I've been brought to the attention of Russell's book/lecture on "Why I
am not a Christian". It was due to an article I saw on Alex's blog regarding
his trip to Indonesia.
I had always wanted to read this. Then I was confused who the author was.
When I realized it is quite short, I read it.
I thought this would be a challenging book, but it really isn't. Classic stuff. Unless I had the wrong book.
Russell
basically defined Christianity and listed all reasonings of God's
existence a Christian would use and he would disprove them one by one.
His Christian definition is fair enough.
As for his arguments, I shall just summarize my defense as follows:
1.
The First-cause Argument: Who made God? Russell ended up throwing the
solution away instead of replacing the solution with 'another', so he
has no answer. He had responsibly defined the word Christian but he
didn't do a good job for the rest of his work. To ask "Who made God", is
like a novel character asking 'who authored the author?'. First it is
impossible for the character to perceive anything beyond the laws set
forth by the author's ink. All imaginations have to abide by the laws
set by the pen of the novel. A character is free to choose a color of
the word "ball" in the novel if color was written so but no more. So the
same it is with us, trying to draw the creator of time and space within
the boundry of the space-time continuum. Dr. Tong had covered this:
Creator is therefore not created.
2. The Natural-law Argument:
Russell first assumed that giving credit to God for the works of God is
an excuse for Christians to stop fathoming, hence his whole logic falls
like the domino effect.
3. The Argument from Design: His view is like that of the evolutionists. But it is of a different topic: one attempts to clarify the source of origin, while the other attempts merely to ask why and how.
4. The Moral Arguments for Deity: Russell is confused in the logical understanding between "God is Good" and "God set what is right and wrong".
5. The Argument for the Remedying of Injustice: The idea Russell accused against was by itself problematic. To blame such problem on Christianity is by itself folly of injustice. I would only argue if the sense of justice in a man is attributed to God or not. Not what the broken world needs, this is a subject of believers.
6. The Character of Christ: The bad testimony of those who claimed Christian belief is therefore an excuse for Russell's unbelief.
7. Defects in Christ's Teaching: Russell thought Christ's second coming would be sooner, as Abraham did his firstborn.
8. The Moral Problem: How could there be eternal punishment? Russell did not realize the damnation of man began since Adam. The fact that we are alive today is but the mercy of God. There is hell, because God is good. Not because God is good, so there should be no hell.
9. The Emotional Factor: I agree with this premise of Russell. As for bad examples of the "christians", I have answered that above.
10. How the Churches Have Retarded Progress: Russell made autonomous happiness as the foundation of morals. Thus, if a child is forbidden by his parents to eat candies, the parents have retarded the child's progress by restricting the happiness of mankind.
11. Fear, the Foundation of Religion: It is as though Russell would like to have this sensitivity cut off in drunkenness.
12. What We Must Do: the Overman concept. We ought to...we should...ourselves. Yes, I agree we have responsibilities, but if you go too far, you would want everyone to listen to you as god.
