by Amir » Fri Dec 15, 2006 7:18 pm
Part 2
Why I Am Not a Christian
Sub-Part 1
Or a Moslem, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a …
This was an original lecture, delivered at the Battersea Town Hall under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular Society, England in 1927.
This is one of my favorite pieces of Russell, and is deemed by many as one of his most prominent works.
” I do not mean by a Christian any person who tries to live decently according to his lights. I think that you must have a certain amount of definite belief before you have a right to call yourself a Christian. The word does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions.”
The term “good Christian” or “good Moslem” etc is often misrepresented and misunderstood in modern society. What is now implied is quite different than what was implied in the past, and the definition has become more loose. Furthermore, the many members (vast majority) of a religion refer to themselves as “good Christian” or “good Moslem” etc without an understanding of what is that commitment. They only understand it to mean “believer in the good,” without knowing what else is implied. This is more so the case with Islam than it is with Christianity. Most Moslems accept Islam, without a good comprehension of its true teachings. Thus, over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them. And the minority that do understand continue to be Moslems because they have redefined their morality and ethics to fit within the teachings of Islam, which are floridly lacking in morality. They therefore redefine what is good and evil in order to fit their lives into what is preached by Islam, instead of examining Islam to see if it fits within the good life. Backwards thinking, imposed by a backward religion.
” What is a Christian?
…there are two different items which are quite essential to anyone calling himself a Christian. The first is one of a dogmatic nature -- namely, that you must believe in God and immortality…Then, further than that, as the name implies, you must have some kind of belief about Christ…I think you must have at the very lowest the belief that Christ was, if not divine, at least the best and wisest of men…”
So the stage is set as to what must be refuted, in the least, to show why one would denounce Christianity, or Islam, if Jesus is substituted with Mohammad. Russell points out why he considers Jesus to not be the best and wisest, though he considers him to be of relatively high moral character as a whole. My refutation of Mohammad is much simpler, in that not only was he not the best and wisest, but actually far below an average person’s level of morality. Though Jesus’ flaws can be highlighted with close scrutiny, Mohammad’s flaws cannot be hidden from even the most inattentive viewer. The difference with Mohammad and Jesus is that Jesus had a few flaws among a vast ethos, while Mohammad had the faintest of ethos among a vastness of overwhelming flaws. By “flaws” I am speaking of moral and character flaws of course.
“The Existence Of God
You know, of course, that the Catholic Church has laid it down as a dogma that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason. This is a somewhat curious dogma, but it is one of their dogmas. They had to introduce it because at one time the Freethinkers adopted the habit of saying that there were such and such arguments which mere reason might urge against the existence of God, but of course they knew as a matter of faith that God did exist.”
For the most part, religion in its early form simply maintained the existence of God to be a matter of fact, since it was revealed to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Paul, Mohammad, etc. It was true, because they said so. After a while, however, some very pesky “thinking” human beings began to question such blind faith by resorting to a very nasty little tool called “reason.” Using reason, such infidels began challenging religious teachings as untrue. For every action there is a reaction.
So others who would not, should not, and absolutely could not relinquish their faith in religion and God, because they were deeply entrenched with it all their lives got into the game of now using “reason” to show that God’s existence is a logical conclusion even if the world had not been privy to the revelations that were handed by God to such aforementioned historical figures. The Church naturally ate up this stuff like candy, and couldn’t get enough of it. At a time when reason began to open men’s eyes, the Church was all too eager to also attempt to use it to show its legitimacy. It wished to fight fire with fire.
This phenomenon gave birth to “natural religion.” Natural religion is the implication that God exists not just because we have been told he exists, but because his existence is the natural conclusion of reason and logic. Thus the term “natural religion.”
Russell goes on to highlight the main arguments for natural religion, and why they fail:
” A. The First Cause Argument
Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God….
