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A review by aaronh
Zeven vormen van atheïsme by John Gray
4.0
John Gray’s latest work is perhaps his most accessible. If you’re an atheist, a skeptic, an agnostic, or sympathetic to any of these stances, then Gray has something to say to you. If you’re at all wedded to the idea of human progress, however, you may be uncomfortable with his dismissal of it. Seven Types of Atheism is a survey of seven distinct strains of atheism and also why human progress is a myth. Familiarity with Gray’s prior work will make this much less surprising.
Gray lays out what he thinks of as seven distinct strains of atheism, and while I appreciate the nuance with which he approaches each one, several of them look to me almost indistinguishable from one another. I think this is because the several strains I have in mind have been so often chained together into a mish-mash of secular, sometimes humanist thought deriving from science, rationality, etc., that separating them looks more like splitting hairs. Still, it is useful to think of them as separate flavors because in some cases their most interesting thinkers (in Gray’s estimation) don’t fully square up with others even working in the same strain.
According to Gray, the seven types of atheism are:
1) New Atheism, which is barely worth a mention anyway since the focus is so narrow;
2) Secular Humanism, based as it is on the Christian salvation theory, which ultimately elevates human moral progress as a thing in itself;
3) Scientific Secular Religion, which chains human moral progress to human scientific development;
4) Political Secular Religion, which chains human moral progress to human social organization;
5) God-haters, among whom he groups the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov, and others (but not new atheists);
6) Secular Non-humanism, which he characterizes as atheism without progress and without any claims of human exceptionalism (hence non-humanist); and
7) Mystical Atheism, which has at its core a transcendence beyond mere belief and unbelief, though its thinkers are more disparate than the other groupings.
Of the seven types of atheism, Gray is particularly dismissive of new atheism (rightly in my view). And because they share some sense of “progress” as their underlying worldview, no matter how noxiously they’ve been applied, he finds very little of value in the secular political religions (which include communism, Marxism, Nazism, and contemporary evangelical liberalism). For that matter, I don’t see a great deal of difference between secular humanism, the secular scientific religions, and the secular political religions. These look to me like facets of the same thing, probably because they tend to coincide with one another with enough regularity that they look similar.
If there is a message to the book, it is the message Gray always delivers, which is that we needn’t look to the myth of human progress as a redemptive strategy or salvation, and in fact it’s often dangerous to do so. Gray does not hide his own sentiments: his prior work speaks to both secular non-humanism and mystical atheism, and his painting of progress as a myth pervades this work as well. He offers no firm answers, however, letting readers draw their own conclusions.
I suspect his outright dismissal of new atheism will cause consternation among the new atheists who pay attention to Gray, and secular progressives of all stripes who are unfamiliar with his prior work will look askance at his castigation of their religious convictions, but I hope this book broadens the conversation on what it means to be an atheist. I hope, above all, that it gives atheists the world over a different set of tools by which to examine their unbelief, rather than remain trapped in particular modes of unbelief, such as those framed by opposition to monotheisms. If you’re an atheist, agnostic, or skeptic of any stripe, I think you’ll get something out of this.
Gray lays out what he thinks of as seven distinct strains of atheism, and while I appreciate the nuance with which he approaches each one, several of them look to me almost indistinguishable from one another. I think this is because the several strains I have in mind have been so often chained together into a mish-mash of secular, sometimes humanist thought deriving from science, rationality, etc., that separating them looks more like splitting hairs. Still, it is useful to think of them as separate flavors because in some cases their most interesting thinkers (in Gray’s estimation) don’t fully square up with others even working in the same strain.
According to Gray, the seven types of atheism are:
1) New Atheism, which is barely worth a mention anyway since the focus is so narrow;
2) Secular Humanism, based as it is on the Christian salvation theory, which ultimately elevates human moral progress as a thing in itself;
3) Scientific Secular Religion, which chains human moral progress to human scientific development;
4) Political Secular Religion, which chains human moral progress to human social organization;
5) God-haters, among whom he groups the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky’s character Ivan Karamazov, and others (but not new atheists);
6) Secular Non-humanism, which he characterizes as atheism without progress and without any claims of human exceptionalism (hence non-humanist); and
7) Mystical Atheism, which has at its core a transcendence beyond mere belief and unbelief, though its thinkers are more disparate than the other groupings.
Of the seven types of atheism, Gray is particularly dismissive of new atheism (rightly in my view). And because they share some sense of “progress” as their underlying worldview, no matter how noxiously they’ve been applied, he finds very little of value in the secular political religions (which include communism, Marxism, Nazism, and contemporary evangelical liberalism). For that matter, I don’t see a great deal of difference between secular humanism, the secular scientific religions, and the secular political religions. These look to me like facets of the same thing, probably because they tend to coincide with one another with enough regularity that they look similar.
If there is a message to the book, it is the message Gray always delivers, which is that we needn’t look to the myth of human progress as a redemptive strategy or salvation, and in fact it’s often dangerous to do so. Gray does not hide his own sentiments: his prior work speaks to both secular non-humanism and mystical atheism, and his painting of progress as a myth pervades this work as well. He offers no firm answers, however, letting readers draw their own conclusions.
I suspect his outright dismissal of new atheism will cause consternation among the new atheists who pay attention to Gray, and secular progressives of all stripes who are unfamiliar with his prior work will look askance at his castigation of their religious convictions, but I hope this book broadens the conversation on what it means to be an atheist. I hope, above all, that it gives atheists the world over a different set of tools by which to examine their unbelief, rather than remain trapped in particular modes of unbelief, such as those framed by opposition to monotheisms. If you’re an atheist, agnostic, or skeptic of any stripe, I think you’ll get something out of this.