I felt I'd been 'saved' in my early teens. But I noticed that atheists seemed to act as though they had some proof or evidence that God didn't exist. Most notably, Carl Sagan seemed to love God's creation, but he actively assured me, in Cosmos, that it was foolish to believe in a God who could "count sparrows."

I didn't see the logic of his argument -- after all, if there was any sentience behind the universe, why shouldn't he/she/it be able to count sparrows? After triggering the big bang, it would seem a bit of sparrow-counting would be fairly light work.

So I prayed a prayer to the "God" I believed I knew, told him I was going to be intellectually honest and look into the counter-evidence; if the evidence went the other way, I wouldn't be able to believe in him any more.

So, when I got to college, I sought out the best counter-evidence I could find. Prominent among recommendations was Why I'm not a Christian by Betrand Russell, who was not only an atheist, but also had a reputation as a famous and ground-breaking mathematician and logician. So, surely, I thought, I'm going to lose my faith now. How could a college kid ever match wits with, or disprove, such a notable and intelligent man?

Boy, was I in for a surprise: Russell's argument was quite the mess. I'm not going to spend my time on a full refutation, but here's some of the highlights which still stick out in my mind...

For one, Russell starts out with a straw man argument:

I think, however, that there are two different items which are quite essential to anybody calling himself a Christian. The first is one of a dogmatic nature -- namely, that you must believe in God and immortality. If you do not believe in those two things, I do not think that you can properly call yourself a Christian. Then, further than that, as the name implies, you must have some kind of belief about Christ. The Mohammedans, for instance, also believe in God and in immortality, and yet they would not call themselves Christians. 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.

Certainly, we can debate whether, by our own particular standards, Christ was the "best and wisest of men" -- that's quite an interesting debate. But before that, one would need to expose all one's cards: What are one's own values? Russell was a polyamorous communist, so I suppose it would be quite the compliment, at least in my eyes, to be called "not wise nor good" by a man recommending such values.

So we're looking a form of circular reasoning: We evaluate Christ based on our own values, and -- ta-da -- arrive whichever stance on the matter which will then lead us back to our own values. An an atheist, I think Christ was bad. Since Christ was bad, there's no reason not to be an atheist.

Again, this is supposed to be a well-respected logician.

Getting back to the first (strawman) fallacy: It's probably fair to say -- especially a century ago, when Russell wrote this -- that there was a general sense in which most or all of Europe was at least vaguely "Christian". Yet when you debate the religion proper, and it's specific dogmas, it is inaccurate to substitute the broader cultural definition and use that instead.

And the "popular" stance on many a matter is quite easy to refute: Russell refutes the idea that Jesus was not a "good man", if one believes he's not also God. Funny, C.S. Lewis also felt the same way, and it led him to the opposite conclusion.

Of course, unlike Lewis, Russell never broaches the actual question: Was Jesus God? Perhaps, as an atheist, he felt the question below him: Since God doesn't exist, then of course Jesus can't be God. So I will continue to be an atheist. Round and round we go in circular logic loops, using our desired conclusions as our starting assumptions.

Russell then moves on to address -- and presumably refute -- various arguments for God. As I didn't care about a number of the arguments, I equally didn't care about their refutation. But two are worth noting...

"First Cause":

I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question '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. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that. 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.

Russell's mistakes are numerous, but mentioning two will suffice. First, when he says "If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause", he's doing a bit of straw man. At his time, it was believed (by materialists, at least) that everything we could observe in this universe was caused by something else. But God, as creator of the universe, would not be included in this set: as something that preceeds the universe (cosmos) and is outside the universe, there's no reason to believe he would be required to have the same attributes and properties as things inside the universe.

But the biggest gaffe, which blew my mind, was this:

There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all.

Was Russell out of his mind? Though the big bang was not known to him, surely he must have known at least some basic science: For example, that the world apparenly had an age, or that entropy told us the universe was running down, and would never wind itself up again. When I look at the universe, asking: "Have you always been here?" The one thing it tells me, over and over, in a dozen different ways, is "No."

So here's a math professor directly contradicting (or at least ignoring) the best science of his time in order to make his religious point.

Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Upon re-reading, I discovered one of my own arguments regarding God is actually a rather well known one. Russell answers it as follows:

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... 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. So they say that there must be a God, and 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 the odds are that there is injustice elsewhere also." Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, "The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance." You would say, "Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment"; and that is really what a scientific person would argue about the universe.

