This week I gave my annual lecture to theology student at Bristol’s Trinity College on ‘Why I am an atheist’. It is always an enjoyable debate (though I doubt if any minds are changed). I have previously published my talk on Pandaemonium. So, rather than republish my talk, I thought I would publish instead one of the classic polemics against religion – Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I am not a Christian’. Russell delivered it in March 1927 as a lecture to the South London Branch of the National Secular Society. It was later published as a pamphlet, and subsequently in his book, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays. Russell’s lecture has its strengths and weakness, and the occasional line that makes you wince.  But, almost a century on, it remains an essential read.

Bertrand Russell
Why I Am Not A Christian

Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights




blake and-elohim-created-adam-1795


michaelangelo the creation of eve




Masaccio expulsion




blake god tables





Raphael Madonna and child

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, 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 popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite 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 not thou away’. That is a very good principle. 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 very emphatically turn away on that occasion.

Then there is one other maxim of Christ which I think has a great deal 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.


jesus icon


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 thought 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 that 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 never shall 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.

da Vinci last supper




dali christ




Giotto Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ)




The paintings are, from top down, Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, William Blake’s  Elohim Creating Adam, Michaelangelo’s Creation of Eve, Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve,William Blake’s God Writing on the Tablets of the Covenant, Raphael’s Madonna and Child, Byzantine icon of Christ the Pantocrator, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, Salvado Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross and Giotto’s Lamentation.


  1. bruce madeiros


    Interesting article by Russell . I would have agree with Russell that for person who simply tries to live decently to be a Christian is not sufficient to call him/herself a Christian.

    However Bart Ehrman, who is no supporter of Christainity and a Biblical historian would say that Russell is wrong when he says that historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all.
    As I am not a red neck fundamentalist , I would certainly agree with Russell when he says that any person who is really profoundly humane can’t believe in everlasting punishment.
    Russell is correct that the Christian religion, on the whole, as organized in its churches, is consider as a principal enemy of moral progress in the world. However Justin Welby , the new archbishop of the Anglican communion and who is also an evanglical like myself, is saying that the Church should be reformulating his theological position on homosexuality. As to say that religion is based primarily and mainly upon fear is foreign to me and clearly the Bible states that the main characteristic of God is love .

  2. NJH

    I do not know how we can arrive at any statement about the main characteristic of God that is not vulnerable to counter statements. “God is love” disappears in a puff of logic when it comes into contact with “God is Jealous, Vengeful” etc. Ultimately we are in an arbitrary world of un-testable hypotheticals which are being smuggled into the conversation as if they are statements of fact. This cannot be moral.

  3. It may be worth mentioning that the First Cause argument is making a comeback, combined with tortuous wordplay claiming to show that God is “necessary,” whatever that may mean, and so does not need a cause. The argument from design has also been resurrected, and lies at the heart of the new(ish) brand of creationism called Intelligent Design.

  4. james

    As per my thoughts or opinion regarding the First Cause argument (people may agree or disagree on this), it may be known that given our physical universe, this notion would indeed hold true. However, we cannot simply just assume that this truth also holds true for any realm beyond (if there is/are indeed any) the one that we all currently live in (the physical). There are many conditions that needs to be determined first in order to even attempt to apply such a notion in a totally different instance altogether. In determining the application of the First Cause argument to God’s existence, one of the questions that comes to my mind is: “is God a physical existence or not?” The reason why I ask this question is because, if God is not a physical existence then we cannot simply apply the same laws or rules (in this case, the First Cause argument) that governs the physical realm to the non-physical. In other words, if God exist and if God is not a physical existence, then God may be living in a totally different kind of existence that is beyond what the limited human mind can comprehend. Which begs the question: “is it even possible to exist beyond a physical existence?”. As it is already known that one cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God through scientific means, one can only take a side and give a plausible argument to the other, where such an argument always end as a matter of Faith. Let us say, for the sake of the argument I would take the side where God exist. I humbly take the side where God exist, because I believe it is possible to exist beyond a physical existence. One might ask, “where does this belief came from?”. Let us put it this way, we know that we exist because we can prove that we physically exist. This notion is true as long as we live in this physical universe. Having said that, I would like to go back to the question: “is it possible to exist beyond a physical existence?” I believe the greatest hint to this question is The Mind. Let us ask ourselves, do our minds exist or is it simply an event that is the result of our brain (or the nervous system’s) activities? If you say your mind exist, can you prove that it physically exist? If you say that it is an event, can you prove that such an event ends when life ends? Now, let us ask another question: “what if God is a mind that has neither a physical beginning nor a definitive end; a being that came to be, the moment such a being knew it exist without any need for a physical existence?” Is it even possible for such a being to exist or to happen? God is God and this man is keeping an open mind – as a matter of Faith, so to speak.

  5. bruce madeiros

    I would agree that to using moral words to describe God the immortal is almost a mission impossible but when you focus on his latest revelation which is Jesus you see God shouting loudly about love and not about vengence and jealousy

  6. Mark

    The wonderful, and slightly strange thing about this, is that written in 1927, it could easily have been current. Much of this has been drawn upon by Dawkins and Hitchens in books and debate, and sometimes Hitchens expanded with his own take. I’d go with just about every word, so would be interested as to what is considered a “weakness” in parts.

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