CoPhi: Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian 1927

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian 1927

Why I Am Not a Christian was a lecture given on March 6, 1927 at Battersea Town Hall for the National Secular Society's South London Branch. But first let us talk about the man behind the essay cum lecture known as a British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell.

Battersea Town Hall

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell lived for almost a hundred years from 1872-1970. Russell studied at Cambridge University for Mathematics and Philosophy. Along with G.E. Moore he was a founder of Analytic Philosophy and his most notable student Ludwig Wittgenstein. He's a major pacifist who opposed fighting in both World Wars and even went to prison for it in World War I. During World War II he changed his views about fighting and deemed defeating Hitler as a necessary evil. Bertrand Russell's most renowned works include The Principles of Mathematics, Principia Mathematica, The Analysis of Mind, The Analysis of Matter, Power: A New Social Analysis, and of course Why I Am Not a Christian. For his various works he received the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1950.

Why I Am Not a Christian

This essay is an argument Bertrand Russell made against theism and why he does not believe in God or immortality.

His dispute against the First Cause Argument is that it holds no validity. His father taught him the question "Who made me?" has no answer, due to there being a follow up question of "Who made god?" Russell believes that if everything were to have a cause then so must god. He concludes that there doesn't need to be a cause or reason for anything to exist.

When it comes to the natural law argument, which states a higher being, whether it be god or otherwise created laws that the universe is beholden to. He asks why only these natural laws were made and why there were no others. Russell find that these natural laws are actually statistical averages that came from chance.

Regarding the argument from design Bertrand is convinced that the environment was not made to suit living beings. On the contrary, because of Charles Darwin we found that creatures evolved to suit the place they live in.

When it comes to Christianity, Bertrand Russell does not believe in everlasting punishment and this vies against the belief in hell. He finds that hell is an extremely cruel doctrine that gave the world ages of cruel torture. Especially so when hellfire awaits people just for not believing in Christ. Does this conclude that all people are born wicked unless we were to hold to the Christian belief? When it comes down to who is truly wicked it is more often than not that they are zealots, be it a zealot of faith or country does not matter.

Bertrand Russell finalizes his speech by asserting a moral system not based on religious texts, but wisdom, courage and care. He wants us to look forwards to the future in hope while not being held back by what he calls a "past that is dead".

The speaker in this video is not Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian has sparked a whole slew of other works from different authors with similar titles like Why I Am Not a Muslim. In my eyes it wasn't just Christianity he was against, but all other religions. He specifically picked out Christianity, because of his background of being raised by his grandmother who was a devout Christian. Russell does not say he is a hundred percent certain that there exists no god, but that there is no evidence that he can see that supports it. Just like with his analogy about there being a teapot between Earth and Mars even if you cannot see it, it doesn't mean it does not exist. Below is a video that can better describe Russell's Teapot.

Sources:

Britannica: Bertrand Russel

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Bertrand Russell

Why I Am Not a Christian Text

1 comment:

PhilApril 28, 2022 at 10:54 PM
"...it wasn't just Christianity he was against, but all other religions." More broadly he was opposed to supernaturalism and superstition not grounded in rationality and evidence. He continues the tradition of David Hume, insisting that it's wisdom to proportion ones belief to the evidence... and to withhold belief when that is lacking. It is true, though, that he was contemptuous of religions that inspire fear with stories, for example, of eternal damnation.
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JPO bio

The author of "William James's Springs of Delight: The Return to Life, (VU Press, 2001) " Phil Oliver specializes in the American philosophical tradition with supporting interests in applied ethics (particularly Bioethics and Environmental Ethics), Anglo-American literature, history, humanism, naturalism, science and exploration, peripatetic ("walking & talking") philosophy, baseball, cycling, swimming, the pursuit of happiness, and the perpetual dawn of day. One of his favorite MTSU courses is The Philosophy of Happiness. He is academic advisor for minors in American Culture (American Studies), and a founding board member and current Vice-President of the William James Society. You can follow him on Threads, Instagram (@OSOPHER), Mastodon (@osopher@c.im), Substack (philoliver.substack.com) and on his blogsite Up@dawn (jposopher.blogspot.com) but of course, as Immanuel Kant and Monty Python's Brian Cohen agreed: You don't have to follow anybody. "Sapere aude," have the courage to think for yourself. But not by yourself. Good philosophy collaborates and converses.

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The tutor for this year is Elle Robinson. Her email address, should you need to contact her, is: ljr3s@mtmail.mtsu.edu ... Her hours will be Mondays & Wednesdays, 6 pm until 7:45 pm, Feb 19--Apr 24. She will offer tutoring in the library... No tutoring will be offered during Spring Break... WRITING CENTER: The Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center is located in LIB 362 and online at www.mtsu.edu/writing-center. Here, students can receive valuable (and FREE!) one-to-one assistance in person or online on writing projects for any course. Please make your appointment by stopping by LIB 362, calling 615-904-8237, or visiting the UWC website. Visit early and often! https://www.mtsu.edu/writing-center/

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A proper education

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The college project

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Planting seeds

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Enlightened thoughts

“Reason drives your search to make sense of the world by pushing you to ask why things are as they are. For theoretical reason, the outcome of that search becomes science; for practical reason, the outcome is a more just world.”

“A defence of the Enlightenment is a defence of the modern world, along with all its possibilities for self-criticism and transformation. If you’re committed to Enlightenment, you’re committed to understanding the world in order to improve it.”

“Freedom cannot simply mean doing whatever strikes you at the moment: that way you're a slave to any whim or passing fancy. Real freedom involves control over your life as a whole, learning to make plans and promises and decisions, to take responsibility for your actions' consequences.”

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― Susan Neiman, Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age

The thinkers of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment saw an urgent need for a secular foundation for morality, because they were haunted by a historical memory of centuries of religious carnage: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, the European wars of religion. They laid that foundation in what we now call humanism, which privileges the well-being of individual men, women, and children over the glory of the tribe, race, nation, or religion. It is individuals, not groups, who are sentient—who feel pleasure and pain, fulfillment and anguish. Whether it is framed as the goal of providing the greatest happiness for the greatest number or as a categorical imperative to treat people as ends rather than means, it was the universal capacity of a person to suffer and flourish, they said, that called on our moral concern.”

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“The ideals of the Enlightenment are products of human reason, but they always struggle with other strands of human nature: loyalty to tribe, deference to authority, magical thinking, the blaming of misfortune on evildoers.”― Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

“We must cultivate our garden.”

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.” Voltaire

“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”

“To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.” ― John Locke

“One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.”

“I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore cannot but confess here again,–that external and internal sensation are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this DARK ROOM. For, methinks, the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without: which, would they but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.”

― John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.”

“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

“It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion... shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear... ...Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of others which it will procure you... In fine, I repeat, you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything, because any other persons, or description of persons, have rejected or believed it... [Jefferson, Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, advising him in matters of religion, 1787]”

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“There is strong shadow where there is much light.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Götz von Berlichingen

“How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”
― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”
― William Blake

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― Christopher Hitchens

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― Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit

“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
==

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American life is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

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― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

==
On the other hand, eastern enlightenment...

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

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