Why I Am Not A Christian
 

 

by Bertrand Russell
March 6, 1927
National Secular Society, South London branch
Battersea Town Hall

 

 

The Argument for the Remedying of Injustice
 

Then there is another very curious form of moral argument,
which is this: they say that the existence of God
is required to bring justice into the world.
In the part of the universe that we know there is a great injustice,
and often the good suffer, and the often the wicked prosper,
and one hardly knows which of those is more annoying;
but if you are going to have justice in the universe
as a whole you have to suppose a future life
to redress the balance of life here on earth.
So they say that there must be a God,
and that there must be Heaven and Hell in order
that in the long run there may be justice.

That is a very curious argument.
If you looked at the matter from a scientific point of view,
you would say, "After all, I only know this world.
I do not know about the rest of the universe,
but so far as one can argue from probabilities
one would say that probably this world is a fair sample,
and if there is injustice here then the odds are great
that there is injustice elsewhere also."

Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened,
and you found all the top layer of oranges bad,
you would not argue, "The underneath ones must be good,
so as to redress the balance."

You would say, "Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment";
and that is really what a scientific person would argue about the universe.
He would say, "Here we find in this world a great deal of injustice,
and so far as that goes that is a reason for supposing
that justice does not rule in this world,
and therefore so far as it goes it supports a moral argument
against deity and not in favor of one."

Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments
that I have been talking to you about is not really what moves people.
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, and that is the main reason.

Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety,
a sort of feeling that there is a big brother who will look after you.
That plays a very profound part in influencing people's desire for a belief in God.
 

 

 

The Character Of Christ
 

 

I now want to say a few words upon a topic
which I often think is not quite sufficiently dealt with by rationalists,
and that is the question whether Christ was the best and the wisest of men.
It is generally taken for granted that we should all agree that that was so.
I do not myself.
I think that there are a good many points upon which I agree
with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do.
I do not know that I could go with Him all the way,
but I could go with Him much further than most professing Christians can.

You will remember that He said,
"Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also."
That is not a new precept or a new principle.
It was used by Lao-Tse and Buddha some 500 or 600 years before Christ,
but it is not a principle which as a matter of fact Christians accept.

I have no doubt that the present prime minister (Stanley Baldwin),
for instance, is a most sincere Christian,
but I should not advise any of you to go and smite him on one cheek.
I think you might find that he thought this text was intended in a figurative sense.

 

Then there is another point which I consider excellent.
You will remember that Christ said, "Judge not lest ye be judged."
That principle I do not think you would find was
very popular in the law courts of Christian countries.
I have known in my time a number of judges
who were very earnest Christians, and none of them felt
that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what they did.
Then Christ says, "Give to him that asketh of thee,
and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away."
This is a very good principle.

Your chairman has reminded you that we are not here to talk politics,
but I cannot help observing that the last general election
was fought on the question of how desirable it was
to turn away from him that would borrow of thee,
so that one must assume
that the liberals and conservatives of this country
are composed of people
who do not agree with the teaching of Christ,
because they certainly did not behave that way on that occasion.

Then there is one other maxim of Christ's teaching
which I think has a great deal of good in it,
but I do not find that it is very popular among some of our Christian friends.
He says, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast,
and give to the poor." That is a very excellent maxim,
but, as I say, it is not much practised.
All these, I think, are good maxims,
although they are a little difficult to live up to.
I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then,
after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian.

 

Defects in Christ's Teaching
 

Having granted the excellence of these maxims,
I come to certain points in which I do not believe
that one can grant either the superlative wisdom
or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels;
and here I may say that one is not concerned with the historical question.
Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all,
and if He did we do not know anything about him,
so that I am not concerned with the historical question,
which is a very difficult one.

I am concerned with Christ as he appears in the Gospels,
taking the Gospel narrative as it stands,
and there one does find some things that do not seem to be very wise.
For one thing, he certainly thought his second coming would occur
in clouds of glory before the death of all the people
who were living at that time.
There are a great many texts that prove that.
He says, for instance,
"Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel
till the Son of Man comes into his kingdom";
and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear
that he believed his second coming
would happen during the lifetime of many then living.

That was the belief of his earlier followers,
and it was the basis of a good deal of his moral teaching.
When He said, "Take no thought for the morrow,"
and things of that sort, it was very largely
because He thought the second coming was going to be very soon,
and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count.

I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians
who did believe the second coming was imminent.
I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly
by telling them the second coming was very imminent indeed,
but they were much consoled when they found
that he was planting trees in his garden.
 

The early Christians really did believe it,
and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens,
because they did accept from Christ the belief
that the second coming was imminent.
In this respect, clearly He was not so wise
as some other people have been,
and He certainly was not superlatively wise.

 

The Moral Problem
 

Then you come to moral questions.
There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character,
and that is that He believed in Hell.
I do not myself feel that any person
that is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did

believe in everlasting punishment,
and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people
who would not listen to His preaching
-- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers,
but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence.

You do not, for instance, find that attitude in Socrates.
You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people
who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind,
far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation.
You probably all remember the sorts of things
that Socrates was saying when he was dying,
and the sort of things that he generally did say to people
who did not agree with him.

You will find that in the Gospels Christ said,
"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers,
how can ye escape the damnation of Hell."
That was said to people who did not like His preaching.
It is not really to my mind quite the best tone,
and there are a great many of these things about Hell.

There is, of course,
the familiar text about the sin against the Holy Ghost:
"Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost
it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come."
That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world,
for all sorts of people have imagined
that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost,
and though that it would not be forgiven them
either in this world or in the world to come.
I really do not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness
in his nature would have put fears and terrors of this sort into the world.

Then Christ says,
"The Son of Man shall send forth his His angels,
and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire;
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth";
and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader
that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth,
or else it would not occur so often.

Then you all, of course, remember about the sheep and the goats;
how at the second coming He is going to divide the sheep from the goats,
and He is going to say to the goats,
"Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."
He continues, "And these shall go away into everlasting fire."
 

Then He says again, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off;
it is better for thee to enter into life maimed,
than having two hands to go into Hell,
into the fire that shall never be quenched,
where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
He repeats that again and again also.

I must say that I think all this doctrine,
that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty.
It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world,
and gave the world generations of cruel torture;
and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could take Him
as his chroniclers represent Him,
would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that.

There are other things of less importance.
There is the instance of the Gadarene swine,
where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs
to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea.
You must remember that He was omnipotent,
and He could have made the devils simply go away;
but He chose to send them into the pigs.

Then there is the curious story of the fig tree,
which has always rather puzzled me.
You remember what happened about the fig tree.
"He was hungry; and seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves,
He came if haply He might find anything thereon;
and when he came to it He found nothing but leaves,
for the time of figs was not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it:
'No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever'
... and Peter ... saith unto Him:
'Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.'"
This is a very curious story,
because it was not the right time of year for figs,
and you really could not blame the tree.
I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom
or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite
as high as some other people known to history.
I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.

 

Why I Am Not A Christian
by Bertrand Russell

 

March 6, 1927
National Secular Society, South London branch
Battersea Town Hall