Bertrand Russell
As I kept reading the extract “I am Not a Christian” I was totally amazed and shocked- as it redefined my thoughts on how we see this world and everything in it. At first Russell talks about the basic foundation of Christianity by asking a very simple question, ”What is a Christian?” In one line he says,”… properly call yourself Christian. Then, further than that, as the name implies, you… some kind of believe about Christ. The Mohammedens, for instance, also believe in God and immortality… not call themselves Christian.” And he goes on talking about the “The First Cause Argument”, where he explains that if everything has a cause for existence than what is God’s cause of existence? As John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography read “My father taught me that the question, Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggest the further question, Who made God?”, so on Russell says, “The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.”
Then the other argument that caught my eye is, “The Argument From Design”, as we are taught for a very young or if I may say it from infidel age, that everything in this world is design in such a way that we can manage to live in this world, but if it differed a little then we couldn’t have managed to live in it. As it refers to Voltaire’s remark on the design of our nose, where he says that our nose is made in such a way so it can fit spectacles, as this was said in the eighteen century, now if we were to be taught this knowledge we would laugh our heads off! As after the time of Darwin we understand much better why living things adapted to their environments. As they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. This words of Russell made me think, ”Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan, the Fascisti and Mr. Winston Churchill?” just in simple terms if I were to put what I have come to understand is that even with all this knowledge and technology we would be unable to create anything better of what we see now as every evolution or adaptation takes time and it goes through many trial and error’s just to some to a stage where it is able to survive or to last longer. Here Russell nicely puts this words in form, “it is merely a flash in the pan; it is a stage in the decay of solar system; at certain stage of decay you get the sort of conditions and temperatures and so forth which are suitable to protoplasm…” just the words “it is merely a flash in the pan” says it all. In some place of the solar system or even some were in this huge universe there might be a planet in its decaying stage where it might conger up a suitable conditions and temperatures, and new life can start there. Who knows?
This whole argument goes very long and slowly it starts to attack our morals and believe on what we have known and been taught this whole life time. Now I know how I have made decisions on what I did, they were all on emotional level never have I stopped to think this through using logic, just a simple question like “Who made God?” can turn around you whole world and let alone seeking answers for that question! From now I have opened my eyes again and now I am seeing things totally in different way.
Sincerely,
Akif Hassan
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