On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.Harry KrotoI have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,In  the first video below in the 14th clip in this series are his words and I will be responding to them in the next few weeks since Sir Bertrand Russell is probably the most quoted skeptic of our time, unless it was someone like Carl Sagan or Antony Flew.  

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

__

Quote from Bertrand Russell:

Q: Why are you not a Christian?Russell: Because I see no evidence whatever for any of the Christian dogmas. I’ve examined all the stock arguments in favor of the existence of God, and none of them seem to me to be logically valid.Q: Do you think there’s a practical reason for having a religious belief, for many people?Russell: Well, there can’t be a practical reason for believing what isn’t true. That’s quite… at least, I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t. And if you can’t find out whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, you should suspend judgment. But you can’t… it seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful, and not because you think it’s true.__

Bertrand Russell – Biographical

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Trelleck on 18th May, 1872. His parents were Viscount Amberley and Katherine, daughter of 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. At the age of three he was left an orphan. His father had wished him to be brought up as an agnostic; to avoid this he was made a ward of Court, and brought up by his grandmother. Instead of being sent to school he was taught by governesses and tutors, and thus acquired a perfect knowledge of French and German. In 1890 he went into residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, and after being a very high Wrangler and obtaining a First Class with distinction in philosophy he was elected a fellow of his college in 1895. But he had already left Cambridge in the summer of 1894 and for some months was attaché at the British embassy at Paris.In December 1894 he married Miss Alys Pearsall Smith. After spending some months in Berlin studying social democracy, they went to live near Haslemere, where he devoted his time to the study of philosophy. In 1900 he visited the Mathematical Congress at Paris. He was impressed with the ability of the Italian mathematician Peano and his pupils, and immediately studied Peano’s works. In 1903 he wrote his first important book, The Principles of Mathematics, and with his friend Dr. Alfred Whitehead proceeded to develop and extend the mathematical logic of Peano and Frege. From time to time he abandoned philosophy for politics. In 1910 he was appointed lecturer at Trinity College. After the first World War broke out, he took an active part in the No Conscription fellowship and was fined £ 100 as the author of a leaflet criticizing a sentence of two years on a conscientious objector. His college deprived him of his lectureship in 1916. He was offered a post at Harvard university, but was refused a passport. He intended to give a course of lectures (afterwards published in America as Political Ideals, 1918) but was prevented by the military authorities. In 1918 he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for a pacifistic article he had written in the Tribunal. His Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919) was written in prison. His Analysis of Mind (1921) was the outcome of some lectures he gave in London, which were organized by a few friends who got up a subscription for the purpose.In 1920 Russell had paid a short visit to Russia to study the conditions of Bolshevism on the spot. In the autumn of the same year he went to China to lecture on philosophy at the Peking university. On his return in Sept. 1921, having been divorced by his first wife, he married Miss Dora Black. They lived for six years in Chelsea during the winter months and spent the summers near Lands End. In 1927 he and his wife started a school for young children, which they carried on until 1932. He succeeded to the earldom in 1931. He was divorced by his second wife in 1935 and the following year married Patricia Helen Spence. In 1938 he went to the United States and during the next years taught at many of the country’s leading universities. In 1940 he was involved in legal proceedings when his right to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York was questioned because of his views on morality. When his appointment to the college faculty was cancelled, he accepted a five-year contract as a lecturer for the Barnes foundation, Merion, Pa., but the cancellation of this contract was announced in Jan. 1943 by Albert C. Barnes, director of the foundation.Russell was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908, and re-elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1944. He was awarded the Sylvester medal of the Royal Society, 1934, the de Morgan medal of the London Mathematical Society in the same year, the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950.In a paper “Logical Atomism” (Contemporary British Philosophy. Personal Statements, First series. Lond. 1924) Russell exposed his views on his philosophy, preceded by a few words on historical development.¹

1) The matter for this sketch is taken from general English reference books.From Les Prix Nobel en 1950, Editor Arne Holmberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1951This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/ Nobel Lectures/The Nobel Prizes. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.For more updated biographical information, see:
Russell, Bertrand, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. (3 vols.) Allen & Unwin: London, 1967-1969.

Douglas Groothuis

Alain de Botton Religion for Atheists: A Nonbelievers Guide to the Uses of Religion. New York: Pantheon Books, 2012. Hardback. $26.95. 320 pages. ISBN-10: 0307379108; ISBN-13: 978-0307379108.

