was how the planet got formed. Congratulations for being enabled by group peer ownership to express that information, just as a natural thinker and observer.

Yet in relative natural life, your observations own no meaning to a planet existing in its natural form owning the title you gave it as a scientist and as a male named God.

 

[rational experiences]

Dear Shad, you say, "My (your) point went over your (my) head," I believe that perhaps you can develop what is my point and what is your point, okay?

Then you and I can expound on your point and my point whatever it is, to the greater enhancement of readers' knowledge.

Anyway, my point is that time really exists because we have continuous experience of time, there, that is my point.

Your point the way I read you, is that time does not exist, for it is based on nothing.

You see, dear Shad, I always believe that all parties to a conversation should work together to get things cleared up - with arriving at concurrence on what their each one's point is all about.

As a rational human advice to self. You live consciously inside of a gas mass lit atmosphere, kept safe by water and oxygen, living by microbes in the water.

You want to think differently to just existing naturally which first identifies that you are a Destroyer mentality.

Why it was discussed in science biblical conscious reality about self, human.

A bio life as one self, being each individual about 100 years of bio life in the past is deceased. How it was taught about self advice.

So you personally do not own any relative other time evaluations about self.

You then discuss consciously about space time travel. The O God stone planet first does not own light. The atmosphere does..and the God stone body is the traveller around the Sun...the gases burning just are gases burning.

You already apply science converting, which takes unnatural 24 hour gases burning into the evening sky...which affects your psyche irrationally in spatial planetary travel, movement around the Sun...for you are doing nuclear gas burning.

How you arrive at incorrect theories just living naturally thinking using a consciousness affected by nuclear gases in radiation change constantly by machine conditions. So you condition your mind to your own science designs.

 

[rational experiences]

Dear Ponder This, what do you say, will you concur with me that Bertrand Russell was without evidence in his ipse dixit statement, namely:

""The universe is just here, and that's all."

Perhaps some folks here can enlighten readers starting with of course myself, on where Bertrand Russell had evidence, from what he had written in his long lifetime, that "The universe is just here, and that's all."

You see, the man was such a darling of simple reading folks, that he said many things without ne'er any evidence, except all inside his self-certainty that his views are to be accepted by mere mortals, without challenge.

When a human lives on a solid fused stone planet and then looks at out of space themes and claims, a space black hole and particles swirling around in it was how a planet was first formed.

Yet you are living on a formed planet....that sits as formed planet in the same spatial condition as what you are looking at. It is named in the psyche conscious condition as doing and applying a comparison.

God does not own as a stone planet any comparison to that situation in space.

Yet if groups of males make the comparison and agree, then they claim that our stone planet as God should become what they are looking at. As the theme a follower of a distinctive practice, system, or philosophy, typically a political ideology or an artistic movement owner, mind thinker, designer, theorist/theist. Why you were named a The IST.

In secret science symbols this ate.

Sun theorists involved the eating of the body of God, its stone fusion, what was discussed as secret science relativity, for since when would you preach in public that your science methods was attacking the only place where you lived?

Why science used to be secretive...and to be involved in the group, you owned conditions of being accepted and it all involved egotism.

 

[Ponder This]

Dear Ponder This, what do you say, will you concur with me that Bertrand Russell was without evidence in his ipse dixit statement, namely:

""The universe is just here, and that's all."

Perhaps some folks here can enlighten readers starting with of course myself, on where Bertrand Russell had evidence, from what he had written in his long lifetime, that "The universe is just here, and that's all."

You see, the man was such a darling of simple reading folks, that he said many things without ne'er any evidence, except all inside his self-certainty that his views are to be accepted by mere mortals, without challenge.

I would agree that Russell made an ipse dixit statement.
In all fairness though, Russell was thinking in terms of pure logic as opposed to science. It's just that in all of science the idea that something comes from nothing has, at every turn, eventually been disproved by the discovery of something. The beginning of the universe would be the exception to the rule in that regard.

Perhaps, this should serve as a caution to others to be careful of thinking you've figured everything out at the age of 18. I know some people seem to think that's rather old... but it's not. Yet, apparently some people seem to think they were as smart as teenagers by the time they were 5 years old!