It's a reasonable refutation, but assumes something not in the original: In Russell's story, there is presumably only one person or company supplying all the oranges. There is only one, if you will, actor. So if when we look at the first layer of oranges, we're looking at the "fruits" (sorry for the pun) of the same guy who will be supplying the lower layers as well.

The problem here is that he's not refuting theism. There are religious systems (pantheism) that believe there is only one "player" or "actor" in the universe: God is everyone, including both Hitler and Mother Theresa. But if so, Russell would be refuting some flavor of Hinduism or Buddhism, not Christianity.

Christianity poses that there are many people who get to offer up "oranges" (moral acts). There are many consignments of oranges coming in from many suppliers. And, frankly, as a Christian, I have noticed that those coming from God -- not the guy next door -- seem to be of vastly better quality. (Especially when compared to the average produced by those embracing Betrand's pet philosophy, atheism.) And based on that, I look forward to the day when God's wares dominate the market.

Of course, it wouldn't be any fun to take Russell on without at least answering a bit of the personal invective included in this section:

Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments that I have been talking to you about are not what really 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.

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.

If belief is God is only triggered by the wish that there was someone who was looking after you, then why isn't it also possible that humans might reject the possibility of God, wishing there was no one looking out for -- or, much more importantly, judging -- you? Russell is keenly aware of the possibility -- indeed, certainty, he believes -- of an emotional or wish-fulfilling components in his opponent's beliefs. Yet apparently he is of another species altogether, one that doesn't have to worry about a similar taint in one's own beliefs.

Yet, given that he keeps resorting to logical fallacies, that is precisely where he needed to look. When a man believes dogs have teeth, we don't wonder about his motives: Dogs, when we examine them, do appear to have teeth. Being right is it's own justification.

But when we find someone asserting things which appear run smack in the face of clear evidence -- say, asserting that earth has always existed, yet admitting that the hoped-for evidence is still "imaginary" (which Russell admits here) -- one should indeed suspect an emotional game in play. Ego, when threatened, always trumps reason -- even in mathematicians. (In my experience, especially in mathematicians. Never forget that Theodore Kaczynski, the Unibomber, was in fact, a brilliant mathematician.)

It's a very dangerous game we're playing when we ignore our pride's ability to block and distort our powers of reason. Again, Russell was keenly aware of the possibility in his opponents: it's a shame he never noticed it in himself until he was much older. So many years were undoubtedly lost.

Next, in "The Character of Christ", Russell addresses not Christ's character, but those who claim to follow him. He points out that Christians often fall short of Christ's teachings and don't live by them.

I found this argument particularly amusing:

You will remember that Christ said, "Judge not lest ye be judged." That principle I do not think you would find was popular in the law courts of Christian countries. I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians, and none of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles in what they did.

Did Jesus really say: "Don't be employed as a judge?" Is that what "Judge not lest ye be judged" means? As I see it, Jesus's point wasn't that we should never decide whether or not a man has stolen or murdered or done another prohibited action. If that was true, the entire Jewish Law, which requires such decisions, couldn't exist. (We would also need to ban livestock judges, and various forms for sports refereeing, if we really adopted Russell's one-meaning definition of "judgement.")

Since Jesus was quite keen on Jewish law, that's not likely his meaning. As I read it, in context, Jesus's point was not we should never decide if a law was broken (nor decide which cucumber was the largest!), but rather that we should use a consistent set of principles, ones we ourselves could live by, warning us that we would be weighed by the same principles we applied to others. If we rail against stealing, we had better not steal. It's just "do unto others" applied to the verbal and emotional realm.

Russell, here, even admits he knows he's making a straw man argument: "I have known in my time quite a number of judges who were very earnest Christians, and none of them felt that they were acting contrary to Christian principles." Thus he is admitting that his own understanding of this passage, and definition of "judge", is different than the understanding these Christians use. Yet he never bothers, apparently, to get their view on what the passage means. Instead, he bases his argument on his own odd reading, in which Jesus is telling people not to decide anything, rather than not stand in the ultimate judgement seat of God, condemning others vociferously for sins we ourselves will not admit having committed.

Straw. Man. Argument.