…Who made me? cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, Who made God? That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause…”
This simple argument illustrates one of the obvious shortcomings of natural religion. It is so simple that it is obvious to a child. I remember when I was only 7 years old when I first contemplated this question, even though at the time I had no doubt about God’s existence, simply because it was what I was told. This question naturally occurred to me when I heard adults describe that everything must come from something, and the ultimate “something” was God. So who made God, I wondered. I could never get a straight answer from anyone, and I later understood why. Because using this logic to deduce the existence of God is paradoxical, as it leads into an infinite regression. No matter how far this regression is taken, one is never any closer to the answer.
“There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.”
At this point with the current knowledge we possess it is impossible to make any deductions about ultimate causes. It is pure fallacy to invoke the argument of the First Cause to show God’s existence. Even a child can see through that, as I did.
That’s one down…
”B. The Natural-Law Argument
Then there is a very common argument from Natural Law. That was a favorite argument all through the eighteenth century, especially under the influence of Sir Isaac Newton and his cosmogony. People observed the planets going around the sun according to the law of gravitation, and they thought that God had given a behest to these planets to move in that particular fashion, and that was why they did so. That was, of course, a convenient and simple explanation that saved them the trouble of looking any further for any explanation of the law of gravitation…
…where you can get down to any knowledge of what atoms actually do, you will find that they are much less subject to law than people thought, and that the laws at which you arrive are statistical averages of just the sort that would emerge from chance. There is, as we all know, a law that if you throw dice you will get double sixes only about once in thirty-six times, and we do not regard that as evidence that the fall of the dice is regulated by design; on the contrary, if the double sixes came every time we should think that there was design. The laws of nature are of that sort as regards to a great many of them. They are statistical averages such as would emerge from the laws of chance; and that makes the whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was. Quite apart from that, which represents the momentary state of science that may change tomorrow, the whole idea that natural laws imply a law-giver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which way you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave, and, being a mere description of what they in fact do…”
Natural laws, or laws of nature are only descriptions of behavior based upon man’s observations. There is a very important distinction between natural law and human law, the latter being a true law, dictated by an actual lawgiver. The lawgiver (man) decrees what ought to be done. The law may or may not always be obeyed by other humans. On the other hand, an observation of nature’s behavior does not a law make. It is only descriptive, and is viewed by humans erroneously as a law because reproducibility is recognized. Reproducibility of natural occurrences does not equate to design, intelligence, or a lawgiver.
The argument of natural law is in a parallel way related to the argument of first cause. In the first cause argument, an attempt is made to explain the existence of the universe as it is traced back to an initial creator. In the natural law argument, an attempt is made to explain the reason for the behavior of the universe. Both arguments end with the answer God, which they then turn around and use for the alleged logical existence of God. Both arguments reach infinite regression paradoxes, and are thus subject to the same fallacy.
” …you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that, because even supposing that there were you are then faced with the question, Why did God issue just those natural laws and no others? If you say that he did it simply from his own good pleasure, and without any reason, you then find that there is something which is not subject to law, and so your train of natural law is interrupted. If you say, as more orthodox theologians do, that in all the laws which God issues he had a reason for giving those laws rather than others -- the reason, of course, being to create the best universe, although you would never think it to look at it -- if there was a reason for the laws which God gave, then God himself was subject to law, and therefore you do not get any advantage by introducing God as an intermediary. You really have a law outside and anterior to the divine edicts, and God does not serve your purpose, because he is not the ultimate law-giver…”
For even if one attributes the natural laws as actual laws decreed by an intelligent God in an attempt to explain the reason for such behavior (deemed by us humans as natural laws), then the next question is raised: Why did God decree such laws and natural behavior? If no reason is offered, then acceptance that natural laws can exist without any other reason - ie God - must be entertained. If a reason is offered to explain God’s decree of such laws, then God is overruled by yet another reason, and thus loses his importance in the explanation of the “why” question to the nature of the universe. In this way, the natural law is similarly flawed by an infinite regression paradox, in which God is just an intermediary and thus unnecessary for the explanation of the inquiry, if ever an explanation will be found.
