Why I Am Not a Christian : And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Rating:
Summary: Has Very Logical Points and Very Simple Explanations
Review: In Why I am Not a Christian, I think Bertrand Russell writes very logical points about the flaws in Christianity. It's not only Christianity whom he criticizes, he's also criticizing about other religions but this is not in full detail.

He is very good at arguing about how religion can instill fear in us. If you even think about some sentences some religious people might say, there is a degree of fear in them if you think carefully. I also like his arguments about the bible and the flaws in it as well.

Most people who call themselves Christians may not have read the Bible properly and therefore may think Russell is criticizing them and lying, but for those who have read the Bible carefully enough, Russell is making a point. If you might be one of those people, watch out! Check the Bible and check this book! Read carefully!

Overall, I think this is a great book. The arguments are simple but placed on a very logical basis. Recommended to people whether you are Christian or not. Has a lot of points that get you thinking.

Rating:
Summary: Five stars for the title essay alone
Review: Many people dismiss the arguments that Russell puts forward by attacking the man himself. This does his arguments no credit at all, after all he is recognised as one of the prominent 20th century philosophers. Whatever the circumstances of his childhood, or the aberrations of his later years (he was not a good father to his children and suffered delusions of grandeur about his status in later years, dabbling in politics and popular causes) the fact is his arguments, some of which are presented in this book, are sound.

In all my debating with theists I haven't yet had one who could rebut anything Russell put forth indeed, I haven't met anyone who has even tried to rebut anything Russell has said. The closest anyone has ever come is when one theist said "he had read Bertrand Russell" presuming that would be sufficient to deter me from using any of his arguments. It wasn't, needless to say.

People say (including some below) that Russell is on firmer ground when questioning the morality of past Christians and that his philosophy is in error (again, they cite no examples). One even says "so what if Russell can dismiss the Ontological argument ?". Well I'll tell you so what. If Russell can flatten the Ontological argument for God, or the Cosmological argument (which is the one he does dismiss here, not the Ontological) or indeed the moral argument (which he also does) that doesn't leave many logical arguments for God left. In fact all the logical arguments for God can have their problems laid bare which means there are no arguments left in his favour. This, coupled with the evidence of several scientific disciplines leaves no room for God at all. That's hardly a "so what?".

Some person might well say "I believe BECAUSE it's impossible" but that's them just admitting their ignorance and is hardly cause to admire them. How anybody could be proud of such a worldview is beyond me, indeed so proud of it that they print it for all the world to see.

Russell's book is to be highly recommended both on the grounds that he was a talented philosopher and that he wasn't afraid to point out the fatal flaws of Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: Poetic at times, but cranky and prone to error.
Review: Russell is certainly a lively writer. The essay that most impressed me was A Free Man's Worship. As a Christian, I found this essay an eloquent and poetic specimen of the trajedy Russell admired. (Though I disagree with it.)

The title essay, and some of the others, however, come across to one who does not share Russell's emotional reasons for disliking Christianity, or is aware of contrary evidence, as cranky at best. Here are a few samples: "There's no reason the world could not have come into being without a cause." "The Christian church is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world." "No orthodox Christian can find any positive reason" for condemning the murder of unbaptised children. "That Christianity improved the status of women. . . is one of the grossest perversions it is possible to make." "The whole concept of God is derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms." "Historically it is doubtful whether Christ existed."

It is easy to understand gut-level responses to such rhetoric, as reflected in the reviews on both sides below. Russell makes bold statements in a tone of brisk confidence that he seems to expect his readers will interpret as the certainty a truly logical approach to life can ensure. To me, as to others, such statements often come across as flaky, dogmatic, and out of touch with reality.

I have a special reason for feeling that way. I just finished writing a book (Jesus and the Religions of Man) that argues flatly to the contrary on most of these points. (Not that I was aiming at Russell in particular.) I did a lot of research on these topics for my book, and give a good chunk of empirical data. With that evidence still fresh in mind, Russell's breezy statements (accompanied by almost no evidence) come across as bombastic and a little unreal.

And so I salute Russell as the poet lauriette of modern agnosticism. But don't buy into his arguments, or rather credal statements, until you've had a chance to really look over the evidence, for both sides.

Why was Russell not a Christian? In Faith of the Fatherless, psychologist Paul Vitz proposed a different (and tragic) theory, having to do with Russell's sad and lonely childhood. I don't want to be patronizing. But I do find some support for Vitz' theory both in Russell's mode of argument, and in the way he sometimes wrote of life. "When I contemplate the things that people do with their lives, I think (the end of the world) is almost a consolation." "(It is plausible that) this world was made by the devil when God was not looking." It is hard for me to believe that anyone who has known deep human love, or even carefully studied the weeds in his own backyard,could say such things.

