Hello all, my name is Charles and I recently came across these Bertrand Russell quotes and have a question for atheists regarding them:
The question is, assuming atheism is true, why do atheists such as Russell feel any need to complain about the alleged immorality of theists? If we are just colonies of bacteria in a purposeless universe, it matters not if Christ believed in Hell, or if Christians are wicked and cruel. Indeed “moral progress” is just as meaningless as anything else. I don’t see how an atheist can say with a straight face, as he ought, that Hitler’s gas chambers at Auschwitz or Stalin’s mines at Kolyma, have the same moral import as say Mother Theresa’s charitable work. Atheism logically entails moral nihilism, yet I have encountered few atheists willing to assert it.
Quote:Then you come to moral questions. 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 that is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence.
Quote:That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs.
Quote:I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
The question is, assuming atheism is true, why do atheists such as Russell feel any need to complain about the alleged immorality of theists? If we are just colonies of bacteria in a purposeless universe, it matters not if Christ believed in Hell, or if Christians are wicked and cruel. Indeed “moral progress” is just as meaningless as anything else. I don’t see how an atheist can say with a straight face, as he ought, that Hitler’s gas chambers at Auschwitz or Stalin’s mines at Kolyma, have the same moral import as say Mother Theresa’s charitable work. Atheism logically entails moral nihilism, yet I have encountered few atheists willing to assert it.
