Book review: Where do atheists get their values? John Gray's Seven Types of Atheism
Reviewed by Patrick Freyne
John
Gray is a self-described atheist who thinks that prominent advocates
of atheism have made non-belief seem intolerant, uninspiring and dull. At the
end of the first chapter of his new book, Seven Types of Atheism,
he concludes that “the organised atheism of the present century is mostly a
media phenomenon and best appreciated as a type of entertainment”.
He laughs when I
remind him of this sick burn. “I wrote the book partly as a riposte to that
kind of atheism,” he says. “There’s not much new in [new atheism] and what is
in it is a tired recycled version of forms of atheism that were presented more
interestingly in the 19th century. In the so-called new atheism people are
[presented with] a binary option between atheism, as if there was only one
kind, and religion, as if there was only one kind of religion. [It’s]
historically illiterate.
“They don’t even know
when they’re repeating ideas from the 19th or early 20th century . . .They
don’t know anything of the history of atheism or religion. They’re also very
parochial about religion. They take religion to be, not even monotheism or
Christianity [but] contemporary American Protestant fundamentalism . . . It’s a
parochial, dull debate. I thought of having a subtitle called Why the
God Debate is Dead.” In Seven Types
of Atheism, Gray explores the rich philosophical history of non-belief and
enlivens it with entertaining tales of humanists like August
Comte who so believed in human co-operation he designed clothes that
couldn’t be put on without assistance and “god-haters” like the Marquis de Sade
whose life was lived in debased defiance of the divine.
Gray chose his title
with reference to Seven Types of Ambiguity by the poet, critic
and “misotheist” William
Empson, in which Empson said “that far from ambiguity being a defect in
language, it’s what makes it so rich. Without ambiguity we couldn’t deal with
the world. I think the same is true of atheism and religion. They’re fluid.
They’re multiple. They’re plural... read more:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/where-do-atheists-get-their-values-1.3467299