 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject."
Source: Bertrand Russell: Why I am not a Christian, 1927.
More info.:https://russell-j.com/0399WINC.HTM
* a brief comment: original text in Japanese, translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Common sense tends to assume (or assert) that "everything must have a cause", as Sherlock Holmes believed. From the standpoint of theoretical philosophy, however, it is not so easy to say that. People who find it a pain in the ass to think logically assume the existence of a 'creator' and stop thinking further.
Even in modern theoretical physics, there is talk about the fact that there is (or may be) no such thing as time. However, this also means that "in God, there is no such thing as time. Time is created by God, and humans, who are imperfect and have limited lives, are under the illusion that time exists. The truth is that there is no such thing as time", which seems to "free us from the difficulty of thinking". This is precisely the reason why "those who believe in it will be saved" (laughs).
If you would like to know more about Russell's ideas on causality (cause and effect relationships), please refer to the following.
https://russell-j.com/beginner/INGAKANKEI.HTM
https://russell-j.com/wp/archives/3327ｍ