Related posts:

RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Part 149 EE Sir Bertrand Russell

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

In  the first video below in the 14th clip in this series are his words and I will be responding to them in the next few weeks since Sir Bertrand Russell is probably the most quoted skeptic of our time, unless it was someone like Carl Sagan or Antony Flew.  

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

__

Quote from Bertrand Russell:

Q: Why are you not a Christian?

Russell: Because I see no evidence whatever for any of the Christian dogmas. I’ve examined all the stock arguments in favor of the existence of God, and none of them seem to me to be logically valid.

Q: Do you think there’s a practical reason for having a religious belief, for many people?

Russell: Well, there can’t be a practical reason for believing what isn’t true. That’s quite… at least, I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t. And if you can’t find out whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, you should suspend judgment. But you can’t… it seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful, and not because you think it’s true.

__

For many people the above is a magnanimous and noble sounding string of words — the notion of a communion of humanity bounded only by our shared humanity, unburdened by the notion of God. For them it brings hope and freedom. However, implicit in this statement is the notion that humanity is valuable in and of itself — that humanity is valuable for no other reason than being human. The essence of this humanist statement is relationship; that a relationship solely between human beings is preferable over a relationship between God and humanity. Relationship at its core is first a valuing of the person; it is to consider the person worth the effort a relationship involves. Or, in the case of this humanistic statement, it is to consider humanity worthy of the effort and sacrifice required for such a communal relationship to exist.

Humanists argue for a communal relationship between humans alone as better than a communal relationship with God. This idea starts with the facts that they value one over the other and that human life is worthy of the effort involved. But if atheistic beliefs such as humanism are true, why should any human being value their own life, let alone that of a fellow human being? Without God can atheistic beliefs claim and sustain notions such as value, let alone that humanity is valuable? While the answer to many Christians will seem intuitive, we should be able to articulate arguments in order to respond to these questions and beliefs. Human experience argues that human beings value themselves and cannot separate themselves from value. If so, it can be argued that these atheistic beliefs are inadequate foundations for such a deep-seated need on two fronts. One, it can be shown that they are philosophically motivated statements of faith. Two, it is arguable that without God, humanity simply has no legitimate claim to value.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote in 1902, “That Man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.” Then, stunningly, Russell concludes, “Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built” (Russell, p. 3). In 1971, Biochemist Jacques Monod wrote, “Man must at last wake out of his millenary dream and discover his total solitude, his fundamental isolation. He must realize that, like a gypsy, he lives on the boundary of an alien world; a world that is deaf to his music, and is indifferent to his hopes as it is to his sufferings or his crimes” (quoted in Colson, p. 225).

The dark tone of these atheistic pronouncements is undeniable. These men hold to a belief they acknowledge as futile. In the end all human endeavor, struggle, and advancement ends in meaningless extinction. It is utterly void of value that transcends this existence. Many people will say this end is in the too distant future to be relevant to them. But death is not far off for any of us and if this belief is true the death of a person may as well be the final end of all things. The majority of people are not remembered past one or two generations before their “person” vanishes from the human landscape altogether. All that is left is the impersonal and voiceless effects of their life that may linger for a few more generations or, at best, ripple down through the ages to end in the futility of universal extinction. This is why intuition causes many of us to ask, “With all human activity set against ultimate futility, what value is there in any human activity whether it is remembered or advancing humanity?” Unquestionably, these apostles of atheism recognize the utter futility in their belief, but they are willing to accept it. Are the rest of us willing to do so? If the atheists own testimonies are so bleak, should we accept that their testimonies are true on blind faith?

The first premise of the argument is that atheism is a philosophically motivated statement of faith. To be sure these folks seethe at the very mention of such suggestions. They emphatically deny their belief is, in any way, a faith. But notice, importantly the quotes lack scientific fact. Such quotes are often said by respected scientists and thus, almost unperceived by the audience, the nod of scientific authority is attached to these statements. In his autobiography on his journey from atheism to Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes, “You will understand that my rationalism (naturalism/atheism) was inevitably based on what I believed to be the findings of the sciences and those findings, not being a scientist, I had to take on trust — in fact, on authority” (Lewis, Surprised, p. 97). Lewis is saying that someone whom he considered an authority on the subject told him science has all but proven naturalism, thus by implication disproven supernaturalism, religion, and spirituality. Thus as a reasoning person he had to accept their testimony on the subject as authoritative. C. S. Lewis went on to discover that these authorities were masquerading philosophy for science and such claims are simply unjustified posturing. The persuasive power of their argument can be great on an unsuspecting public when well-credentialled, respected atheists unjustly usurp science to overstate their case. Arguably the most damaging fact against those who push the view that science has all but disproven the supernatural is the fact that many scientists, including a lengthy list of Nobel Prize recipients, adopt beliefs of faith over naturalism.

