s it and in doing so he must respectfully prove to the best of his ability that "the whole conception of God is . . . quite unworthy of free men" (694).
Russell's argument assumes an intellectual, philosophical, and logical guise, but he is actually trying to shame Christians out of their beliefs rather than persuade them through reason. For example, he says that the Christians are foolish to argue that God exists based on rational argument, for they ought to rely on faith and dogma and nothing more. He uses a playfully mocking tone to argue, for example, that the "First Cause" argument for the existence of God is demolished by a simple statement: "If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause" (685). Russell superficially dismisses this and other arguments for the existence of God (the natural law argument, the argument from design, moral arguments). His writing is certainly amusing, but it
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