In his essay "Why I Am Not a Christian", Bertrand Russell expresses his views on Christianity and faith in general. He is very adamant about opposing traditional Christian views. He states at the beginning of the essay: "Therefore I take it that when I tell you why I am not a Christian I have to tell you two different things: first, why I do not believe in God and in immortality; and, secondly, why I do not think that Christ was the best and wisest of men..." These views of Christianity and eternal life come up in the essay many times. He writes to both Christians and non-Christians in this essay. As

Russell depicts Christ throughout his essay as being a man who preached hell and damnation. He says "There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell." His theory was that Christ was immoral because he believed in suffering. What Russell fails to mention is that Christ came to die so that no man would have to endure that pain and torture. Christ came to preach everlasting life not eternal damnation however he did tell people that the only way to heaven is through Him and without him there is only hell and suffering. Russell does not mention the positive side to the pain and suffering and because of this he misinterprets the Christian viewpoint.

Stemming from his hatred for Christians, Russell interchanges Protestants and Catholics. He relates Protestants and Roman Catholics as being one in the same. He refers to the Catholic belief that there isn't necessarily a hell or place of damnation as a Christian belief. This Catholic "standard" was set forth by the Archbishop of Canterbury, not adopted by Protestants. He leads the reader to assume that both Catholics and Christians have the same viewpoints across the board. This just isn't true.

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Approximate Word count = 814
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)