Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

“Why I Am Not a Christian” is an essay by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. Originally a talk given 6 March 1927 at Battersea Town Hall, under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular Society, it was published that year as a pamphlet and has been republished several times in English and in translation.

I have just finished reading Bertrand’s lecture; although it was fairly short, I believe it’s best to consume such rich food in small quantities. The first thing that strikes me is Russell’s mastery of the English language and his logical mind. Well, this is obvious, as he is one of the most prominent British philosophers and mathematicians of recent centuries.

He writes using excellent English, and has a mathematical sense of logic, I can imagine he was a good chess player. However, the minds of chess players are often straitjacketed by their own logic, unable to ‘see the world’ outside the ‘world of logic’. He has a special sort of humour that perhaps not all readers understand. In fact, this is perhaps one aspect of his writing I like best.

Russell’s Introduction

Russell begins by defining what he means by the term Christian. He also sets out to explain why he does not “believe in God and in immortality” and why he “does not think that Christ was the best and wisest of men”; these are the two things he identifies as “essential to anybody calling himself a Christian”. He focused on this; that various motivations that different religions have such as the obvious one to exert control over others weren’t highlighted anymore.

What Russell tackled instead is the question of why he is not a Christian from a purely scientific point of view. I guess this was natural given the fact that he is a scientist and mathematician. He addresses the Christians’ defence for the existence of God.

Russell considers a number of logical arguments for the existence of God and goes into specifics about Christian theology. He argues against the “argument from design”, and favours Darwin’s theories. Russell also expresses doubt over the historical existence of Jesus. He also questions the morality of religion, which is, in his view, predominantly based on fear.”

Religious Professionals

The concept of the existence of ONE GOD seems to be professed by all the Abrahamic religions. Muslims, Christians, or Jewish people you meet in the street will insist there is a God. You can even think of an ‘annoying’ Christian selling his religion who have once knocked on your door to ask you: “Do you believe in GOD!?” Yet to me, these are often just ‘brainwashed’ children who have no knowledge of the religion, and will be unable to give you any explanation of who God is, and so on. In other words, this is some kind of brainless ‘leap of faith’.

Russell also takes a stance against various religious professionals who seem to get paid to defend their faith such as priests and theoreticians. He starts off by questioning their so-called defence regarding the existence of God called the ‘First Cause’. In other words, the vague idea that God is the ‘cause of everything’. 

First Cause

I agree with most of Russell’s arguments so far, such as his opposition to the idea of the ‘First Cause’. To me, the reasoning of Christians is just so ‘silly’. It is hardly worth spending energy analysing it. 

“First cause”, in philosophy, is the self-created being to which every chain of causes must ultimately go back. The term was used by Greek thinkers and became an underlying assumption in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Russell opposes the ‘First Cause’ argument with the following: 

“I may say that when I was a young man, and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, For a long time, I accepted the argument of the First Cause; that was until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography.

There I found this sentence: ‘My father taught me that the question, Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God?’

That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause; and if there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God; so 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.’ The argument is really no better than that.”

Wishful Thinking of Science

Russell provides many good arguments against being a Christian, and about the faults and errors of the religion. But he does not really address some people’s need to believe in religion. His conclusion for an alternative to religion or “what we must do” is just a load of wishy-washy liberal-humanistic nonsense. I’m not saying I disagree with him, but he accuses Christianity of living in an ‘unreal world’.

Similarly, his suggestions are quite ‘unreal’ – that is, wishful thinking. It was along the lines of if we try hard, we can be ‘good and happy’ with the help of science. In other words, this seems to be some type of positivism that the world, with the help of science, is moving forward and progressing.

This wishful thinking is based on various scientific discoveries that refuted the dogma of the Church. An example is Darwin’s Evolution of the Species which made the ideas of ‘creation’ in the Bible seem absurd. In addition, the ‘heretic’ Copernicus proposed that the Sun was the centre of the solar system, rather than the Biblical idea that the Earth was the centre of the universe. This is all very well and good but the discoveries of Copernicus and Darwin have no moral intent.

Moral and Ethical Aspects of Inventions

Scientists are rarely concerned with the moral and ethical aspects of their discoveries. One example is Karl Benz, the German Mechanical engineer who designed the world’s first practical automobile powered by an internal-combustion engine. Surely he never considered what might happen 20 – 50 – 100 – 140 years later such as the power of oil over the world. In fact, that the ‘fight for oil’ has contributed to several wars in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, not to mention the creation of various ‘evil’ dictatorships (Saudi Arabia). Karl couldn’t be aware of the fact that his invention would contribute to the future murder of innocent children like the civilians in Ukraine by the Russian army.

I think the reader has got my point now. But the ‘logical mind’ of Russell seems incapable of dissecting the concept of ‘science’ as a progressive aspect regarding the human race. In fact, ‘science’ as such has been very ‘progressive’ in promoting mass murders and environmental disasters. 

