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A Cosmological Neuroscientific Examination of Bertrand Russell’s Essays on Religion and Related Subjects



Author(s)

Nandor Ludvig

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2024.04.004

Translational Neuroscience Consultation, Astoria, USA

This work examined Bertrand Russell’s main arguments against the existence of God and his strongly negative opinion on the historic role of religions. These arguments were: (1) The idea that God is a First Cause is invalid because the cosmos doesn’t have to have a beginning; (2) If there were reasons for God to issue the observed natural laws and not others then God Himself was just an intermediary of older laws; (3) Considering all the defects of the world one cannot consider God as an omnipotent designer; (4) If God created both right and wrong then it is no longer a significant statement that God is good; And (5) most people believe in God just because they have been taught from early infancy to do it. The criticisms of cosmological neuroscience were as follows: (1) The particular cosmic wave that carries our Universe could have a beginning; (2) Although there were reasons for the natural laws which God issued, it cannot diminish the divine creativity of this act; (3) Although the world is indeed full of defects, they are as much parts of the cosmic order as its splendors, due to their common roots in the Law of Coexistence in Diversity; (4) Although right and wrong may ultimately be both in God’s blueprint, He is still benevolent due to the Law of Divine-Evil Asymmetry permitting wrong only under the dominance of right; And (5) although many believe in God only because they were taught to do so and hope it provides safety, this is an oversimplification unable to explain the genuine Faith of others. The devastating judgement of Russel that religions have been just “a source of untold misery to the human race” was also examined. This brief article could not detail all the positive social changes with which the religions of goodness (e.g., Abrahamic religions) enriched history, such as introducing the respect for human life. But the paper did remind the reader of the God-inspired work of Lao Tzu, Rumi, Michelangelo, the Bach-interpreting Leonard Bernstein, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., George Harrison and others including the architects of the Borobudur temple and astronauts like Frank Borman who read from the Bible while flying around the Moon. The paper ended with the central thought of Bertrand Russell that “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge”, to emphasize that if committed to their Conscience atheists like him can live as moral lives as the men and women of Faith—the difference is being nothing else than sensing or not the Soul that permeates the cosmos.

Soul of Multiverse, God, Christianity, conscience, morals

Nandor Ludvig. (2024). A Cosmological Neuroscientific Examination of Bertrand Russell’s Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. Philosophy Study, July-Aug. 2024, Vol. 14, No. 4, 186-193.