I think the question of "Who made God?" is particularly interesting because of the context in which this question was asked. John Stuart Mill's father was trying to impress upon him the importance of the Reformation in combating the "priestly tyranny of free thought". In other words, if the priests of a religion start to tell people that they cannot think for themselves, that people must simply accept what they say as truth, then the priests become guilty of playing god. For the atheist, the answer to the question is clearly that man made god and the priestly tyranny confirms this for him.

Bonus Question:
I've heard a person argue that God doesn't exist because... he hadn't heard of God yet when he was born. Can you imagine someone arguing that the Sun doesn't exist... because when he was born he hadn't heard of the Sun yet?

 

[ecco]

It's just that in all of science the idea that something comes from nothing has, at every turn, eventually been disproved by the discovery of something. The beginning of the universe would be the exception to the rule in that regard.

Not necessarily. If you Google "did the universe come from nothing" you will find many different opinions and concepts.

That's nothing more than a strawman that theists like to throw out.

For the atheist, the answer to the question is clearly that man made god and the priestly tyranny confirms this for him.

For this atheist, it is clear that gods are the creation of man's imaginings. History, not any priestly tyranny, confirms this. Did an atheist tell you that his confirmation came from a priestly tyranny, or is that just another strawman?

I've heard a person argue that God doesn't exist because... he hadn't heard of God yet when he was born.

Yet another strawman. You heard a person argue? Really.

I really have to wonder about your alleged sources.

 

[Pachomius]

Summing up my thoughts on how Bertrand Russell became an atheist, I think that the better search should have been, why Bertrand Russell became an atheist.

Read this text I found in the internet, I lift two short excerpts for readers to focus on.

Books on Science and Religion #41:
The Atheism of Bertrand Russell
April 5, 2015 Stephen Friberg
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...-bertrand-russell/+&cd=16&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ph

. . . .

[Bertrand Russell's] Philosophical arguments attempting to prove the existence of God are wrong. Graves, again: “As a master of metaphysics, Russell has little difficulty in demolishing the stock Catholic philosophical arguments held to prove the existence of God: the First Cause Argument, the Natural Law Argument, the Moral Argument, the Argument from Design, the Remedying of Injustice Argument.” However, if you read what he says about them, his arguments are very lazy.

. . . .

Graves, in 1958, concludes that “The resentful hatred implicit in all Russell’s discussions of early religious and moral training suggests that he lived as a child under constant threats of hellfire, and as an adolescent under frantic obsessions of sexual guilt.”

. . . .

___________________


From the common wisdom of men in the streets, I would dare opine: that Bertrand Russell became an atheist to rationalize his rich and lavish and long love life with women in and out of marriage and family.

 

[ecco]

From the common wisdom of men in the streets, I would dare opine: that Bertrand Russell became an atheist to rationalize his rich and lavish and long love life with women in and out of marriage and family.

If that were a reason, Donald Trump would be an atheist.
If that were a reason, many Catholic Bishops and Cardinals would have been atheists.

 

[Pachomius]

I see Bertrand Russell wanted to show his fellow contemporary intellectuals who subscribe to the sexual morality of Victorian England: that he Bertrand Russell is 'logically' consistent* with many loves in and out of marriage(s) and family, because he does not subscribe to the God source of Victorian moral sexual restrictions.

Otherwise he is an ethical person in regard to no killing, no stealing, no bearing false witness, etc.

And of course he keeps the laws enforced by the government in his civil life.

Very immature for an intellectual, I dare say.

*Bertrand Russell was a logician.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Well, we can get around this problem by proposing a circular chain of causes. It's a weird idea, as it would ultimately mean that events cause themselves, but it's not illogical.

No disrespect, but it's illogical--or can you name something else that causes itself, or an event that causes itself, or matter or energy that causes itself, besides the regression two (God and Universe)?

 

[Rational Agnostic]

No disrespect, but it's illogical--or can you name something else that causes itself, or an event that causes itself, or matter or energy that causes itself, besides the regression two (God and Universe)?

Just because something contradicts our intuition doesn't mean it is illogical. For instance, it is counter-intuitive that an elephant and a feather fall at the same speed in the absence of air resistance. But it is still true. A circular causal chain is not illogical, because it is not self-contradictory. It may be weird, but is not illogical.