“Why I Am Not a Christian” was originally delivered as a lecture to the National Secular Society at Battersea Town Hall in London on March 6, 1927, and published as a pamphlet by Watts & Co. the same year. The expanded collection, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1957, edited by Paul Edwards, and includes essays spanning Russell’s career.
The title essay is Russell’s most famous piece of popular philosophy. He begins by defining what he means by “Christian” — belief in God and in immortality, plus belief that Christ was the best and wisest of men — and then systematically dismantles each element. The traditional arguments for the existence of God (the First Cause argument, the argument from design, the moral argument) are dispatched with characteristic clarity and wit: the First Cause argument refutes itself (if everything must have a cause, what caused God?); the argument from design is undermined by evolution; the moral argument assumes what it sets out to prove.
Russell’s critique of Christ’s moral teachings is more surprising: he argues that Christ’s doctrine of eternal punishment is morally repugnant, that the fig tree episode (in which Christ curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season) reveals a vindictive temperament, and that Christ’s emphasis on sin and punishment has done more harm than good. Russell contrasts Christ unfavorably with Socrates and the Buddha, both of whom he considers more humane.
The essay’s conclusion is Russell at his most eloquent: religion is based primarily on fear — fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of defeat — and science offers a better response to these fears than theology: “Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in.”
Collecting Why I Am Not a Christian
First pamphlet (Watts & Co., London, 1927): Stapled wrappers.
First collection (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1957): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- 1927 pamphlet, fine: $200–$500
- 1957 collection, first edition, fine/fine: $100–$250
- Very good: $40–$100