What I Believe by Bertrand Russell

What I Believe by Bertrand Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My version contains, “What I Believe,” “The Good Life,” “What is a Christian,” and “Fear, the Basis of Religion.”

The best of the bunch is “What I Believe.” Feminism! Consent! Birth control! In the 1920s! How can you not love Bertrand Russell?

I love his logic, and I agree with a lot of what he says, indeed for years that was all there was to it for me. However now, after much reading, I'm a Christian primarily because I believe in human rights, and justifying it all back through a number of steps that are perhaps not as logical as Bertrand, I arrive at God and agreement with the teachings of Christ. (I am told this is not good enough by my Evangelical friends, but luckily they don't get to decide who is and isn't a Christian. I am equally unimpressed by their version of Christianity.) Although clearly Russell is highly ethical, I don't think he really addresses ethics as the argument for God.

“The Good Life,” is solid but it feels very incomplete to me. “What is a Christian,” is both descriptive and an analysis and I didn’t find it particularly useful. Finally, “Fear,” brings up some solid points but seems to apply not to “religion” generally but Christianity specifically, and while I don’t disagree with his points, it seems unfair in its incompleteness.

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