why b russell is not a christian...

 Bertrand Russell concerning the Natural-law argument for the existence of a God:

"Then there is the very common argument for God's existence, namely the Argument from natural law. People observed the planets going round 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 explanations of the law of gravitation...

We now find that a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions. Even in the remotest depths of stellar space there are still three feet to a yard. That is, no doubt, a very remarkable fact, but we would hardly call it a law of nature. And a great many things that have been regarded as laws of nature are of that kind.

The idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding us to behave a certain way, in which way we may choose to behave, or we 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, you cannot argue that there must be somebody who told them to do that."

— Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Natural-law argument for the existence of God was especially popular in the eighteenth century as a result of the influence of Sir Isaac Newton. As Bertrand Russell argued much later, many of the things we consider to be laws of nature, in fact, are human conventions. Indeed, Albert Einstein has shown that Newton's law of universal gravitation does not have universal application. The argument of natural laws as a basis for God was changed by Christian figures such as Thomas Aquinas, in order to fit biblical scripture and establish a Judeo-Christian teleological law.

Bertrand Russell concerning social justice:

“The only way in which a society can live for any length of time without violent strife is by establishing social justice, and social justice appears to each man to be injustice if he is persuaded that he is superior to his neighbors. Justice between classes is difficult where there is a class that believes itself to have a right to more than a proportionate share of power or wealth. Justice between nations is only possible through the power of neutrals, because each nation believes in its own superior excellence. Justice between creeds is even more difficult since each creed is convinced that it has a monopoly of the truth of the most important of all subjects. It would be increasingly easier than it is to arrange disputes amicably and justly if the philosophic outlook were more wide-spread.”

russell on religion

Among present-day religions Buddhism is best. The doctrines of Buddhism are profound, they are almost reasonable, and historically they have been the least harmful and the least cruel. But I cannot say that Buddhism is positively good, nor would I wish to have it spread all over the world and believed by everyone. This is because Buddhism only focuses on the question of what Man is, not on what the universe is like. Buddhism does not really pursue the truth; it appeals to sentiment and, ultimately, tries to persuade people to believe in doctrines which are based on subjective assumptions not objective evidence.

However, subjective opinions can produce false beliefs. I think that no matter what the religion, nor how ambiguously its faith is expressed, the same problem arises because of the substitution of subjective sentiment for objective evidence. Sentiment might be taken as the dominant force in our daily lives. But as for belief in facts, the farther we distance ourselves from sentiment the better. Never substitute sentiment for facts. It is absolutely harmful to do so."

— Bertrand Russell, Russell on Religion: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell (1999), Part II, Religion and Philosophy, 6. The Essence and Effect of Religion(1921), p. 74

‘The Essence and Effect of Religion’ was originally a lecture given at the National University of Peking by Russell in 1921. In the lecture Russell addressed two questions: what is the essence of religions? and, is it necessary to preserve the essence of religions? Russell was impressed by the Chinese culture at the time, but more so by the Chinese people’s relaxed attitude towards religion. For example, the fact Confucianism was mostly concerned with ethics rather than dogma. This tolerant attitude Russell found quite different from the dominating and controlling one in the West, which by stressing dogma and demanding correct belief, he believed had caused much unnecessary suffering throughout European history.Bertrand Russell died on the 2nd of February 1970. He was 97 years old. Russell died of influenza, just after 8 pm on 2 February 1970 at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, United Kingdom. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970 with five people present. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony but one minute's silence; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh hills later that year.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970)

"When I was 4 years old I dreamt that I'd been eaten by a wolf, and to my great surprise I was in the wolf's stomach and not in heaven."

— Bertrand Russell, BBC Interview on Face to Face (1959); The Listener, Vol. 61 (1959), p. 503

"I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist."

— Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967–1969), Ch. 10: China, p. 365

"I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken."

— Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967–1969), Postscript, p. 789

A Sense of Humour (7 December 1932)

“You may question all sorts of things about a man without making him really angry. You may say that he is stupid, that he is ruthless, that he is not honest about money, that he allowed his aged mother to starve in a garret, and he will argue with you calmly and reasonably to prove that he is innocent of these various crimes. But if you say that he has no sense of humor you will invariably produce an explosion of fury. When people say to me things so simple as: ‘I always think the autumn is so much cooler than the summer. Ho! Ho! Ho!’ and expect me to behave as though I had heard an epigram worthy of Talleyrand, I find the appropriate behavior somewhat difficult.

If I had been adequately endowed with a sense of humour, I should not have minded this, but, alas, I am that extremely rare being, a man without a sense of humour. I had not suspected this painful fact until the middle of the War, when the British War Office sent for me and officially informed me of it. I gathered that if I had had my proper share of a sense of the ludicrous, I should have been highly diverted at the thought of several thousand men a day being blown to bits, which, I confess to my shame, never caused me even to smile. There was once a Chinese emperor who constructed a lake full of wine and drove peasants into it to amuse his wife with the struggles of their drunken drownings. Now he had a sense of humour."

— Bertrand Russell, Mortals and Others: American Essays 1931–1935, Volumes I and II, A Sense of Humour (1932), p. 205

In the early 1930s, the New York American and other newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst published a literary page to which a large number of writers and artists contributed. Bertrand Russell was one of the regulars, contributing a total of 156 essays from 22 July 1931 to 2 May 1935. In one year alone (1933), he contributed fifty items, virtually one each week. A Sense of Humour (1932) was published on (7 December 1932).