Understanding that atheism is a faith is important. If atheism were true that could not be debated, the question of humanity having value without God (the second premise of this argument) would be moot. On the other hand, if atheism is a faith competing with other faiths, the question of God and value is an extremely relevant question. The few quotes given adequately lay a foundation that the fathers of atheism understand the implications of their philosophy. They understand and embrace with a kind of dark foreboding mentality, the fact that humanity has no ultimate value if naturalism is true. Given this foundation, the question becomes, “Does humanity have any claim to value at all if we do not have ultimate value?”

Naturally one would expect such pessimism to lead to a nihilistic view of life — that life has no meaning or purpose. But Dr. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and leading atheist seems to think this should not be the case. He writes, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” (Dawkins, p. 133). Such a view is apparently no reason to see life as valueless and pointless for Dr. Dawkins. Skeptic magazine hosted an interview with Dr. Dawkins. The interviewer referenced the above quote and likened it to Shakespeare’s “a tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Dawkins’ responded, “Yes, at a sort of cosmic level, it is. But what I want to guard against is people therefore getting nihilistic in their personal lives. I do not see any reason for that at all. You can have a very happy and fulfilled personal life even if you think that the universe at large is a tale told by an idiot” (Miele, p. 5). Although I’ve since validated these quotes, I am indebted to Jill Carattini for her article “First A Story” where I first saw them together.

If atheistic humanism is true, a few questions arise concerning Dr. Dawkins conclusions. Dawkins makes the assumption that to have a “very happy and fulfilled personal life” is better then nihilism. But what warrants such an assumption in such a bleak view of the universe? Dr. Dawkins’ assumption is derived from value judgments about human life — that life “ought” to be valuable and is thus worthy to be happy and fulfilled. But a purposeless universe simply has no regard for such “oughts” and values. Dawkins acknowledges this fact only a few sentences before when he writes the universe has “at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” There is no free lunch. If the universe is an accident, has no purpose and is indifferent to all things, it follows that the universe is indifferent to distinctions of value, i.e. it is valueless. In a valueless universe what grounds are there for value statements like “life is valuable” and “life is not valuable” or “good is better than evil?” In Dawkins and company’s view of the universe we simply have no grounds to appeal to a fundamental principle that anything, let alone human life, “ought” to be valuable. Notice this is not asking, “Why do we value?” It asks a very different question, “Why should we value?” This is the crux of the problem with atheistic philosophies. Dawkins believes there is no reason to give into nihilism in the face of a pitiless, indifferent universe. But in his valueless universe why determine one state of mind as “better than” another state of mind? Why do we know which one is really better than the other? If we say it is because we feel one way or the other, truth becomes predominantly a function of emotion and is extraordinarily subjective. No matter how adamantly the atheist denies it, for such questions to be answered with any legitimacy and authority the universe must fundamentally possess value and purpose, something an accident simply cannot bestow. If the universe is nothing more than a mere accident, then we, being part of it, are also nothing more than mere accidents. No matter how grand the accident, there simply is no rational judgment for or against assuming nihilism is better or worse then being happy and fulfilled. To say it is a grand and miraculous accident is ludicrous. What is cognizant life apart from value, meaning, and purpose?

The question is not, “Why do we make value judgments?” Simply put, no human being can escape making them. If naturalism is true, the question is why valuing anything is so deeply human. It is the very notion of a valueless universe that Dr. Dawkins’ mind simply will not accept. In the face of his utterly hopeless universe he manufactures purpose and meaning for his being. He manufactures value for himself. It takes very little attention to see that such value and purpose is truly subjective and meaningless. If naturalism is true, cognizant life is the cruelest joke ever played. It is this “oughtness” that is fundamentally woven into nature and existence — that human life ought to be valuable — that demands both an intellectual and emotionally satisfying answer. What would life be like if we, at our most fundamental levels, did not think life is valuable? Why do we fight for human rights? Why is it our tendency to elevate the value of animal life to be equal with humanity instead of devaluing humanity to be equal with animal life? If naturalism is true there is no rational judgment for thinking the cloud of atoms making up a person is more or less valuable then a cloud of atoms making up the rock the person may be sitting on.