Science during the world wars

This seems to be rather naive considering the lecture was written ten years after the end of the First World War; back then, science had contributed to the death of millions, not least in the development of chemical warfare. Science was used in the Second World War to gas Jews. In other words, the great German scientific invention Zyklon B was used by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust to murder approximately 1.1 million people in gas chambers; those were installed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, and other extermination camps. 

Of course, we can’t blame Russell for not knowing that ‘science’ had created the nuclear bombs that enabled the racist American genocide of the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 22 years after his lecture. But his ‘logical mind’ seems to miss the point that the mass murders and tortures committed by the Christians was only made possible by advances in ‘science’.

For example, the ‘scientific’ inventions that enabled the torture and murders committed during the Inquisition. He seems to have completely missed the point that one of the greatest minds of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, was also a great inventor of war machines. I’m quite sure that Leonardo did not have a separate ‘department of ethics’ concerned with the ethics of his inventions. In other words, science and industry has seldom been concerned with ethics but only with ‘progress’ and profits, respectively. 

Theories of Morality

Russell criticizes the morals and ethics of the Christians. I can more or less agree with him on most points. But how often are businessmen, scientists and politicians concerned with morals and ethics. Of course, what Russell seems to suggest is a kind of Benthamism, that is, a kind of utilitarianism. That is, “a theory of morality that advocates actions that foster happiness and oppose actions that cause unhappiness or harm.” It is such a philosophy that most democratic societies utilize in the running of their societies. But this is a rather diffuse and incomplete philosophy.

In other words, people have a need of a more encompassing morality. It is this need that philosophers, sociologists, humanitarians, and politicians have not managed to meet in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This is not surprising – the Christian Church has had 2000 years to shape their religion and philosophy; on the other hand, democracies are relatively new. To confuse matters, democratic societies often profess themselves to be Christian.    

Russell’s In-Depth Knowledge

In some of my own writings, I sometimes refer to the Bible and the teachings of Christ. But I have to admit I am no scholar of Christianity. Russell, on the other hand, was brought up in the strictest sense to be a Christian. He was able to discuss in earnest various aspects of Christianity. However, he lived in a different age from me – by the 1950s and 1960s.

Britain had become a secular country – and very few people discussed religious matters. It had become something that was superficial – consisting of non-cohesive fragmentary extracts from the Bible. These extracts were simply uttered in various contexts – such as in schools and churches. Certainly, no one discussed in earnest the teachings of the Bible. 

In other words, Russell is very knowledgeable regarding the teachings of Christ and the texts of the Bible. He says that it is highly unlikely that the ‘person’ Christ  ever existed. But he says he will refer to ‘Christ the person’, as he is represented in the Gospels. Russell also points out that most Christians do not follow the teachings of Christ, such as, ‘turn the other cheek’. He also points out that Christ was hardly the first prophet / sage to profess such a philosophy. Later, he then goes on to criticize the vindictiveness of Christ; he had a tendency to cast into Hell all those people who have the audacity not to believe every syllable of his teachings:

Matthew 8:12 “But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The Inconsistent Character of Christ

What Russell does not mention here is the conflicts between the various branches of the Christian religion based on the ‘interpretation of texts’; these often resulted in mass murders and genocides. Despite Russell’s ‘knowledge’ and his ‘logical’ mind, he seems to miss the most obvious points. When he first admits that Christ never existed, why does he not ask the question: “Who constructed Christ in the Bible?” Any reader or writer of fiction knows that a character should have consistent behaviour. In other words, Christ has an inconsistent character; we can considerChrist’s pacifism (wanting to forgive and ‘turn the other cheek’) together with his violent vindictiveness (wanting to cast opponents “into the darkness”). 

Christ in the Bible wishes to torture people everlastingly: 

Jesus Christ says in Matthew 25:41, “Depart from me, ye cursed. Into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels.“

In Matthew 13:42, Jesus says: “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” HELL IS FOREVER! All who enter hell — abandon all hope!”

Even the Marquis de Sade, in his works, never wanted to everlastingly torture people (at least as far as I know). In this context, one can suggest that all Christians should be arrested, because they propagate the worst kind of pornography!

Writers and Proofreaders

In other words, Russell misses the point that Christ is a ‘constructed’ person with a contradictory character. Why? Well the answer is obvious which Russell has missed. The Bible was written by many authors. Unfortunately, they never took the trouble to employ a ‘proofreader’ who could ensure some kind of consistency. Or the authors of the Bible had no respect for their readership in that they believed readers to be too stupid to notice inconsistencies in plot and character.

In this way, they resemble many of the Hollywood directors who produce inane films with no credibility; they simply manage to bamboozle viewers with wild special effects and loud ‘noises’. It is much in the same way Christ bamboozles readers with the threat of everlasting hell, and the ‘gnashing of teeth’, etc.