Why I Am Not a Christian

A collection of Russell's essays on religion, edited by Paul Edwards and published in 1957, named after a lecture Russell gave to the National Secular Society in London on 6 March 1927. In the lecture he defines a Christian as someone who believes in God and immortality and holds that Christ was at least the best and wisest of men, and explains why he accepts none of these. He criticises the first-cause, natural-law, design and moral arguments for God's existence, and the argument that God is needed to remedy injustice. He then questions Christ's moral teaching, pointing to the doctrine of hell, and argues that religion rests chiefly on fear and has hindered moral progress. Other essays ask whether religion has aided civilisation and whether we survive death. An appendix by Edwards tells how Russell was prevented from teaching at the City College of New York in 1940. Christian critics reply that Russell attacks a popular, simplified Christianity rather than its strongest intellectual forms.

It is the classic short statement of the case against religious belief, and a clear model of how to examine the traditional arguments for God.