The opening sentence of this essay is the title of an article that states 12 tenets of Humanism. The first two tenets are, “First, that Nature or the universe makes up the totality of existence and is completely self-operating according to natural law, with no need for a God or gods to keep it functioning. This cosmos, unbounded in space and infinite in time, consists fundamentally of a constantly changing system of matter and energy, and is neutral in regard to man’s well-being and values. Second, Humanism holds that the race of man is the present culmination of a time-defying evolutionary process on this planet that has lasted billions of years; that each human being exists as an inseparable unity of mind and body, and that therefore after death there can be no personal immortality or survival of consciousness” (Lamont, p. 1). The fathers of atheism understand the bankruptcy in these elegant and lofty sounding words. Jean-Paul Sartre expresses, “Atheism is a cruel, long-term business; I believe I have gone through it to the end” (quoted in Guinness, p. 134). However, my experience leads me to believe that the majority of people hold a more uninformed acceptance of such notions. One of my most telling experiences occurred when I attended an invitation-only lecture on the evolutionary rise of morals hosted by North Carolina State. The presenter was a world renowned researcher in his field of study. The room was full of Ph.D’s from the related fields. A question and answer period followed the presentation in which I asked why I should accept such a view when it is dependent on Supervenience. To the presenter’s credit, he knew what Supervenience is. But this world renowned leader in evolutionary theory anticipated something about his colleague’s knowledge, because he asked the room if they knew what Supervenience meant. To my astonishment the vast majority had never heard the term. Yet Supervenience is the leading explanation for human personality and mind in evolutionary thought. The best that evolutionary thought has delivered to date to explain humanity’s very personhood is a tenuously held and likely unprovable hypothesis that is apparently little known among evolutionary academics.

After completing a survey of western society and thought, the twentieth-century theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer wrote, “Man beginning with his proud, proud humanism, tried to make himself autonomous, but rather than becoming great, he had found himself ending up as only a collection of molecules — and nothing more.” He then goes on to say, “Beginning only from man himself, people affirm that man is only a machine” (Schaeffer, p. 164). This truth was profoundly personal for C. S. Lewis. He wrote of his struggles and emotions caused by the death of his wife, Helen Joy, from cancer, “If H. ‘is not’ (now that she is dead), then she never was. I mistook a cloud of atoms for a person. There aren’t, and never were, any people” (Lewis, A Grief, p. 28). I close with a quote from my own book, “This is the dichotomy in our existence. We rail against God to be our own, rejecting His claim to us. In so doing, we also give up His higher purpose and reason for humanity, leaving us free to claim ourselves, yet we cannot live coherently with the hopelessness of that rejection. In short it states, ‘I am my own,’ and then relentlessly asks, ‘But what am I?’ ” (Billington, p. 25).

Works Cited.
Billington, John. An Account of Hope: Christian Faith in an Age of Relative Truth and Religious Pluralism. Mustang: Tate, 2007.
Colson, Charles, and Nancy Pearcey. How Now Shall We Live? Wheaton: Tyndale, 1999.
Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life. New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Guinness, Os. Unspeakable: Facing Up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Lamont, Corliss. The Humanist. 1971. “Humanism Promotes Communing with Humanity, Not God”.
Lewis, C. S. A Grief Observed. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Lewis, C. S. “Surprised by Joy”. The Beloved Works of C.S. Lewis: Surprised by Joy/ Reflections on the Psalms/ The Four Loves/ The Business of Heaven, The Inspirational Christian Library.
Miele, Frank. “Darwin’s Dangerous Disciple.” Skeptic 1995: 4-5. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Eva H. Perry Regional Lib. Apex NC. 19 Mar.
Randall, John. The Making of the Modern Mind: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
Russell, Bertrand. “A Free Man’s Worship” Philosophical Society.com. Tim Ruggiero, 24 Mar. 2009.
Schaeffer, Francis. The Three Essential Books in One Volume Trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason, He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1990.
Schmidt, Mark Ray. Constructing a Life Philosophy (Opposing Viewpoints Series). San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Central Carolina Community College Lib. 6 Apr. 2009.

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, MarApr12.

Related posts:

RESPONDING TO HARRY KROTO’S BRILLIANT RENOWNED ACADEMICS!! Part 149 CC Sir Bertrand Russell

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

In  the first video below in the 14th clip in this series are his words and I will be responding to them in the next few weeks since Sir Bertrand Russell is probably the most quoted skeptic of our time, unless it was someone like Carl Sagan or Antony Flew.  

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

__

Quote from Bertrand Russell:

Q: Why are you not a Christian?