And so read this book with both a critical mind and an open heart. The barbs of Bertrand Russell should be a reminder to believers to be patient with skeptics, even or especially when they mock our faith. And for those who are tempted to take Russell's pronouncements at face value, let me recommend a few books (besides my own, of course)to balance these ideas as written here and as echoed by modern followers: Hugh Ross, Creator and the Cosmos; Charles Thaxton, Heart of Science; G. K. Chesterton, Everlasting Man; and Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts, and maybe Gary Habermas, on the historical Jesus.

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Rating:
Summary: Deep, but dated...
Review: It's a good book, don't get me wrong...but it's almost as if it was written by scribes that translated the KJB....the english is dated and sometimes hard to follow...but he brings up some great points...I have to recommend it for your library

Rating:
Summary: Not that great
Review: If you think you are buying this book to help debunk christianity, you will be largely disappointed. You might make the faint of heart change their view to go against christianity, but seriously folks, the logic used in this book is absurd. The other essays are much better than Russell's "Why I'm not a Christian".

Largely, Russell bases the actions of "christians" over the years, and somehow he thinks this represents the views of Christ and the bible, and thinks the actions of "christians" over the year actually had the approval of Christ.

If you get this book, don't get it for "why i'm not a christian", get it for the other essays.

Rating:
Summary: Bertrand Russell: a legend in his own mouth.
Review: "Why I Am Not a Christian" was a lecture Bertrand Russell delivered before an audience at the Nation Secular Society in 1927. In it, Russell sought to prove that (a) God doesn't exist, (b) Christianity is rooted in "fear," and that (c) Jesus was "mean" because he had the audacity to tell sinners they couldn't just do as they pleased, because, in the end, "God loves everyone." True, God indeed loves everyone, including a paranoid old fool like Russell, but that doesn't mean our souls are held in the same esteem.

Russell begins his lecture by palpably defining what constitutes Christianity and one who calls himself a Christian. He then proceeds to demolish the First Cause argument. Russell's argument is littered with anachronisms, since it was formed even before Hoyle had postulated the Steady State Theory. The advent of the Big Bang theory, however, lends credence to the First Cause argument.

Scientists are being (deliberately?) misleading when they assert that the Big Bang explosion that took place 15 billion years ago was the "beginning" of the universe. All the Big Bang really accounts for is the present shape of the universe. "Something" exploded; "something" therefore existed before the big bang occurred. If the Big Bang was an uncaused cause--i.e. "something" that came from "nothing"--then why does the universe exist instead of just nothing? After all, out of nothing, nothing comes. There must have been a cause that brought the universe into being. That cause was God.

Of course, atheists often thoughtlessly retort that the universe is eternal and therefore uncaused; but, as always, they're brimming with wrongness and wrongability. For if the universe is eternal and never had a beginning, that means that the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. You don't need to be John Forbes Nash to know that this leads to mathematical contradictions. For example, what's infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get contradictory answers. Thus, the "eternal universe" argument collapses.

Russell's argument against the First Cause may be tepid and anachronistic, but when it comes to objective moral principles, Russell is an unabashed hypocrite. Since Russell denies the existence of God, he therefore denies immortality. But if life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint. Since one's destiny is ultimately unrelated to one's behavior, you may as well just live as you please (which is precisely how Ayn Rand validated human greed in her "objectivist" philosophy). And if God doesn't exist, that also means there are no objective standards of right and wrong. Moral values are either just expressions of personal taste or the by-products of socio-biological evolution and conditioning. In a world without God, who is to say that the values of Adolf Hitler are inferior to those of a saint? This is why Bertrand Russell is a hypocrite. Russell was an outspoken critic of the totalitarianism of Stalinist Russia, yet he simultaneously rejected objective moral principles. If you pinned Russell down and asked him whether pedophilia was "objectively" immoral, I'm sure he'd have a tough time denying it. This subject usually gets most atheists to shut up.

And finally, Russell claims that Christianity was founded on "fear." As Russell says, "Fear is the basis of the whole thing--fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand." And in his peroration: "The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men." These sentiments collapse under the weight of 20th century history.

