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Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?
A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas

by Bertrand Russell (1947)


I speak as one who was intended by my father to be brought up as a
Rationalist. He was quite as much of a Rationalist as I am, but he died
when I was three years old, and the Court of Chancery decided that I
was to have the benefits of a Christian education.

I think perhaps the Court of Chancery might have regretted that since.
It does not seem to have done as much good as they hoped. Perhaps you
may say that it would be rather a pity if Christian education were to
cease, because you would then get no more Rationalists.

They arise chiefly out of reaction to a system of education which
considers it quite right that a father should decree that his son
should be brought up as a Muggletonian, we will say, or brought up on
any other kind of nonsense, but he must on no account be brought up to
think rationally. When I was young that was considered to be illegal.


Sin And The Bishops

Since I became a Rationalist I have found that there is still
considerable scope in the world for the practical importance of a
rationalist outlook, not only in matters of geology, but in all sorts
of practical matters, such as divorce and birth control, and a question
which has come up quite recently, artificial insemination, where
bishops tell us that something is gravely sinful, but it is only
gravely sinful because there is some text in the Bible about it. It is
not gravely sinful because it does anybody harm, and that is not the
argument. As long as you can say, and as long as you can persuade
Parliament to go on saying, that a thing must not be done solely
because there is some text in the Bible about it, so long obviously
there is great need of Rationalism in practice.

As you may know, I got into great trouble in the United States solely
because, on some practical issues, I considered that the ethical advice
given in the Bible was not conclusive, and that on some points one
should act differently from what the Bible says. On this ground it was
decreed by a Law Court that I was not a fit person to teach in any
university in the United States, so that I have some practical ground
for preferring


Rationalism to other outlooks.

Don't Be Too Certain!

The question of how to define Rationalism is not altogether an easy
one. I do not think that you could define it by rejection of this or
that Christian dogma. It would be perfectly possible to be a complete
and absolute Rationalist in the true sense of the term and yet accept
this or that dogma.

The question is how to arrive at your opinions and not what your
opinions are. The thing in which we believe is the supremacy of reason.
If reason should lead you to orthodox conclusions, well and good; you
are still a Rationalist. To my mind the essential thing is that one
should base one's arguments upon the kind of grounds that are accepted
in science, and one should not regard anything that one accepts as
quite certain, but only as probable in a greater or a less degree. Not
to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in
rationality.


Proof of God

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me.
Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place
they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I
should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay
that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were
speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to
describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a
conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the
ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist,
because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought
to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods
of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a
logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them
did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such
proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely
philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking
popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods
that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I
think, take exactly the same line.


Skepticism

There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the
existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the
Homeric God. I cannot prove that either the Christian God or the
Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is
an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious
consideration. Therefore, I suppose that that on these documents that
they submit to me on these occasions I ought to say "Atheist", although
it has been a very difficult problem, and sometimes I have said one and
sometimes the other without any clear principle by which to go.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit
that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much
more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that
this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are
degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that
fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and
complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely
useless.


Persecution

On must remember that some things are very much more probable than
others and may be so probable that it is not worth while to remember in
practice that they are not wholly certain, except when it comes to
questions of persecution.

If it comes to burning somebody at the stake for not believing it, then
it is worth while to remember that after all he may be right, and it is
not worth while to persecute him.

In general, if a man says, for instance, that the earth is flat, I am
quite willing that he should propagate his opinion as hard as he likes.
He may, of course, be right but I do not think he is. In practice you
will, I think, do better to assume that the earth is round, although,
of course, you may be mistaken. Therefore, I do not think we should go
in for complete skepticism, but for a doctrine of degrees of
probability. I think that, on the whole, that is the kind of doctrine
that the world needs. The world has become very full of new dogmas. he
old dogmas have perhaps decayed, but new dogmas have arisen and, on the
whole, I think that a dogma is harmful in proportion to its novelty.
New dogmas are much worse that old ones.