One Enlightenment project that shows no signs of being abandoned or compromised, and which is even supported by some post-modernists is that of speculation about the religion--if there is to be one--of the future. Although efforts to lay the foundations of a religion of the future are unabated, the roadside is littered with the wrecks of such projects. No one, it seems, has solved the paradox of the "religion which is no religion which is the one true religion."

In many of his other areas of interest (mathematics, education, politics), Bertrand Russell offered not only theories and analysis, but also practical experiments. He is not known to have modeled what a religion of the future might be, and none of his writings on religion, by his own admission, provide or even suggest a fully satisfying alternative to religion. The problem, as Russell saw it, was to find a way to express the general attitude towards life "which must be adopted in times of stress and difficulty by those who have no dogmatic religious beliefs." Religionists will, of course, reply that there is no such attitude; that there is an ultimate need for dogma.

Russell's analysis of what is needed for a religion of the future cleared the path for the construction of such a religion, but Russell's own project failed. Russell was so concerned with expressing himself and with discriminating among alternatives that he failed to see the necessity of appropriation. This shortcoming has now been remedied.

Warren Allen Smith's massive Who's Who in Hell looks like, and in many ways is, a conventional reference book. Smith, I argue, has managed to do what Russell attempted but failed to do. Smith's basic insight is that what is needed to show the truth of atheism is the presentation of a fair, impartial, empirical argument. Russell's attempts to show that "all religions are false and dangerous" were, for the most part, anecdotal, and as such can hardly be considered fair or impartial. Smith's Who's Who is also anecdotal, but it is massively so, and the reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions. There are, of course, some arguments in the course of Smith's work, but they are mostly incidental. What is so powerful about the Who's Who is the total effect of reading it, or even of reading any two or three hundred pages, i.e., not even a quarter of the whole. Instead of presenting a proposal for the reform of religion, Smith concentrates on simply appropriating all that he can find in the past and the present that can fairly be placed in the world of humanists, freethinkers, naturalists, rationalists and non-theists. There are, no doubt, many errors of fact and opinion in this book, but the same may be said of the Bible and of other scriptures. Smith is impressively careful in justifying each and every person, organization or idea that is included. Thus his appropriation is a rational, or at least rationalized, one. As one reads on, the enthymeme discloses itself and the significance of the title, beyond its obvious attraction for marketing, becomes clear. If anything like conventional religion is true, then all, or very nearly all, of the folks in this book are in Hell. And that will be true regardless of which definition of Hell we accept. But, Smith tacitly argues, no one, or very nearly no one, who has read this book could possibly believe that all these folks are in Hell. Ergo, nothing like conventional religion is true. This argument, I claim, does not give the religionist the wiggle room that is always available in the traditional appeals to evil, to science or to the meaninglessness of religious utterances. Those who use the Who's Who as a portal to meet the folks who have been consigned to Hell will, I claim, not be able to believe in the religions that put them there. This is the argument Russell was looking for, and it strongly suggests that the religion of the future has actually been with us for a long time. As St. Anselm said, admittedly in a different context, the great shame is that it is all true but we just do not see it.

Last summer I presented a review (to appear in the Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly, February 2002) of Warren Allen Smith's big red reference book, Who's Who in Hell. My theme then was that of all the critiques of religion that have appeared in modern times, this is the one that religionists just will not be able to talk their way out of. Smith has set out to show, by an exhaustive (and exhausting) catalog of biographies, that religion has damned to Hell some of the best and nicest people. Critics have dismissed my argument on the grounds that they no longer believe in Hell as a literal place and that the Church no longer damns people to anything. Well, actually, "I want to go to Heaven when I die" (or if you prefer, "I don't want to go to Hell") remain very popular reasons for being religious. But let the point be granted: no fire, no brimstone, no cute tail. Religionists still have to claim there is--or at least could be--something better about being a believer than being an unbeliever. Is it possible for someone to claim to be religious but admit that being religious leaves one no better off than being a humanist, freethinker, naturalist, rationalist or non-theist? If there is no literal Hell that believers avoid, then what is the advantage of being a believer? Those who have read the Who's Who know the answer: none whatsover. If Smith is right, then Hell is fun, interesting and honest. And Heaven is the opposite of Hell.

I would like to pick up on the fun, the interest and the honesty of Smith's Hell. Having made a case for the religious significance of WWH, I want to go on to say something about its literary significance, which I consider to be very great. Warren's book has been called the "Atheist's Bible." I think that designation is correct but tends to understate the accomplishment of WWH. Those of us who were born after about 1850 are familiar with the sorts of figurative uses of the word "Bible." All sorts of reference works are now called the bible of this and the bible of that. All the word "Bible" means now is some sort of authoritative or sacred book. A moment's reflection will show that "Atheist's Bible" is not just a figurative expression; it is an outright whole-hog oxymoron. The problem of writing an Atheist's Bible is parallel to the problem of starting an atheist religion. Atheists do not believe in religion. Religion is so much superstitious crap (Carl Pinel). Religion discourages honest thinking and gives importance to things that are not very important (Bertrand Russell). So what would an atheist want with an authoritative book of any kind, let alone a sacred book? Merely putting together a collection of atheistical sayings is not enough to make an Atheist bible. Tim Madigan claims to be a WWH fundamentalist. Madigan denies there are any errors in WWH. Without wanting to be disrespectful, I would point out that to accept the inerrancy of any book is to bring back all the problems that that drove atheists away from religion in the first place. If all we wanted were an anti-Bible, it would be enough just to put a negation sign at the beginning of the bible of religion. So the challenge of writing an Atheist Bible is the challenge not just of creating from nothing something that does not exist yet; it is the challenge of creating something that cannot exist, like a round square. That is a tall order, but Warren was up to it. Of course, Warren did not create this Atheist's Bible in seven days, or even seven years, or even seven times seven years. It took Warren a little longer, about fifty years. Not at the beginning, but at some point along the way, Warren realized that to make a contradiction happen you have to work in the area of fiction, since fiction by definition is not true. "In fiction the accuracy and coherence of the imaginative narrative must be strong enough to impart a vision of truth to the reader" (Peter Ackroyd, p. 638). The key phrase here is "impart a vision." Most reviewers have taken WWH to be some sort of reference book. The Library of Congress has shelved it with biographical dictionaries. This is a mistake. James Joyce's Ulysses contains a great deal of information about people and places in Dublin, but it is not shelved with tour books. Joyce took real people and real places and put them into a largely fictional story. Warren took real people (mostly) and real events (again mostly) but put them in an imaginary place, Hell. Secular humanists--such as Isaac Asimov, Paul Cadmus, Arthur C. Clarke, John Dewey, Julian Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Carl Sagan, Gore Vidal (all of whom Smith has corresponded with or known personally)--have shown how the individual can through free inquiry develop a humanistic philosophy that is rational, not irrational; naturalistic, not supernaturalistic; scientific, not creationist; humanistic, not theistic. But even after the philosophy had been developed there remained the daunting task of perfecting the instrument of conversion. The Atheist's Bible is not a book that merely affirms or even proves atheism. The Atheist's Bible that Warren has put together is more like a theme park than a reference book. WWH is fun; it is informative; and (so far as I can tell) honest.

Most importantly, WWH, is a literary truth serum. The reader, attracted at first, no doubt, by the title, is gradually led about the Hot Place, finding the way into every nook and cranny. Before long, the tourist takes up residence and instead of merely being told a story the reader becomes part of the story.