“Why I am not a Christian” by Bertrand Russell

The essay “Why I am not a Christian” by Bertrand Russell has long been considered one of the most influential books of the 20th century, and “devastating in its use of cold logic”, in its attacks on religion, and specifically, Christianity. Hence I was quite surprised that it is so outdated, biased, naive, and self-righteous.

He attacked the “First-cause Argument” by saying “If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God”, which is fair enough because many people have made the same argument. But it went on to say “There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all.” This point, of course, has been weakened tremendously by the wide acceptance of the Big Bang Theory, which postulates that the universe began with a big explosion. Since everything that “begins” to exist most likely has a cause, there is quite likely to be a cause of the universe, and not really “due to the poverty of our imagination.”

He went on to say that “a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions ... atoms ... much less subject to law than people thought ... just statistical averages ...” Yes, scientists have discovered that atoms, and other related matter, are less predictable than was previously thought. But that is not the same as saying that their behaviour is not rational; it simply means the natural “laws” are more complicated than previously thought. There are still natural laws and the question where they came from remains.

He claimed that “this world, ..., with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. ... I really cannot believe it.” Conveniently ignoring that may be the universe is a work in progress, but not the final product. He was using an underhanded tactic: accuse the opposition of making a faulty statement, and then attack that faulty statement. Such a tactic is not worthy of a philosopher of such caliber.

Later on, he said “What really moves people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it.” It is certainly not true for me, and a lot of people. That statement is very condescending. What if I were to say of him, “What really moves Russell to hate Christianity is not any intellectual argument at all. He hates Christianity because he had been taught by his atheist father from infancy to do it.”?

He continued:“Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all.” Nowadays most people do not seem to doubt Christ’s existence, although many doubt whether He was really like what the Gospels say about Him.

He also wrote, “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is He believed in hell, ...”because Russell himself does not believe in hell. Now this is really preposterous. He is saying that anyone who does not believe the same things that he believes in is not just wrong, but actually a bad person.

I am rather disappointed in the quality of Russell’s arguments. It is really not befitting a philosopher of his reputation.