Russell: Because I see no evidence whatever for any of the Christian dogmas. I’ve examined all the stock arguments in favor of the existence of God, and none of them seem to me to be logically valid.

Q: Do you think there’s a practical reason for having a religious belief, for many people?

Russell: Well, there can’t be a practical reason for believing what isn’t true. That’s quite… at least, I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t. And if you can’t find out whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, you should suspend judgment. But you can’t… it seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful, and not because you think it’s true.

__

Why I’m not Bertrand Russell (or an atheist)

In 1957 Bertrand Russell published his essay Why I Am Not a Christian which is still cited to this day as a popular anti-Christian apologetic. Briefly here is why I, unlike Russell, am unwaveringly Christian.

I could make a plea to my supernatural experiences, which have certainly contributed to my stance. Yet for me rational reasons came first and continue to be the backbone behind my worldview.

1. Logic and math

Only monotheism makes sense of what logic and math is. Pleading evolutionary origins of logic reduces the use of logic to nonsensical. If logic and math are merely the result of naturalistic processes, then how can they be trusted to lead us to truth at all? Even truth itself becomes absurd. As Pilate said famously ‘What is truth?’

However I see that math is objective, it comes from outside of ourselves, and that is internally consistent. Gödel saw the same thing and noted that because numbers are uncountable (infinite) and well-ordered there must be an intelligence behind them that is not human.

Logic is intrinsically true, not because it works in practice (saying that is circular reasoning—logic works because it works) yet because it must have come from the author of truth outside of time and space. Merely assuming universal, invariant, immaterial laws is no explanation and they demand an explanation.

Instead of the God of the Gaps, God is inferred as the properties of God match these universal laws. Infinite, eternal, height of intelligence, constant, non-contradictory.

Logic and math contain His fingerprints all over them.

2. Morality as a system

The major arguments against God are often moral, yet I find morality existing in itself as a great argument for God. There must be some higher standard for humans to attain to—a Moral Law. A Moral Law transcends humanity, this universal law requires a universal lawgiver.

If right and wrong are what we decide for ourselves as humans, then morality is reduced to mere whims and wishful thinking. Justice and injustice cannot exist in such a system, as what is unjust to one person (like robbing you) might not be unjust to someone else (as the robber I might legitimately feel I deserve your money). So who really is right without a higher moral standard than our own opinions?

When people say that God is immoral, what are they judging Him by? What standard? God cannot be immoral though if you factor in eternity. If there is an eternity wrongs will be righted and have a purpose. Proving the injustices in this world matter immensely to God. God being just can be seen not by what we observe in this world, but what happens in eternity.

The moral system in Christianity is undoubtedly the highest system of all. Being unique as it makes us accountable for our thoughts and intentions as well as what we do.

3. The inadequacy of other worldviews

Logic matters. Now that I’ve got that axiom to rest on, I can evaluate all other world systems as being logically consistent or inconsistent. Given that every touted inconsistency about the Bible has been answered by scholars as being due to cultural and linguistic misunderstandings, I can see that Christianity is logically coherent. But what about the other worldviews?

James Sire’s The Universe Next Door has long been the text for examining worldviews up against the Christian system. This book has shown the other views to be woefully inadequate. While it doesn’t assess the cults, there are numerous other materials out there defeating cultic writings.

Naturalism must necessarily lead to nihilism unless you become an existentialist or postmodernist and both those views take an illogical ‘upper story leap’ to use the words of Francis Schaeffer. No one can live consistently upbeat when noticing the lack of purpose and certain death they face. New Age is eclectic, it borrows from a vast range of ideas, which means that you can get no unified, coherent system.

Reason cannot be separated from God

Those three points are pretty solid reasons to believe. The coup de grace to Christianity has not been issued, and I can’t see that it ever will be based on the points above. If you must use logic to defeat God, you must make an ontological account for logic. If you can’t account for it your worldview falls apart.

If you have a worldview that says logic does not exist, then absolutely everything human falls apart—math, science, health, technology and all other human endeavours. The Christian God of love, justice and rationality allows us to keep our reason.

I prefer to be reasonable, hence I believe in God.

Bridget Brenton has been researching apologetics, philosophy and the paranormal for years. You can check her apologetic effort out at 101arguments.com

Bridget Brenton’s previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/bridget-brenton.html

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Seen below is William Faulkner and Bertrand Russell receiving Nobel Prize in 1950. My grandparents grew up in Oxford, Mississippi and knew William Faulkner. My grandfather, John Murphey, (born 1910) grew up in Oxford, Mississippi and knew both Johncy and “Bill” Faulkner. He told me that Bill was a very bashful shy man. Johncy was outgoing and would be very friendly and would love to stop and visit.

