Seven Types of Atheism

by John Gray

Overview

From the provocative author of Straw Dogs comes an incisive, surprising intervention in the political and scientific debate over religion and atheism

When you explore older atheisms, you will find that some of your firmest convictions—secular or religious—are highly questionable. If this prospect disturbs you, what you are looking for may be freedom from thought.

For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a shrill, narrow derision of religion in the name of an often vaguely understood “science.” John Gray’s stimulating and enjoyable new book, Seven Types of Atheism, describes the complex, dynamic world of older atheisms, a tradition that is, he writes, in many ways intertwined with and as rich as religion itself.

Along a spectrum that ranges from the convictions of “God-haters” like the Marquis de Sade to the mysticism of Arthur Schopenhauer, from Bertrand Russell’s search for truth in mathematics to secular political religions like Jacobinism and Nazism, Gray explores the various ways great minds have attempted to understand the questions of salvation, purpose, progress, and evil. The result is a book that sheds an extraordinary light on what it is to be human.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250234780
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	12/10/2019
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	523,949
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

John Gray is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including The Silence of Animals, The Immortalization Commission, Black Mass, and Straw Dogs. A regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, he has been a professor of politics at Oxford, a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, and a professor of European thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full-time.

Hometown:

San Francisco, California

Date of Birth:

1951

Place of Birth:

Houston, Texas

Education:

B.A., M.A., Maharishi European Research University; Ph.D., Columbia Pacific University, 1982

Website:

http://www.marsvenus.com/

Table of Contents

Introduction: How to be an Atheist
What religion is not

1. The New Atheism: A Nineteenth-century Orthodoxy
The Grand Pontiff of Humanity
Why science cannot dispel religion
The true threat to monotheism
New atheism and old illiberalism

2. Secular Humanism, a Sacred Relic
Progress, a Christian myth
Plato for the masses
John Stuart Mill, the saint of rationalism
Bertrand Russell, unwilling sceptic
From Nietzsche to Ayn Rand

3. A Strange Faith in Science
Evolution vs ethics
Racism and anti-Semitism in the Enlightenment
Mesmerism, the first religion of science
Science and the abolition of man
Transhumanism as techno-monotheism

4. Atheism, Gnosticism and Modern Political Religion
Millenarianism and Gnosticism in the western tradition
Jan Bockelson’s Münster: an early modern communist theocracy
Jacobinism, the first modern political religion
Bolshevism: millenarian hopes, Gnostic visions
Bockelson, Hitler and the Nazis
Evangelical liberalism

5. God-haters
The Marquis de Sade and the dark divinity of Nature
Ivan Karamazov hands back his ticket
William Empson: God as a Belsen commandant

6. Atheism without Progress
George Santayana, an atheist who loved religion
Joseph Conrad and the godless sea

7. The Atheism of Silence
The mystical atheism of Arthur Schopenhauer
Two negative theologies: Benedict Spinoza and Lev Shestov

Conclusion
Living without belief or unbelief

Editorial Reviews

Elegant . . . Beautifully written and full of insights from Mr. Gray’s wide learning. It is refreshing to read a book about atheism that departs from the usual pieties of the science and religion debate today . . . Surprising as it may seem for a book on such a weighty subject, Seven Types of Atheism is very entertaining.” —Tim Crane, The Wall Street Journal

"A major unmasking defines [Gray's] approach: If one is to be an honest thinker and advance knowledge, one must expose and dismantle the web of popular ideas, convenient labels and lazy thinking that makes up the philosophical orthodoxy . . . Gray has emerged as a unique thinker precisely because he has no time for the pious lies and empty niceties of the academic establishment. He seems to have a sixth sense that helps him detect whatever is shallow, self-flattering and self-deceptive in our notions of ourselves." —Costica Bradatan, The Washington Post

"Refreshing . . . What Gray does best in Seven Types of Atheism is not only to draw distinctions among atheists but to make connections between nonbelievers and believers . . . His book offers a way forward. In it, he helps us understand how those who do not believe in God, or, for that matter, those who do, have oriented themselves in the universe." —Casey Cep, The New Yorker

"Sharpen's [Gray's] argument in various fruitful ways . . . Usefully remind[s] us that different ways of being an atheist exist." —Christopher Beha, The New York Review of Books

"Provocative, frank . . . [Gray’s] reflections on the future are insightful. Looking beyond the squabbles over science and God, Mr Gray sees the challenges implicit in abandoning the metaphysical and moral order that Christianity once provided." —The Economist

