Bertrand Russell on Christ’s Wisdom and Moral Teachings

THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF MY CRITIQUE ON RUSSELL’S “WHY I AM NOT CHRISTIAN”.

I am writing this to address a friend of mine, Makagutu, on Bertrand Russell’s views on moral failings of Jesus Christ. This post is not about what I think of the morals of Christ, biblically, but what Bertrand Russell thinks.

You can find the essay “Why I am not Christian” here. I critiqued the essay before, and you can see that here.

In the context of Russell’s time, most atheist intellectuals believed that although Christ was not divine, possibly never existed, and albeit wrong in his views, was “the best and the wisest of men”. Russell does not agree himself, and sets out to explain why.

Firstly, Bertrand Russell concedes Christ did have great moral teachings and wisdom, and claims he agrees “with Christ a great deal more than the professing Christians do” (scroll down to subsection “The Character of Christ”). To assert this, he cites various teachings of Christ most Christians do not follow, such as “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also“, “judge not lest ye be judged“, and “if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor“. He brings up Stanley Baldwin (the British Prime Minister of the time), Christian law courts, and the general Christian public, who do not practice these teachings. Russell, for his many moral failures, sees himself better and closer to Jesus Christ then most Christians.

Secondly, Russell proceeds to explain why Christ is not the wisest of men. His reasoning is that Christ really did think ” that the second coming was going to be very soon.” Clearly, Christ was wrong, and clearly, Christ was not the wisest of men because of that. His logic for why Christ is not the wisest of men is valid but perhaps not sound – I must confess not everyone is right always. Likewise, flawed knowledge does not necessarily mean flawed wisdom. He aught to have defined it himself.

Thirdly, “you come to moral questions”. It is hear Russell truly fails to make any reasonable argument at all. His logic runs as so:

1. Hell is immoral
2. Christ used the fear of hell in his arguments
3. Therefore, Christ is immoral

I don’t know how Russell decided this was valid logic. His premise has nothing to do with his conclusion – that hell is immoral has nothing to do with Christ’s mortality. Indeed, Christ really did “[believe] in hell”. Although Russell really did “think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would [not] have put fears and terrors of that sort into the world” because he does not believe in hell, it does not make sense that Christ should be held to the same standard since he does believe in hell! Russell sums up his own snobbishness nicely:

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 asHis chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that.

Lastly, “there are other things of less importance,” such as killing the fig tree and sending devils into swine. Those criticisms are alright, I suppose, although it appears is bit picking more then anything else for these arguments of “less importance.”

Bertrand Russell’s criticisms of Christ, evidently, are at best half measures. I was aghast at his foolish argument on hell, especially coming from one of the greatest mathematical minds of our age. While I do recommend reading most of the lecture, you might as well not waste your time on his erroneous discussion of Christ.

Juggling the golden rule

“You should desire for others what you desire for yourself and hate for others what you hate for yourself. Do not oppress as you do not like to be oppressed. Do good to others as you would like good to be done to you. Regard bad for yourself whatever you regard bad for others. Accept that (treatment) from others which you would like others to accept from you… Do not say to others what you do not like to be said to you” — Ali ibn Ali Talib (4th caliph of Islam, son in law of the Prophet Muhammad)

Ali didn’t come up with this concept – it’s been around for thousands of years. The Prophet said it too, but I liked Ali’s version of the quote since it was a bit longer and more elaborate. I’ve always had a rather skeptical view of the golden rule, which I suspect many have but never speak out loud.

It does have a fair amount of disparage from intellectual celebrities. George Bernard Shaw, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Popper, and Bertrand Russell aren’t fans of the novel concept. The argument they make is simple and rather convincing; it goes something like this:

“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may be different” — Bernard Shaw (British playwright)

Alright, fair enough. What if I were a masochist? Clearly, the golden rule has its issues. Its fundamental premise, seemingly, is a rather naïve sort of kindness. It’s a selfish, indiscriminate, and degrading treatment of others. Kindness comes out of how you think others should be catered to, how you think one person should be treated versus another, and how you think morality should play it all. So much for humility.