My grandfather was in the moving business and he had moved Johncy several times, but Johncy still had several outstanding bills. Then one day Johncy told my grandfather to take the bills to his brother and he would pay them in full. I don’t know the exact date, but my grandfather was told that Faulkner had got his first big check from a publisher and I am guessing that it was  in the early 1930’s.

On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said:

…Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975

and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them.

Harry Kroto

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I have attempted to respond to all of Dr. Kroto’s friends arguments and I have posted my responses one per week for over a year now. Here are some of my earlier posts:

Arif Ahmed, Sir David Attenborough, Mark Balaguer, Horace Barlow, Michael Bate, Patricia Churchland, Aaron Ciechanover, Noam Chomsky,Alan Dershowitz, Hubert Dreyfus, Bart Ehrman, Stephan Feuchtwang, David Friend,  Riccardo Giacconi, Ivar Giaever , Roy Glauber, Rebecca Goldstein, David J. Gross,  Brian Greene, Susan Greenfield, Stephen F Gudeman,  Alan Guth, Jonathan Haidt, Theodor W. Hänsch, Brian Harrison,  Hermann Hauser, Roald Hoffmann,  Bruce Hood, Herbert Huppert,  Gareth Stedman Jones, Steve Jones, Shelly Kagan, Michio Kaku,  Stuart Kauffman,  Lawrence Krauss, Harry Kroto, George Lakoff, Elizabeth Loftus,  Alan Macfarlane, Peter Millican, Marvin Minsky, Leonard Mlodinow,  Yujin Nagasawa, Alva Noe, Douglas Osheroff,  Jonathan Parry,  Saul Perlmutter, Herman Philipse,  Carolyn Porco, Robert M. Price, Lisa Randall, Lord Martin Rees,  Oliver Sacks, John Searle, Marcus du Sautoy, Simon Schaffer, J. L. Schellenberg,   Lee Silver,  Peter Singer,  Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Ronald de Sousa, Victor Stenger, Barry Supple,   Leonard Susskind, Raymond Tallis, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  .Alexander Vilenkin, Sir John Walker, Frank Wilczek, Steven Weinberg, and  Lewis Wolpert,

About 

BERTRAND RUSSELL 

In  the first video below in the 14th clip in this series are his words and I will be responding to them in the next few weeks since Sir Bertrand Russell is probably the most quoted skeptic of our time, unless it was someone like Carl Sagan or Antony Flew.  

50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 1)

Another 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 2)

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God (Part 3)

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Quote from Bertrand Russell:

Q: Why are you not a Christian?

Russell: Because I see no evidence whatever for any of the Christian dogmas. I’ve examined all the stock arguments in favor of the existence of God, and none of them seem to me to be logically valid.

Q: Do you think there’s a practical reason for having a religious belief, for many people?

Russell: Well, there can’t be a practical reason for believing what isn’t true. That’s quite… at least, I rule it out as impossible. Either the thing is true, or it isn’t. If it is true, you should believe it, and if it isn’t, you shouldn’t. And if you can’t find out whether it’s true or whether it isn’t, you should suspend judgment. But you can’t… it seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful, and not because you think it’s true._

EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS, EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE

Written by Doug Ponder on July 20, 2014

Bertrand Russell pictured above and Francis Schaeffer below:

Francis Schaeffer noted in his book HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? (p. 182 in Vol 5 of Complete Works) in the chapter The Breakdown in Philosophy and Science:

In his lecture at Acapulco, George Wald finished with only one final value. It was the same one with which English philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was left. For Wald and Russell and for many other modern thinkers, the final value is the biological continuity of the human race. If this is the only final value, one is left wondering why this then has importance. 

Now having traveled from the pride of man in the High Renaissance and the Enlightenment down to the present despair, we can understand where modern people are. They have no place for a personal God. But equally they have no place for man as man, or for love, or for freedom, or for significance. This brings a crucial problem. Beginning only from man himself, people affirm that man is only a machine. But those who hold this position cannot live like machines! If they could, there would have been no tensions in their intellectual position or in their lives. But even people who believe they are machines cannot live like machines, and thus they must “leap upstairs” against their reason and try to find something which gives meaning to life, even though to do so they have to deny their reason. 

Francis Schaeffer in another place worded it like this:

The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there. 

Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.

TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnotes #97 and #98)

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