Broadly speaking, in our society, there are two types of people. One is the person who believes in God and in an afterlife. He is prepared to accept that human nature is very fallible and that life on earth is very, very imperfect and likely to remain so indefinitely and that there is something better to come. That is a reasonably rational approach to things. Then there is the other type like Bertrand Russell, who says, "I don't believe in God. I don't believe in an afterlife. It's all nonsense. This life is the only one we've got, and we have to try and improve it, and I don't accept that human nature is permanently imperfect. It can be perfected." And of course once you conceive that a utopia is possible, you create within yourself a very, very powerful drive to bring it about, and that is how one gets to totalitarianism. You create a race of people who say, "Yes, we can improve human nature, we can perfect human society,and we must do it; and, if possible, within our own lifetime, and anything that stands in the way must be brushed aside." Now, when you come to look at society, you find in a free society, where people are left, on the whole, to do things for themselves, many, many, imperfections and many evils. Therefore, such people like Bertrand Russell who believe in utopia, who have no God, who believe in the perfectibility of mankind, they say, "We can't allow people to run things for themselves because they make a mess of it. Let's have the state do it." This is why every Communist country in history has been officially atheist. And this is why Russell's millenarian dreams are a delusion.

Rating:
Summary: Great title, fine collection of essays, not a manifesto
Review: Like some of the other contributors I have a fondness for this book which arises, I suspect, almost as much from the forthrightness of its title as from its contents.

The less positive reviews of this book mainly come from two directions. The first is that some people have been disappointed to find that the book is not a comprehensive case against Christianity, and includes "irrelevant" material. That's because the book is not a manifesto: it's simply a collection of essays on different topics, not all of them about Christianity. "Why I am not a Christian" is the title essay, not the theme of a connected book. In the same way the essay "In Praise of Idleness" is the title essay of Russell's book "In Praise of Idleness", but someone who expects every essay in that entertaining collection to be about idleness will of course be disappointed.

Some of the other, stronger, comments appear to be manifestations of the odium theologicae, and unintentionally justify Russell's scepticism concerning the notion that monotheistic belief leads to tolerance, kindness, or even peace of mind.

In the title essay Russell outlines his ethical case for rejecting religion. That is, the idea of YHWH or Jehovah or "God" struck Russell as essentially a personification of all that is worst in humanity: cruel, intolerant, vengeful, violent, aggressive, an enthusiastic proponent of the slaughter of people who happen to live in other tribes or believe in a different version of YHWH, and certainly no friend of good things like intelligence, independence or beauty (or animals). Many decent Christians share Russell's ethical revulsion for the wars and persecutions brought about by Christianity and the other monotheistic religions, which continue to the present day. But where they set them aside as simply a human perversion of Christianity, Russell sees them as a logical consequence of a belief system that says that the most important thing for human beings is to be acceptable to the Christian god, and that the Christian god finds many human beings unacceptable, especially those with a different god, or no god, or "incorrect" beliefs about the Christian god.

And that ethical finding, of revulsion for intolerant monotheism, its deity and its effects, leads naturally to the question of why YHWH and similar supernatural persons or ideas should be worshipped. And once the question is asked, the arguments advanced for that being's existence, let alone its merit, turn out to be shonky stuff indeed. Russell covers and demolishes those arguments with admirable lucidity. Here I'll indulge myself by noting an attempt in one review to paper over the contradiction Russell points out in the first cause argument (Russell was not the first to point it out, of course) by saying that a first cause doesn't need a cause because of course it is in a different category from all the other causes. The flourish with which this "category" was introduced as if it stopped a chain of logic would have amused Russell, I think, as much as the invective directed against him in some of the other reviews. While the Aristotelian who cited Hawking in refutation of Russell's atheism, on the other hand, needs to read more carefully: Hawking's is a non-theist account of the Big Bang, which explicitly requires no Beginner.

Some of the reviews note that Russell's piece is "dated". They may mean that some of the terms in which the arguments are expressed have evolved, which is true: but I would suggest that the arguments themselves have not changed much, and to the extent that Russell's language is clearer than some recent philosophical writing, it is better. They may also have meant that Russell is dated because he rejected the German metaphysics and French linguistic play that was influential in the mid and late twentieth century and fashionable until the last couple of ticks of the cultural clock. But Russell's commitment to expressing philosophical ideas and arguments in the clearest possible language, which is linked to his positivism, is looking relatively shiny right now, while the Continental irrationalists and obfuscators (Derrida, Heidegger et al) are fading with astonishing speed. I wouldn't predict a revival in Russell's most important philosophical work, which he left unfinished, but I think his pursuit of clarity will remain admired.

