参考Bertrand Arthur William Russell 《Why
I Am Not a Christian》
Russell: The Moral Problem
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 who 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. You do not, for instance find that
attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people
who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a
sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation. You probably
all remember the sorts of things that Socrates was saying when he was dying,
and the sort of things that he generally did say to people who did not
agree with him.
You will find that in the Gospels Christ said, "Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Hell." That was said to people
who did not like His preaching. It is not really to my mind quite the best
tone, and there are a great many of these things about Hell. There is, of
course, the familiar text about the sin against the Holy Ghost: "Whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this
World nor in the world to come." That text has caused an unspeakable amount
of misery in the world, for all sorts of people have imagined that they
have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thought that it would not
be forgiven them either in this world or in the world to come. I really do
not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature
would have put fears and terrors of that sort into the world.
Then Christ says, "The Son of Man shall send forth his His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do
iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing
and gnashing of teeth"; and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of
teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the
reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and
gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often. Then you all, of
course, remember about the sheep and the goats; how at the second coming He
is going to divide the sheep from the goats, and He is going to say to the
goats, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." He continues, "
And these shall go away into everlasting fire." Then He says again, "If thy
hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life
maimed, than having two hands to go into Hell, into the fire that never
shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched."
He repeats that again and again also. I must say that I think all this
doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty.
It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world and gave the world
generations of cruel torture; and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could
take Him asHis chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be
considered partly responsible for that.
There are other things of less importance. There is the instance of the
Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the
devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must
remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go
away; but He chose to send them into the pigs. Then there is the curious
story of the fig tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what
happened about the fig tree. "He was hungry; and seeing a fig tree afar off
having leaves, He came if haply He might find anything thereon; and when He
came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it: 'No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for
ever' . . . and Peter . . . saith unto Him: 'Master, behold the fig tree
which thou cursedst is withered away.'" This is a very curious story,
because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not
blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or
in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people
known to history. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in
those respects.
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