Seven Types of Atheism, John Gray
Seven Types of Atheism, John Gray
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Seven Types of Atheism

Author: John Gray

Narrator: James Langton

Unabridged: 6 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/18/2018

Synopsis

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

About John Gray

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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nick on December 28, 2019

I have a sneaking suspicion that Gray wrote this book entirely out of irritation with the 'New Atheists'. The first chapter is a sharp set-down of Dawkins & co., and their childishly simple misunderstandings of religion. I find this rather unfair, but, as a big Dawkins fan-boy, I suppose I am partia......more

Goodreads review by Shafaat on October 14, 2018

There are different kinds of theists. However, when it comes to atheism, we simply lump them into one single group, atheists. But obviously, if you think about it, atheism is also heterogeneous. The atheisms of Dawkins, Russell, Conrad, and Schopenhauer are quite of different genre. In 'Seven types......more

Goodreads review by Taka on July 02, 2018

Good but-- It's basically a rehash of Gray's views on religion, secular humanism, faith in science & progress, the Christian (Millenarian & Gnostic) roots of what he calls evangelical liberalism, the Enlightenment origins of Communism and Nazism, and so forth. And the cast of characters are familiar,......more

Goodreads review by Luciana on October 19, 2019

Disappointing. Have read 3 or 4 books by John Gray, and was planning to read more, but this title made me pause and reassess my respect for him as a thinker. Three points, in particular, stood out: 1) his justifications for his disdain for New Atheism, as represented by Dawkins, Sam Harris, Hitchens......more

Goodreads review by David on March 02, 2020

John Gray doesn't seem to think much of Christianity. He doesn't seem to think much of most forms of atheism either. This gauntlet is thrown down quite early on as he sneeringly attacks atheists who believe in human progress as merely holding over this idea of progress from Christian theism. Gray as......more

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