Some of the other essays could more reasonably be called dated. For example one reviewer declares himself outraged by Russell's views on sex, citing the sentence, "Prolonged virginity is harmful to women." Though a campaigner for women's rights, and progressive for his time, Russell was not immune to the sexism of the culture he lived in. Still, if Russell had said, "Prolonged virginity is harmful to anyone" the sentiment would still be controversial, and would hopefully still outrage that reviewer, but it would not then be dated. But there are very few writers before, say, 1980, who make regular and consistent use of non-sexist language, and in that Russell was not much ahead of his time. But even now British philosophical and scientific writers routinely use sexist language ("men" meaning "people" and so on), unlike their US or Australasian counterparts, and they have considerably less excuse than Russell.

An aspect of the book that most reviewers have overlooked is its courage, in the title essay and deciding to name the book after that essay. Russell experienced discrimination and vilification for his atheism, and atheists are still subject to various kinds of discrimination (including in employment) and vilification in most Christian countries today, while in much of the Muslim world atheists face imprisonment, torture or death. Many young atheists are led to believe, by their schools, the media and often their parents, other family and friends, that they are the only person around who questions their culture's prevailing religion. And Russell's book, so long as theocrats in Iran, the United States and elsewhere permit its presence in libraries and bookshelves, is for many people one of the first indications that they are not alone.

So I'm giving it five stars for its clarity, its courage, its historical role as a bringer of comfort and cheer to isolated young atheists, and for its entertaining writing. But before buying, people should know what to expect: this is a collection of essays, mostly written to earn a living by being entertaining and enlightening, and not a philosophical manifesto.

Cheers!

Laon

Rating:
Summary: Thank God there are freethinkers like Russell ;-)
Review: People who believe in God defend their belief just like a gnarling dog defends his bone. Bertrand Russell shows very well not only why the existence of a creator is unlikely (however, he does n o t claim to be able to disprove God's existence which is just as impossible as to prove it! Russell is in that respect an agnostic thus) but also analyses the reason for that belief - man's wish not to be alone in the universe. "There h a s to be a God, so there i s a God."
The paradox of the "uncreated creator" is still unsolved. If God has started the big bang, and there was a time before big bang, what was God doing then? How long did he exist before? Eternally long? But even if scientists came to the conclusion that there must be a God, how could not also God become an object of scientific curiosity?
Personally I believe that man has to make a choice: Either scientific research or belief in a creator. Either "God caused everything" then any scientific research is unecessary and a waste of time and money, since the answer is always given already. Or we do troublesome scientific research and try to find answers by that way. But research based on a condition such as: "Scientific research is only valid if its results do not contradict the concept of the existence of God!" is impossible.
Maybe it is just a matter of redifinig the word "God". But I think it is in any case absolutely necessary to get rid of the blind belief in "Holy Books" like bible or coran, which are definitely man made and often cause blind aggressive fanatism. (And I am n o t only talking about Islam here...)
Another good book critcally dealing with religion is "The future of an illusion" by Sigmund Freud.

Rating:
Summary: Russell is much like the Ancient Sophists
Review: Much interest here, had to read Russell's "Why." Found his argument against the First Cause to be preachy and weak. If J.S. Mill's question "Who made me?" immediately suggests the question "Who made God?", then the underlying presupposition therein is that God exists. That brings forth the further question, "What is God's Nature?"

Seriously, Aristotle's First Cause is intimately linked to the Philosopher's idea of the impossibility of infinite regression of motion. Rather, there is a finite regression of motion to an Unmoved Mover. If the old argument that "finite regression to an Unmoved Mover is like saying that all roads lead to a single point" is brought up for a rehashing, it does not scan. The fallacy of it is that roads do not move, and the objects moving upon them do not behave like natural masses. Aristotle's position here was greatly strengthened when Edwin Hubble proved that the universe is expanding, and again when Hawking applied the mathematics of the gravitational singularity to the entire universe, taking it to within a half-tick of time = zero. The beginning of the universe is no longer in doubt, only the number of billions of years elapsed is still in question. Granted, it is politically incorrect blasphemy to say it, but the beginning, wherein volume equaled zero and density equaled infinity, strongly suggests a Beginner.

Even if Aristotle's errors are considered, especially as to his explanation of the luminous heavenly masses, but with this error weighed against Aristotole's remoteness in time and in available technology, Bertrand Russell is not as much as a pimple on Aristotle's posterior.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat dated, but still powerful
Review: Although some of the individual arguments in the book are not as strong as others, and more modern philosophers have made better arguments against Christianity, there is still much to recommend in this book. It's more an attack against superstitious thinking in general, and a call for people to examine their beliefs and how they affect how they live their lives. There is a great deal of charm to the way he writes, and he was certainly much kinder towards Christians than many Christians had been towards him! Some of the sections do seem dated, but one must remember how long ago this book was written to fully appreciate it. Recommended as a great start for people questioning their spirituality or philosophy -- but don't stop here.