Bertrand Russell - Why I'm Not a Christian

Russell's Teapot

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an 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.”

COPLESTON vs.RUSSELL

FREDRICK COPLESTON

Fredrick Copleston reformulated Aquinas' argument by concentrating on contingency. He proposed his argument in a BBC radio debate in 1947:

1) There are things in this world that are contingent (they 'depend upon' other things to exist– they might not have existed e.g. we would not exist without our parents
2) All things in the world are like this – everything depends on something else for it's existence
3) Therefore there must be a cause of everything in the universe that exists outside of the universe
4) This cause must be a 'necessary' being – one which has no cause outside itself and HAS TO EXIST
5) This necessary being is God

COPLESTON AND RUSSELL'S FAMOUS BBC RADIO DEBATE - 1947

F.C. Copleston proposed his Cosmological argument in a famous BBC radio debate with Bertrand Russell. Russell however refused to accept the notion of a necessary being as one that "cannot be thought of not existing" (i.e. MUST exist) , and concluded that :

1) PARTS OF THE UNIVERSE HAVE A CAUSE - THAT DOESN'T MEAN THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE HAS A CAUSE - the regress (chain) of causal events could not be held responsible for the existence of everything in the universe:

“what I am saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total"

Just because each human has a mother does not mean the entire human race has a mother. 

2) THERE IS NO CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE -He reduced the universe to a mere, brute fact, of which it's existence does not demand an explanation.

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all."

Russell saw the argument for a cause of the universe as having little meaning or significance. He established it as a “question that has no meaning" and thus proposed: “Shall we pass on to some other issue?" 

Copleston's response to Russell's refusal to accept the importance of the issue was to claim:

“If one refused to sit at the chess board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be checkmated."

The Cosmological Argument

Way 1 - The Argument from Motion

   

Do we have a “God-given” sense of beauty?

Yes

The Aesthetic Argument argues how that we, and the world, are designed because of our sense of beauty. This means that we have a facility of appreciating beauty and this is present for all cultures. So wherever you live in the world we all look for beauty and enjoy it. It is not necessary for survival or development therefore it’s not needed for natural selection. Tennant was quoted saying ‘From an intelligibility point of view, beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value’. Therefore meaning it isn’t important and needed. However it is in us to look for it throughout life.

People who believe in the Aesthetic Argument use the sense of beauty to attempt to refute evolution by saying  that there’s no survival advantage which would allow us to pass the trait down among our offspring. Our sense of beauty is not a result of evolution and natural selection; the only way we can have a sense of beauty is if God has given it to us.

No

However, materialists argue that  the sense of beauty could have been a product of evolution and natural selection. Not in the sense of hiding or hunting, but in the sense of mate selection. Materialists believe that the original reason for humans to create art or music is to attract the opposite gender. The sense of beauty could have  also been passed down due to the females sexually selecting artists/musicians, believing they’re smart and talented and that their children will be smart and talented. They also argue that during primitive times, primates/early forms of humans used colour and shapes to help them recognise and find food. This old trait could influence us in appreciating paintings and pictures.

Mill and Schopenhauer both argue that  the world isn’t really that beautiful anyway. Schopenhauer says “Console yourself by remembering that the world doesn’t deserve your affection”, saying how the world isn’t beautiful at all, rendering the aesthetic argument redundant. Mill however goes more detail about how the world isn’t beautiful and even questions the Deity’s morals/powers. Mill states that, because the world is filled with so much suffering, the world isn’t beautiful and argues against traditional Christianity by saying God is either not good or how God is limited in some way.

The Anthropic Principle

Is the universe something so right 'just for us' that it must be designed?