“There’s only one rule that I know of, babies…you’ve got to be kind” — Kurt Vonnegut (American author)

The golden rule, arguably, relies on this arrogant idea that’s all about you. It requires you to judge others – to decide what’s best for them. That sounds familiar: I know what’s better for you better than you know yourself. Just looking at history, we know that works. Kindness doesn’t take into account the receiver; it’s all about the sender. The sender decides how to give off kindness and in what shape or form. The sender is the one who makes the game and the rules to that game. This is the sort of arrogance people try to avoid. It’s one danger to believe you’re at the center of the world, and a whole other story to believe you’re the benevolent center of the world. All of a sudden, no one’s opinion of themselves count – how dignifying.  You, your egocentric self, know them better than they know themselves. Sounds suspicious.

So let’s forget about this archaic law. Let’s deal with empathy, okay? Instead of treating others the way you would want to treat yourself, why not treat others the way they’d want to be treated? That would make the world mighty better. All of a sudden, the judging goes. A true call to empathy and compassion might save us all. Empathy leads to real understanding, not an artificial one. Empathy is taking your shoes off and going into someone else’s. It’s taking off the lens you view the world and putting on someone else’s. The golden rule, on the other hand, is never bothering to do just that, right?

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” — Atticus Finch (in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird)

I treat that with similar suspicion though. Can one really remove their bias and see it from another point of view, while using your own conscience and your own mind? Claiming you can doesn’t sound honest to me, and I’m tired of those ‘truly objective’ individuals that float around. When you take your skin off and put someone else’s on, what you’re really doing is putting someone else’s skin on top of yours and walking around. You’re just  seeing someone else’s view from your own viewpoint. You’re looking at a lens with another lens, pretending the first isn’t there at all.

Judging is inherent in the human condition, and there’s no use trying to get rid of it. The sender of kindness, pretending they can, is lying to themself just as they are lying to the receiver. Empathy, at the deepest and truest level, isn’t realistic. We need to stop pretending.

The golden rule, then, isn’t perfect. But it calls on people to be true to themselves. You can’t expect to know how others want to be treated. But you have a reference point – how you’d like to be treated. And we all want to be understood – so we’d treat the other with an attempt to understand. And though the egocentricity remains it’s fine. You are only being honest to the flawed human condition. It’s only a recognition that you cannot fully understand someone else, so you use the only frame of reference you have: your shoes, your lens, your skin. The beginning to understanding others, then, is understanding you can’t really understand at all. And Socrates says it best:

“I know nothing”

Why Bertrand Russell was not a Christian

Why Bertrand Russell is not a Christian is a 25 page rage against Bertrand Russell’s religious views written by Reverend Ralph Allen Smith. It is in response to a brilliant lecture by Bertrand Russell titled Why I am not a Christian; I have written a review on that already. This essay serves to criticize Russell’s reasoning against Jesus and his reasoning for a secular worldview. It spends little time arguing for the Existence of God, although the author seems to imply he could argue that too if he wanted.

Reverend Smith begins by explaining that the existence of God is an unnecessary component of the Christian faith. This is in Catholic doctrine as well as in many Protestant faiths directly: that God does not need to be rationally deductible, only provable by means of Christianity alone. Smith, after explaining this, quickly and rashly states that Russell didn’t spend enough time thoroughly explaining why the rationale for God isn’t all too rationale. For some reason he doesn’t say how.

The first section, the smaller one, is absolute bogus and completely avoids answering any questions, but I love the second larger section. This one deals with why Russell’s worldview is insufficient (and thus Christianity, at the very least, is better), and why Russell’s tirade against Christianity is flat out stupid. He’s right about that.

Russell insists that Jesus was immoral on the grounds that anyone who believes in Hell is immoral. In other words, whether or not Hell is immoral by itself, if you tell people it exists you are immoral, even if you earnestly beleive it. For rational people like you and I, that’s crazy talk. I was astonished he would say something like that – and I read and re read his essay a number of times to make sure that was what he was earnestly saying. It was. Perhaps he isn’t so logical of a philosopher.

It gets worse though, and more controversial. Russell’s worldview, in the mind of the author and I, is by far the most irrational. It is a worldview completely absent of meaning and coherency, devoid of purpose and order. It is a worldview of nothing but chaos and randomness, but yet, there is a savior: morality! The cherished secular worldview of Bertrand Russell involves denying any purpose of life while simultaneously demanding altruism in life. It requires you to stand for open mindedness and rationality while simultaneously succumb to your altruistic evolutioned brain. There is no purpose of your existence, but you have to be a good person anyway. This is coming from Russell, a man who has cheated on several wives and dozens of women. This is coming from Russell, an icon of logic and pure thinking. This is coming from the idol of many atheists and secularists: and yet he was no more than an illogical fool when it comes to the subject of ethics and religion. This is hypocrisy and doublethink!