"Gray’s book is quite good fun. It’s sprightly, erudite . . . Even Gray himself, who tries hard to be a real atheist, has done something Christian and, I would say, charitable, for his fellow atheists, by running them through a compassionate but tough Inquisition." —Michael Brendan Dougerty, National Review

"[John Gray] challenges the presuppositions and positions of contemporary atheists and secular liberals in this powerful book . . . Gray alluringly invites readers to reconsider what atheism is and should be." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Always erudite and convincing . . . Gray takes deep dives into history, examining the evolution of ideas in a generally accessible way. A valuable examination of one of the many fascinating junctures where religion and philosophy meet." —Michael Cart, Booklist

"A marvellously stimulating account of some major currents of post-Christian thought, in which ideas and arguments leap constantly off the page like white-hot sparks from an anvil. The dismissals are concise and often devastating; but there are also wonderfully funny details, lovingly accumulated by a wry observer of human foolishness . . . [John Gray] is one of the greatest intellectual provocateurs of our time." —Noel Malcolm, New Statesman

"This is a highly readable, fascinating book that jerks the debate on religion versus atheism right out of its crusted rut into the light of serious intellectual scrutiny." —Richard Harries, The Guardian

"Pithy and revelatory . . . Seven Types of Atheism takes us from the liberal humanism of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), who believed that mankind was getting better without God, to the American futurist Ray Kurzweil . . . It all goes to show how varied the repertoire of ungodliness can be." —Christopher de Bellaigue, Financial Times

"Seven Types of Atheism is an impressively erudite work, ranging from the Gnostics to Joseph Conrad, St Augustine to Bertrand Russell." —Terry Eagleton, The Guardian

From the Publisher

★ 08/27/2018
Reviewing the lives, principles, and practices of prominent and obscure atheists from centuries past, Gray (Straw Dogs) challenges the presuppositions and positions of contemporary atheists and secular liberals in this powerful book. By looking back at mystical atheists such as Meister Eckhart and Arthur Schopenhauer, or “God-haters” such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the Marquis de Sade (as well as movements such as monism, positivism, Nazism, and communism), Gray peels back the godless sheen to show that much of what is called “atheist” is actually quite religious. He argues that the only real difference between traditional conceptions of atheism and religion is that, in place of a monotheistic God, atheists found faith in humanity and its ability to improve as a species. Many of the examples Gray cites show a zealous commitment to humans “self-realizing” in the midst of history—whether through an uprising of the working class, technology, or Nietzschean Übermensch ethic. Gray sees this belief as just as far-fetched as that of a deity who spoke the world into being. Going after the sacred cows of atheism, Gray’s work is more of a polemic than it is pure explanation or historical overview. Although prone to some sweeping statements, Gray alluringly invites readers to reconsider what atheism is and should be. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-09-02

A brief philosophy of irreligion for general readers, with a roll call of notable male atheists since antiquity.

Gray (The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Inquiry into Human Freedom, 2015, etc.) has had it with what passes for atheism these days. Following his own schema of seven thematic types, each chapter gives an overview of historical trends in godless thinking, focusing on a few famous figures for closer inspection. Gray spoils any chance of a big reveal by admitting that only two of the seven types are worth our time. He does reveal his rhetorical motivation: not persuading others to abandon their bad faith in God but instead urging them to denounce and eradicate the "secular humanism that all evangelical atheists promote today." He faults this "new atheism" with underestimating the function of religious faith to the human psyche and, more alarmingly, with swapping belief in God for a suspiciously theistic devotion to flawed societal constructs like politics, human progress, and science. Citing the destructive potential of modern "political religions" like Bolshevism, the author remains skeptical that universal liberty is best for the future of humanity, claiming, "like Christianity, liberal values came into the world by chance." Gray spends some quality time with great literary atheists and intellects including Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Conrad, but he reserves most respect for God-denying, life-affirming thinkers like George Santayana as well as for the strand of "mystical atheism" inspired by the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. Gray's favorite type of atheism seeks out silence, meditation, and other rapturous states of being while insisting on the incomprehensibility of anything like a creator-god in control of human destiny. This tradition the author likens to apophatic theology like that practiced by Meister Eckhart, whereby no positive statements can describe the divine because it necessarily surpasses the bounds of human conception. With his openly partisan stance as his caveat emptor, Gray intends his capsule histories and philosophies to provoke dialogue among atheists, people of faith, and everybody else.

An occasionally tedious but concise and well-researched overview.

Kirkus Reviews