Note 61 — Chapter V

While Shaw has stated publicly numbers of times that he was an atheist, an explanation here is necessary. Shaw has always had a strong sense of spiritual things; his declarations of atheism should always be taken with the context. “If this be religion,” he has virtually said in reply to someone's exposition of religion, “then I am an atheist.” In the case of Shelley, it is perfectly plain that Shaw meant that he was all these things—a Socialist, an atheist and a vegetarian—in the Shelleyan sense.