That’s two down…
”C. The Argument From Design
The next step in the process brings us to the argument from design. You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application. It is an easy argument to parody. You all know Voltaire's remark, that obviously the nose was designed to be such as to fit spectacles. That sort of parody has turned out to be not nearly so wide of the mark as it might have seemed in the eighteenth century, because since the time of Darwin we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them, but that they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design about it.
When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience have been able to produce in millions of years. I really cannot believe it.”
Man’s egocentricity has led him to believe that this universe was created simply with mankind in mind. That the universe is the home that God built so that man could live in it. I suppose early man with his most primitive or almost non-existent knowledge of the world cannot be much faulted for believing this. But ever since the renaissance, or at least in the modern world, such a notion becomes suspect to the point of absurdity. As more and more evidence has been accumulated thanks to science, man’s role in the universe has been revealed as less and less significance.
On a scale of size and distance, man’s earth is insignificant in its place in the vastness of the universe. On a scale of time, his absence from the universe for such a huge time period prior to existing on earth makes it highly improbable that the whole universe was created with mankind in mind. The almost unimaginable vastness of the universe and the incredible length of time that it has existed since man arrived on the scene seems like an awful waste of space, and an awful waste of time.
Furthermore, the almost infinite flaws, whether functional or moral, also deem the hand of an intelligent being at work to be highly improbable. Blindness and unconsciousness appear a better fit to the model of the universe than does intelligent design.
These arguments so far are presented from purely a logical consideration, without even the knowledge that has been gained within the last two centuries in the field of biology: the process of evolution. The evolutionary model has gained more and more strength with the passage of time, and no intelligent or educated modern person holds it to be simply a “theory” in the sense that we only suspect evolution to be true but cannot be absolutely certain of it.
I suppose “absolute certainty” is a tricky and elusive concept, as it can be challenged in regard to almost everything. I further suppose that “absolute certainty,” since unattainable, is irrelevant. What is relevant are only “degrees of certainty.” It is not absolute truth which is the aim, since it is always beyond reach, but approximations to the truth. An idea may not fit observation well, and thus be rendered to be far from the truth. However, an idea that fits more and more observations, fits within or conjunctive to another resilient idea, and time shows little or no inconsistency in it is a good approximation of the truth.
The theory of evolution over time has shown itself to be less just a theory per say, and a closer and closer approximation of the truth. Its opponents may be haunted by it and try to debate it till the cows come home, but the time for seriously debating this issue is long dead. There is not a shred of evidence which disproves it, and a mountain of evidence to support it. From a practical standpoint, it is the truth.
The universe was not designed by a God in order to fit humans within it. Humans, and all other creatures in it evolved and exist as they currently do in order to fit the world around them. The argument from design is flawed philosophically and logically. It is also flawed evidently, as is shown by the evidence for the process of evolution. Darwin put the final nail on that coffin once and for all – thank you Charles.
That’s three down…
”D. The Moral Arguments For Deity
You all know, of course, that there used to be in the old days three intellectual arguments for the existence of God, all of which were disposed of by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason; but no sooner had he disposed of those arguments than he invented a new one, a moral argument, and that quite convinced him. He was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed implicitly in the maxims that he had imbibed at his mother's knee. That illustrates what the psycho-analysts so much emphasize -- the immensely stronger hold upon us that our very early associations have than those of later times.”
The fourth argument, that of the moral argument, was introduced by Kant. Which takes us on a side note. Many intelligent and often logical individuals take the side of defending and upholding religion, though this has been more true in the past than in the present. Why is that?
I have for long believed that it is because of the environment to which they were exposed, especially in the early years. Religion and belief in God was imprinted upon them at a very plastic age, a time when belief systems are etched onto the impressionable youth as a tattoo upon the skin. That youth may mature into a functional, intelligent, and otherwise logical adult. However, it will be very difficult to remove this early belief system, as it has found a permanent home within that person’s brain. Belief systems are very important to people, and to shake and disprove them can be close to impossible, or at least extremely distressing. It can be done, but with great effort and pain, similar to a tattoo removal.