It's also interesting to note that Betrand says he agrees strongly with many of the Christian principles he mentions in this section. His main change is that, though they are excellent principles, Christians seldom live up to them.

True enough, Betrand. Christians sin, and have character flaws.

(For the record, the whole point of Christianity is that people fall short of God's requirements. What Christianity offers is not primarily a way to become perfect and sinless -- though we should be continually improving -- but rather forgiveness, through Jesus, for our imperfections and transgressions.)

But what's truly interesting here is the way, after having condemned Christians for not living up these particular principles -- with which he says he agrees! -- Russell then generously lets himself off the hook for violating them, saying:

I do not profess to live up to them myself; but then, after all, it is not quite the same thing as for a Christian.

Really? Why? On those specific ideals, since you say you agree with them just as much as Christians do, you are equally hypocritical. Many atheists would agree with Christians that theft is wrong. So is an atheist any less responsible for violating his own stated ideals than a Christian if he steals? Apparently!

It sounds like Russell is implying that we should have lower ethical expectations of atheists. Not quite the point he wanted to make, I suspect.

The section "Defects in Christ's Teachings" mostly boils down to Betrand arguing that Jesus wasn't sure when he was returning. (Apparently "defects" should be singular, since he only found one here.) Even so, Jesus admitted as much saying that only the Father, not the Son, knew the day of his return. (Mark 13:32)

Russell makes some other mistakes here -- not knowing otherwise, we must assume they are innocent. For example:

When He said, "Take no thought for the morrow," and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count.

You can easily make a case that many in the early church thought Christ was returning soon. True enough! But Russell is not making that case -- again, all Russell needed to do was look up the verses in question realize he was wrong about what Jesus meant here:

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matt 6:34)

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? (Lk 12:25-26)

Jesus is saying nothing about his second coming here: instead, he is appealing to common sense. But it's small-yet-telling blunders like this which make you realize how very little effort Russell put into researching the belief he thought he was disproving.

Finally -- and I'm going to stop here, since I think you get a taste of the problems well enough already -- Russell returns to his initial fallacy, judging Jesus's character based on Russell's pre-existing assumption that Jesus's teachings must have been false:

There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.... I must say that 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 as His chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that.

Apparently, the Romans were sweet people who never crucified nor tortured anyone until Jesus introduced the doctrine of Hell. Not to mention the Chinese, Mayans and Tibetans.

Clearly, Russell didn't deduce this belief from a study of history.

And today, among the "really ethical" we would have to include atheists like Lenin, Stalin, and Mao -- none of whom believed in hell, yet all of whom were renouned for their use of torture. (Perhaps all that wouldn't have happened if those men had feared a judgement.)

Since Hell doesn't exist -- we know for a fact -- Jesus is just being cruel by warning people to avoid it. Does hell, in fact, exist? Not worth Russell's time: just start by assuming the opposite. And he repeats the same fallacy for each other critique in this section: Russell is an atheist; Russell's assumptions are true. Therefore, Jesus's differening assumptions are false and harmful, therefore, Jesus was a bad man. Therefore, Russell is an atheist.

Whether hell exists or not, Russell is certainly resorting to circular reasoning.

As usual.

Russell might just saved his audience a bit of time by summing up much of his thesis as: "Jesus was not God, or even good, because he wasn't an atheist", which is how it frequently plays out. But we would have too easily seen the absurdity, I suppose.

Needless to say, I had been taking formal logic classes at the time, and was a bit shocked, to say the least, at the sloppiness and illogic of the man I expected to be one of the greatest logicians of all times. Reading other sceptical texts and polemics for evidence against Christianity, I was continually amazed to find more of the same.

Given the smugness of atheists I admired, like Sagan and others, I had anticipated some really impressive arguments. I expected at least some kind of evidence or at least a coherant argument or two. Instead, I found myself in a pile of straw-man and ad homen arguments, circular reasoning, poor research, bizarre definitions and misreadings, and historical, scientific, and factual errors.

It was this experience that got me wondering what the other side had to say: Were their any logical arguments in favor of Christianity? And I was introduced to Lewis, McDowell, and many others.

Not all of their arguments were right, in my opinion, nor conclusive, though I found many to have merit. In the end, and on the whole, I found more evidence, and -- this was no small point -- better reasoning and arguments being used in favor of Christianity than in favor of atheism.