To conclude, this essay is A MUST READ for anyone who reads Russell’s lecture. I recommend for anyone. Now as I am not Christian, I find his argument that all Atheists know Christianity is true in their hearts but deny it anyways quite dubious, and as a Muslim I refuse to accept that God does not have to be rationally deductible for religion to be true, but his disparage against Russell still holds. His disparage against the secular worldview is short, blunt, and brilliant. I can only hope that truth and free thought can one day emerge within all of us.

Why I am not a Christian

Why I am not Christian is a collection of essays written by secular philosophers and academics. I am only writing on the most famous essay of the collection, a transcript of a lecture given by the famed Bertrand Russell at the National Secular Society. This lecture was a short rebuttal to every well known argument for God and some of the arguments for Christianity. His lecture has been renowned by many as a quick, concise deconstruction of religious thinking and apologism. That is too quick of a judgment.

His lecture first goes through the well known arguments for God, pretty much all of which can be seen in The Reason for God book I wrote a review on. Russell briefly runs through explaining each argument, and then points out a particular flaw in said argument that deconstructs the entire conclusion. He does not spend the time to give a full rebuttal and his alternative worldview to each argument, but it was not necessary to prove the theist apologist wrong. As I explains in my The Reason for God review, I do not find any of the mainstream arguments for God’s existence entirely convincing, but I also do not find any of the mainstream arguments against God’s existence convincing either. There are additional argument that we rarely hear about that keep me in theism, and I’ll one day explain them.

In short, his arguments against the theist appeals were quite convincing. His shockingly short rebuttals were satisfactory for the point he wanted to convey, although much more could have been discussed. For example, he dismisses the First Cause argument on the basis that the universe could have been the first cause without God and then proceeds to talk about other arguments. Brutally short and concise, Russell gets the point across without unnecessary commentary. He later starts talking about religious thinking and Jesus, and his views on both.

His dismissal of religious thinking as incompatible with science shows his ignorance of history and utter arrogance for an academic of his esteem. To claim a clash between faith and reason at the level in which Russell does is a moronic outcry secularists have tried for centuries in this plea for academic legitimacy that they once did not have. Now that they do, they insist that this legitimacy is only for them and delude their audiences with dogmatic bullcrap about how men of religion are less intelligent or not free thinking. Academic arrogance of this kind is usually only seen in extreme right wingers or children, but Russell proves to be an exception.

He then proceeds to dismiss Jesus as “the best and wisest of men.” Now most non-Christians will agree that Jesus was not “the best and wisest of men”, but Russell’s reasoning stems from academic dishonesty and hypocrisy. Many of the fellow secularists of his time relented that Jesus was the pinnacle of moral character in the history of man while not supernatural in any way. Russell first states that “historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all” as if he has never entered through a university door before. The existence of Jesus is not questioned by any legitimate historian of our time for a number of well documented reasons that I assume Russell rejects because he lacks the level of reason he so preciously propagates. Let me be clear: Jesus, beyond a doubt, existed during the Roman occupation of Palestine by all historical accounts.What he did and who he was is what is up for debate.

Russell continues his dismissal of Christ on the grounds that Christ believed in his imminent second coming. I won’t address whether or not Russell interpreted scripture right, but this has almost nothing to do with Christ’s moral character or wisdom for that matter. Russell throws another red herring in his dismissal of Christ in that Christ warned of a hellfire, something Russell doesn’t find moral. This kind of skewed logic isn’t even shown by extreme right wingers or children. I find murder of innocents wrong, and if my friend was going to be murdered I would certainly try to warn him. Likewise, Christ believed of a coming hell, and chose to warn his companions of its coming. Whether Christ was right or wrong is irrelevant, Russell seems to insist that it is immoral either way to warn someone of something you find immoral that may happen to them.

In conclusion, the secular philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell brilliantly shatters every mainstream argument for God’s existence in a few minutes of reading. His criticisms of Christianity, however, fall short and are academically dishonest and rationally inconsistent. I honestly advice that you only read the first part of Russell’s essay, and not waste your time with his criticisms of Jesus and Christianity. If you do choose to read the whole thing, you have been warned.

TO BE CONTINUED with a review on the essay Why Bertrand Russell was not a Christian by Rev. Ralph Allan Smith.