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Why I Am Not a Christian & The Faith of a Rationalist
Why I Am Not a Christian was originally given as a public lecture for the South London Branch of the National Secular Society at Battersea Town Hall on 6 March 1927. It was first published in May 1927 and was reprinted many times.The Faith of a Rationalist was originally given as a radio talk on the BBC Home Service on 20 May 1947, in a series called "What I Believe" (when sceptical views were broadcast for the first time after twenty years of campaigning by the freethought movement). It was first published in the Listener on 29 May 1947.Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), who was one of the most distinguished thinkers and one of the most remarkable people of the twentieth century, was a leading freethinker. He was an Honorary Associate and President of the Rationalist Press Association, and a distinguished member of the National Secular Society.
32 pages, Pamphlet
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About the author
Bertrand Russell
1,243 books7,314 followersBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 20, 2021
"That is the idea — that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
"You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." - Bertrand Russell
"You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world." - Bertrand Russell
April 28, 2021
This is Classic Russell. His game plan is to attack Christianity through a logical perspective. Essentially he shows that the very basic tenets that make one a Christian are logically violated and therefore no one really is a Christian ( or perhaps everyone is a Christian LOL).
April 11, 2023
This is an excellent essay for the most part. I agree with Russell’s conditions of being Christian: (1) Belief in God and life after death, (2) Holding the opinion that Jesus was the best and wisest of us. He also does a great job walking through the biggest arguments. I take two stars, though, because he ends in a tone that is accusatory and vindictive. This is both non-pragmatic and illogical given his prior arguments.
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January 5, 2025“A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.”
June 5, 2020
First: I would like to say that Russell's speaking style is incredibly inclusive, assuming that we - his viewers - know what he is talking about; speaking like this makes him seem very kind and subdued. I enjoyed that aspect of the book greatly.
Second: Bertrand Russell's opinions in his speech "Why I Am Not a Christian" are a mixed bag for me. When, for instance, he attempts to tackle the 'first cause' argument, he notes a contradiction that must come about by assuming that all things have a cause: namely, if all things have a cause, then God would have a cause. Most Christians would not be willing to admit this, seeing that the Christian God is monotheistic. It seems to Russell that believing all things have a cause is foolish, and, continuing farther, if we can simply assume that a God exists then we can also - in an equal sense - simply assume that the Universe just became an extant thing (through, of course, the big bang). I agree with him in principle. In modern astronomy, we know nothing of what came before the universe. All our theories break down at that point; we can know nothing, at least at present. This means claiming the universe has a cause or that it does not is purely illogical because we cannot know. I think that, to combat Russell, a Christian might say that because all physical processes in our universe require a cause, then it is a logical step that this very universe also required a cause, exclusive from whatever preexisting conditions before the beginning of the universe; however, this is a vast assumption, which does not hold water. When applying the logic of the universe to before when our universe existed is absurd. Now, we could say that the universe existed before the big bang, but because this claim is unverifiable, it is bunk, only going to show that all discussions of that time (time used here as an expedient: there might not have been time before the big bang) might be good as hypothesis, but it is incapable to prove at present. As I stated, though, I only agree in principle. A Christian could believe on faith that the conditions of the universe are correct for a God - so it seems to me that Russell is preaching to the choir (no matter how reasonable he seems compared to Christians!)
This aspect of the work - this idea that he is preaching to a choir of Atheists - is also shown in how he emotes about the goodness of the universe. He finds it hard to belief that a universe was designed when such failures as the KKK or Fascists exist, failing to realize (or taking it as assumed that God is benevolent) that a God could do institute a bad world, however improbable that may be. He does not refute the claim that a Devil could have created our world, in fact saying it has merit, so he probably assumed that the Christian God is good.
It is nice that this edition commits itself to back up itself with the idea of the Rationalist. That is to say, a person who believes only beliefs that are evidence-based. At least, this is the ideal - all people are flawed, after all.
Russell's moral arguments are also fun. For instance, if we are to believe that God is the creator of morality, then we must also believe that to him all morality is subjective: he did create it. So, if we are to argue that there is an objective morality, then the only possible way to do so is to believe that morality exists outside of God; meaning, of course, that all people can be moral, but also that morality transcends God (a very very comforting thought, considering how horrible a morally reckless God could be!)
His argument against natural law is rather... lackluster. His argument against God creating the universe is enough to revoke such a thing (especially with evolution and astronomy in existence, making it seem rather like God is unnecessary in the whole arrangement of our world), but he goes on to argue nonetheless.
I've never heard the argument for God because we need a just arbiter. That seems like assuming we need something and then assuming we have it.
Finally (and I skipped a lot), I do appreciate that Russell names Christians solely as a person who believes in God (of course) and immortality (Heaven). He excludes Hell, but does mention that Jesus believed in that, and how immoral the idea of Hell really is; thus, showing that the divinely-inspired Christ was not so great after all. That gives a definition that does not make the content of the religion non-sense drivel, just a word put upon all people who wish to take the title (although that is a thing that anyone could do and be totally fine doing, just as a general thing the term now has meaning and applicability to reality).