The later in life this is attempted, the less likely for it to be successful. That’s because the later in life a person is, the more set in his or her way, the more comfortable he or she is with his or her beliefs, and the more resistant to change he or she will be. That’s why the education and exposure of our youth is so important. Don’t even bother convincing the old, for most of them are beyond help. It is too late for most of them. The youth are what’s important, if ever a more enlightened world is to be conceived, free from religion. The youth are what’s important, if ever a more enlightened Iran is to be conceived, free from Islam.
Back to Russell…
“Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. You could, of course, if you liked, say that there was a superior deity who gave orders to the God who made this world, or could take up the line that some of the Gnostics took up -- a line which I often thought was a very plausible one -- that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the Devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.”
The moral argument is one I am more used to encountering in the world of the pseudo-intellectual modern epoch of the theist. Russell does an excellent job of refuting it in the above argument.
In essence, God is invoked as the ultimate guide to what’s wrong and what’s right, without whom, it is said, such a distinction is impossible and meaningless. That right and wrong cannot exist without God.
If God created morality simply so that humans will abide by it, then it is not an end worthwhile in and of itself, and becomes only an arbitrary rule that a creator made, based on a whim. As such, it loses its appeal as a desirable end. Furthermore, God himself falls outside the realm of morality, and cannot himself be seen as “good.” God would lose any benevolence, love, etc. This is a path that theists absolutely cannot commit to traveling, because God is thereby reduced to a neutral entity devoid of goodness, decreeing arbitrary rules simply for amusement.
The alternative approach is to say that God’s wish is to show humans the difference between right and wrong and guide them to lead a moral life because morality and goodness are the desired ends. If morality and goodness are the desired ends, and if God himself is good, this suggests that goodness and morality must exist independently of God. If morality exists independently of God, then it must be seceded that either God is not a requirement for morality, or that goodness and morality were created by another God, trapping the theist again in an infinite regression paradox. Alternatively, one may take the initial approach that God himself is not bound by morality, that he invented it simply to have certain rules, that he himself is not good, and that since morality is an arbitrary concept for God, that it is therefore only an arbitrary concept for us.
And so falls the moral argument in favor of God’s existence.
That’s four down…and out.
Four main attempts at using reason to explain God’s existence. Four arguments that are flawed, and easily shot down. All are destroyed by logic. All are philosophically unsound. Three yield infinite regression paradoxes, leaving the poor theist spinning in circles, chasing his own tail until dizzy. One (that of design) is not only logically unsound but also contrary to every bit of scientific evidence in the field of biology that has accumulated in the last two centuries.
Four arguments, four demolished houses of cards.
“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 in order 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 often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the 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, and 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 at all on probabilities one would say that probably this world is a fair sample, and if there is injustice here then the odds are that there is injustice elsewhere also.’”
This is really just another subset of the moral argument. Furthermore, it is not based upon even an attempt at reason, but upon wishful thinking. No real attempt at logic is therefore necessary to dismiss it.
This is an argument for how humans, because of injustice, wish the world to be. They wish for continuation after death into an unknown world, in which they hope, justice will finally be served. It is what offers comfort to the overwhelming majority who have suffered at the hands of the wicked.
This is why I believe religion is for the weak. It always has been so. It made its initial appeal to the weak and oppressed. There are more weak people in the world than we would like to admit, and it is that weakness, wishfulness, and helplessness that partially drives people to religion, among other things.
” 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.”
We come back to the idea that people are religious because that is what they were taught as children, and had it imprinted onto their brain. It will take something close to brain surgery to get out that nonsense, because they have grown quite attached to that nonsense, and that nonsense gives them comfort. A dirty, flea infested, germ ridden security blanket with holes, that the primitive insecure child inside the theist simply refuses to abandon. So this blanket gets handed down, from generation to generation as a family heirloom which commemorates the ignorance of ancestors from thousands of years ago.
” 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.”
In a word, “fear.” Fear is a great motivator. Fear, in its many forms, plays another major role in religion; but more on that later.
(cont'd)
I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage
Naqshe Rostam