Second: Bertrand Russell's opinions in his speech "Why I Am Not a Christian" are a mixed bag for me. When, for instance, he attempts to tackle the 'first cause' argument, he notes a contradiction that must come about by assuming that all things have a cause: namely, if all things have a cause, then God would have a cause. Most Christians would not be willing to admit this, seeing that the Christian God is monotheistic. It seems to Russell that believing all things have a cause is foolish, and, continuing farther, if we can simply assume that a God exists then we can also - in an equal sense - simply assume that the Universe just became an extant thing (through, of course, the big bang). I agree with him in principle. In modern astronomy, we know nothing of what came before the universe. All our theories break down at that point; we can know nothing, at least at present. This means claiming the universe has a cause or that it does not is purely illogical because we cannot know. I think that, to combat Russell, a Christian might say that because all physical processes in our universe require a cause, then it is a logical step that this very universe also required a cause, exclusive from whatever preexisting conditions before the beginning of the universe; however, this is a vast assumption, which does not hold water. When applying the logic of the universe to before when our universe existed is absurd. Now, we could say that the universe existed before the big bang, but because this claim is unverifiable, it is bunk, only going to show that all discussions of that time (time used here as an expedient: there might not have been time before the big bang) might be good as hypothesis, but it is incapable to prove at present. As I stated, though, I only agree in principle. A Christian could believe on faith that the conditions of the universe are correct for a God - so it seems to me that Russell is preaching to the choir (no matter how reasonable he seems compared to Christians!)
This aspect of the work - this idea that he is preaching to a choir of Atheists - is also shown in how he emotes about the goodness of the universe. He finds it hard to belief that a universe was designed when such failures as the KKK or Fascists exist, failing to realize (or taking it as assumed that God is benevolent) that a God could do institute a bad world, however improbable that may be. He does not refute the claim that a Devil could have created our world, in fact saying it has merit, so he probably assumed that the Christian God is good.
It is nice that this edition commits itself to back up itself with the idea of the Rationalist. That is to say, a person who believes only beliefs that are evidence-based. At least, this is the ideal - all people are flawed, after all.
Russell's moral arguments are also fun. For instance, if we are to believe that God is the creator of morality, then we must also believe that to him all morality is subjective: he did create it. So, if we are to argue that there is an objective morality, then the only possible way to do so is to believe that morality exists outside of God; meaning, of course, that all people can be moral, but also that morality transcends God (a very very comforting thought, considering how horrible a morally reckless God could be!)
His argument against natural law is rather... lackluster. His argument against God creating the universe is enough to revoke such a thing (especially with evolution and astronomy in existence, making it seem rather like God is unnecessary in the whole arrangement of our world), but he goes on to argue nonetheless.
I've never heard the argument for God because we need a just arbiter. That seems like assuming we need something and then assuming we have it.
Finally (and I skipped a lot), I do appreciate that Russell names Christians solely as a person who believes in God (of course) and immortality (Heaven). He excludes Hell, but does mention that Jesus believed in that, and how immoral the idea of Hell really is; thus, showing that the divinely-inspired Christ was not so great after all. That gives a definition that does not make the content of the religion non-sense drivel, just a word put upon all people who wish to take the title (although that is a thing that anyone could do and be totally fine doing, just as a general thing the term now has meaning and applicability to reality).
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March 10, 2021If you listen to podcasts or watch debates on the topic of religion, you probably came across many references to this dissertation. I must admit that I thought it'd be quite a dense read, but it is actually very accessible.
Some of my highlights:
"In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying."
"...and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.""
"Religion is defined as “an emotion resting on a conviction of a harmony between ourselves and the universe at large”"
Some of my highlights:
"In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying."
"...and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.""
"Religion is defined as “an emotion resting on a conviction of a harmony between ourselves and the universe at large”"
July 23, 2023
Very interesting read. Perhaps because of the limited length, Russell doesn't really make convincing arguments against the arguments for God's existence. I am curious as to what he would have said if he were to write an entire book on these subjects. It also appears that Russell does not have a functional understanding of Christianity and Christ's teachings. His lack of humility is evident from the arrogant tone he takes on in these essays, and humility is central to the kind of "fear" (which he also gets wrong) in Christianity. Nonetheless, I agree very much with his point about how organized religion as in churched today actually thwarts the moral progress of the world because of people's failures to uphold what they preach -- for that it gets two stars.
January 18, 2023
I wish I could be at the brink of the time I gave that poisoning by religion up and handed this book. I could have a much smoother mental pathway to detoxify my mind if hazards of religion mentality and educations.
March 10, 2024
“Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear… 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”
July 10, 2020
A quality brief atheistic classic.
March 30, 2023
It simply was not convincing. While the other book was well written, this one was only a basic essay. The important questions were skipped over and argued against a cultural Christianity
April 21, 2025
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December 28, 2022
A short essay that Bertrand exposed verbally. We can argue back easily on how he contradicts the main arguments on the existence of an all present intelligence, which entertainments me -a lot- as he is considered one of the greatest philosophers from last century.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews