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Best of 2011: Evangelical atheism, secular Christianity

John Gray ABC Religion and Ethics 9 Jan 2012
Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their own, suitably embellished, way of living.



An atmosphere of moral panic surrounds religion. Viewed not so long ago as a relic of superstition whose role in society was steadily declining, it is now demonised as the cause of many of the world's worst evils. As a result, there has been an explosion in the literature of proselytising atheism.






However, there is nothing that suggests the move away from religion is irreversible, or that it is potentially universal. The United States is no more secular today than it was 150 years ago, when De Tocqueville was amazed and baffled by its all-pervading religiosity.










The notion that religion is a primitive version of science was popularised in the late 19th century in J.G. Frazer's survey of the myths of primitive peoples, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. For Frazer, religion and magical thinking were closely linked. Rooted in fear and ignorance, they were vestiges of human infancy that would disappear with the advance of knowledge.


Despite the history of the past century, Dennett believes much the same. In an piece entitled "The Evaporation of the Powerful Mystique of Religion" he predicts that:


He is confident that this will come about, he tells us, mainly because of "the worldwide spread of information technology (not just the internet, but cell phones and portable radios and television)." The philosopher has evidently not reflected on the ubiquity of mobile phones among the Taliban, or the emergence of a virtual al-Qaida on the web.


















This is simple-minded reasoning. Always a tremendous booster of science, Hitler was much impressed by vulgarised Darwinism and by theories of eugenics that had developed from Enlightenment philosophies of materialism. He used Christian anti-semitic demonology in his persecution of Jews, and the churches collaborated with him to a horrifying degree.



But America's secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the United States than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church.

Contemporary critics of religion go much further than demanding disestablishment. It is clear that he wants to eliminate all traces of religion from public institutions. Awkwardly, many of the concepts such critics deploy - including the idea of religion itself - have been shaped by monotheism. Lying behind secular fundamentalism is a conception of history that derives from religion.

A.C. Grayling provides an example of the persistence of religious categories in secular thinking in his Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights That Made the Modern West. As the title indicates, Grayling's book is a type of sermon. Its aim is to reaffirm what he calls "a Whig view of the history of the modern west," the core of which is that "the west displays progress."

The Whigs were pious Christians, who believed divine providence arranged history to culminate in English institutions, and Grayling too believes history is "moving in the right direction." No doubt there have been setbacks - he mentions nazism and communism in passing, devoting a few sentences to them.


"The history of liberty is another chapter - and perhaps the most important of all - in the great quarrel between religion and secularism."


















"We do not possess an official certificate of birth for worship of one God. But the family line is clear: the Jews invented it to endure the coherence, cohesion and existence of their small, threatened people."




There is a deal of fashionable talk of Islamo-fascism, and Islamist parties have some features in common with interwar fascist movements, including anti-semitism. But Islamists owe as much, if not more, to the far left, and it would be more accurate to describe many of them as Islamo-Leninists.


The influence of secular revolutionary movements on terrorism extends well beyond Islamists. In God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens notes that, long before Hizbullah and al-Qaida, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka pioneered what he rightly calls "the disgusting tactic of suicide murder." He omits to mention that the Tigers are Marxist-Leninists who, while recruiting mainly from the island's Hindu population, reject religion in all its varieties.








Some neocons - such as Tony Blair, who is now teaching religion and politics at Yale - combine their belligerent progressivism with religious belief, though of a kind Augustine and Pascal might find hard to recognise.







John Gray is one of Britain's most prescient and controversial public intellectuals. He is Emeritus Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, and the author of many books, including Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (Granta Books, 2003), False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (Granta Books, second edition, 2009), Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (Penguin, 2008) and, most recently, The Immortalization Commission: Science and the Strange Quest to Cheat Death (Penguin, 2011). This article is an edited extract from Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (Penguin, 2009).

Comments (134)

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  • PermReader :

    11 Dec 2012 12:28:23am

    People today don`t need much the religion.Scientific civilization do the job of the understanding the world,though the process becomes complicated,that is used by the religions . The other problem is that the secular people are often trapped by leftist dogmas. And we see the tragicomic situation in America where conservatives are socialy quite sober people but lose their heads by abortions, while scientific "progressives" heils "green energy", created climate change and socialist serfdom.In reality we don`t need any gods and it` social surrogates.

  • Ankara7777 :

    19 Mar 2012 3:13:28am

    One could argue that the reason why religion is playing a smaller role in people's life in Europe has to do with the much higher level of education in European countries than in the United States. It may very well be that Americans are, relatively speaking, as uneducated today in comparison with Europeans as they were in de Tocqueville's day, which probably explains their religiosity. One should also add that American religiosity is distinct in many ways from the religiosity of those Europeans that remain religious. American religiosity take a particularly pernicious literalistic and fundamentalist form. This may also be due to the fact that, in the United States, anyone can open a church regardless of whether or not they have received seminary training or have studied theology, philosophy, or hermeneutics (something that cannot be done in Europe). Europeans understood a long time ago that, just as being an educator, doctor, lawyer, or engineer requires training, the taking of the pulpit also requires training and, therefore, regulation.

  • Chris Strakosch :

    13 Jan 2012 7:17:08am

    It might well be that religious beliefs had and still have survival benefits and provide hope for the living and comfort for the dying. Perhaps Christians have done wonderful things and atheists terrible things. Religious people may be happier and more fulfilled than atheists. All these matters are beside the point. The only thing I'm concerned with is whether religions are based on fact, are they true or not. It seems to me almost certain that they are not.

  • Lev Lafayette :

    11 Jan 2012 9:52:43pm

    As a church-going secularist and seminarian, I have to say that the ABC has really lowered the quality of its religious reporting if this passes as a serious contribution to the subject.

    Secularism - which respects freedom of religion and freedom from religion - is hardly in retreat as the author claims, and nor is evangelical atheism on the rise, least of at a level not seen since Victorian times. Evangelical atheism? You could try looking at the Stalinist regimes if you want to see an example of that. I don't think they're faring so well.

    Communications and information technology does, of course, have a strong role to play in improving secularism and challenging fundamentalist religious groups - virtual Taliban notwithstanding.

    An amusing explanation of memes as being "hardwired in the species" certainly displays a poverty of knowledge in that area as well. Memes are not genes, they are not hardwired any more than any other idea. But they do have similar processes to genetic codes. Some are advantageous, adaptable and are a natural fit to reality - and they survive. Those that aren't, don't. As an example, how is the meme of Young Earth Creationism going? Been on a bit of a downturn since Bishop Usher, hasn't it?

    The claim that Nazism is a type of atheism is certainly ridiculous. Science has no morality, as any pragmatic philosopher will explain; its expertise is objective facts, not normative rightness. Nazism combined modern science with his religious-traditional values. In a nutshell, was medieval Christianity plus modern tanks.

    I could go on, but it's late and it should be clear that the OP's knowledge of religion, history or philosophy, despite ancient qualifications, could certainly be improved, perhaps with a less partisan point of view.

    Surely the ABC can do better than this?

  • Angry Atheist Dave Leaf :

    11 Jan 2012 7:53:53pm

    Wait a minute! An atheist points out the catastrophic failings of religion over the millenia as well as the preposterous claims of omnipotence and virgin birth etc and they are called "dodgy" or "evangelical"? They attept to shine the light of reason, logic and debate on ancient teachings of questionable origin and are castigated for it?
    Do atheists commit industrial scale child abuse or wealth hoarding? Come on John, get real. The manipulation of public policy over centuries by religions that cannot keep their hands out of the secular state are legendary. The yoke around poor science's neck, retarding progress by religion is well documented even today.

      • Chrys Stevenson :

        13 Jan 2012 4:05:35pm

        Well said, David. I agree completely.

  • Greg Hardy :

    11 Jan 2012 11:14:28am

    This article is an attempt to liken strident atheism (that reacts to religious thought) to fundamentalist religion (which outright seeks to convert people to a religion by any means, including warfare). Aside from the obvious fact that no great conflict has even been fought in the name of atheism, and that no person was deconverted from religion by thinking for themselves (and where is the harm in that?) this article can be dismissed on one simple fact alone.

    The definition of 'secular' is precisely 'not connected with religious or spiritual matters' (Oxford Dictionary definition), rendering not only the title of this article but its confused contents inaccurate and patently dishonest.

      • Murray Alfredson :

        17 Jan 2012 10:24:33pm

        Actually, though I cannot name any atheist crusade to match, for example, the Muslim blood spilled by Christians, atheist governments of the twentieth century have persecuted followers of religions in Europe and Asia. The actions of the current Chinese government against Muslims and Buddhists are only one case in point.

        I was amused once on assessing the academic record of a student applicant from the Ukraine to see solemnly reported the academic results for Atheism I, II, and III. Goodness, I had never imagined there could be sufficient academic content in atheism to fill a whole undergraduate major.

        I thought a correction was in order. Atheists are, it seems, also capable of bigotry. And I speak as an atheist.

  • Holly (Christ lives within) :

    09 Jan 2012 11:06:16am

    The way in which we view 'things' collectively forms our world consciousness.
    It is time for a broad sweep of transformation of all 'things' as we presently perceive them to be.
    Let's call it a 'New Creation'. As that which binds us together pushes away all manner of disparity in 'things'
    “Jerusalem is a city restored in beautiful order and harmony.” Ps 122:3

  • lynne :

    21 May 2011 5:50:47pm

    My mistake folks....should have written atheist instead of athiest..apologies to all concerned.

      • Murray Alfredson :

        18 Jan 2012 11:39:51am

        Not to worry, Lynne. The best of people commit typos when on a forum. Even I do.

  • David Miller, Atheist Society :

    17 May 2011 12:20:20pm

    If Professor John Gray stopped to ponder on why Nietzsche deliberately misused the name of the Prophet Zarathustra for his fictional "Thus Spake Zarathustra", Gray might cease being so cultro-centric and realize that, several centuries before Christianity, Zoroastrianism had inaugurated the values that Nietzsche so vigorously opposed.

    Zoroaster (Zarathustra) reformed a version of the religion that the Indo-European Aryan invaders had taken into India in 1500 BC.

  • Carnage2K4 :

    17 May 2011 1:04:44am

    this felt very lop sided in context, coming from some one who debates this subject on a daily basis on forums all over the net, I feel John Gray has a clear opinion of Atheism in his mind, and as a fellow and tutor in politics at Jesus College, Oxford (who still partake in Grace's 3 times a day, including "Thanks be to God" in the shortest) it's obvious where his bias is pointed.

  • IB :

    15 May 2011 9:24:56pm

    There is no doubt that there is an evangelical atheist movement. This is fueled by films such as Life of Brian, Meaning of Life, The History of Lying, and many more subtle ones. Intelligent articulate people like Dawkins, Harris etc., speak their mind openly and loudly because they believe that better societies can be achieved by letting go of irrational belief systems. However, every good (or bad) cause can get a group of angry people who choose to associate themselves with it. Just like reformed smokers can be unduly harsh of current smokers, people who fought hard to rid themselves of childhood indoctrination can be unreasonably hard on those who continue to hold on to their faith. For the argument to be effective it needs to be reasoned with intellect and presented with kindness. Undoing childhood programming can be extremely difficult and requires compassion and understanding.

      • Wendy morris :

        11 Jan 2012 1:14:08am

        Carl Sagan, I believe, is a good role model for our sometimes "edgy" new atheists. While firmly stating his case for not believing in god/gods, he listened respectfully to and participated in dialogue with those who held religious beliefs.

  • Philip Roberts :

    15 May 2011 3:37:45pm

    The fundamental problem with religious belief is that it proposes a fantastic concept (the all-powerful deity) with no proof. Those who accept the concept set aside logical thought and this is a very dangerous thing to do.
    I believe the article overstates the zealousness of atheists, who are, in my experience, a pretty laid back lot.

      • Deb :

        17 May 2011 10:28:13am

        They can't be all that laid back when they start to advertise on the back of buses. Yes I've seen it lately and it annoyed me just as much as having a Jehovah's Witness knock on my door.

          • Peter Piper :

            18 May 2011 10:18:01pm

            Perhaps they pay to advertise on the back of buses, because the ABC does not provide them with several hours of free radio and TV time each week to promote their mediaeval beliefs?

  • Matt :

    15 May 2011 12:45:18pm

    This is just twisted. It makes we wonder if this guy is a Quaker, because recently I met another British gentleman who had advanced critical thinking skills and was widely read, but altogether lacked the critical disposition. he turned out to be a Quaker, the first in my experience, I realised this what they are like.

    It is true that Dawkins et al push a faith in a view of human nature that is the same as that which the prevailing religious ideologies have always trained the sheep to believe in - a view that justifies stratified society as natural, rather than a product of people deliberately doing things that make it that way, people who should be stopped. Dawkins, of course, to a far lesser degree than people like Pinker, it Desmond Morris, the guy who wrote 'The Moral Animal'? That stuff is indeed religion in a different guise. But come on, as if religion was not birthed in primitive minds, and if it does not find its momentum in the way it justifies what people choose to do as their course of action (rather than informing action in an objective way), and as if it represents an understanding of the universe that is as conducive to the wellbeing of our species as that which is developing, or an understanding based strictly on the scientific method. Ebbing away? Future people, if people like this let us make it to the future, will look back at this and just shake their heads!

      • David Miller, Atheist Society :

        17 May 2011 1:15:49pm

        Hello Matt,
        The book that you are puzzling about is "The Moral Animal" by Robert Wright, Pantheon 1994, subtitled "The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology".

        In my opinion, Wright's hypothesis is that Evolutionary Psychology is a compromise between Biological Determinism on the one hand and Cultural Determinism on the other. In other words, our innate tendencies are either enhanced or inhibited by our environment.

        Matt, although your comments are sparse, I suspect that you are an adherent of Cultural Determinism who is attempting to demonize biological explanations by equating them with supernatural religion.

  • Clarke :

    15 May 2011 11:03:05am




      • Grassynoel :

        11 Jan 2012 12:02:16pm

        Once again, secularism (which the Census doesn't mention) and religion are not opposites.

  • Dave :

    14 May 2011 6:16:04pm

    One can't help think that this essay avoids the essential question about what atheism and religion concern themselves with, does God exist? Instead we get this sketchy and reductive travelogue across the history of western philosophy. As Daniel Dennett argues, the belief in the belief is what matters, because the belief itself is complete nonsense. On this this the author has very little to say.

  • cam :

    14 May 2011 2:44:20pm

    "man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" Simon and Garfunkle
    i think that the Author has more going for him than everybody who has commented. that is my OPINION.

  • iswaswillbe :

    14 May 2011 7:50:24am

    I have to admit Mr.Grays essay title has been provocative to juxtapose evangelicism with atheism but seriously everybody, are we all being suckered into an empty argument to believe that atheism is anything close to an organised,multi generational movement like religion ? The whole point as to why someone, such as Richard Dawkins may tend to self label themself as atheistic, is to assert the point that they do not waste their time on unreasonable belief systems, but more rather to observe and question life with an encapsulation of all its details, in a reasonable and rational way.The whole point is to approach our big questions of why things are in the universe, with the best explanations made from the most amount of information possible. It is because of our more scientific approach to reason that religions are dropping away, not because a movement called `atheism` or secularisation is replacing it. If you want your evidence for this then go examine the communities of the world where religion has dropped away and you will see that these are places where individuals of a higher I.Q, and access to a better education exist. It is not because they have formed a belief movement, on the contrary, it is because they don`t bother to entertain their minds with the existence of purely imaginary beings and forces.

      • Rob72 :

        15 May 2011 9:35:30pm

        Methinks you make a presumption of cause and effect without evidence. If disbelief is evidence of a higher IQ and a scientific approach, why is it that more post-graduate students profess a religious belief that do undergraduates? And why do more university staff/students in scientific faculties profess a religious belief than those in the humanities? Or maybe disbelief is more connected with scientism (a belief in science as a progessive force) than science ( a philosophical methodolgy for formulating and understanding of the operation of physical systems through the testing of hypotheses through rigourous and repeatable experimentation).

          • byooki :

            11 Jan 2012 11:16:19am

            I'd love to see some citations for these claims. Every study I've ever heard of have has shown a direct negative correlation between education and religiosity.

              • EL Abogado :

                25 Jan 2012 7:47:12am

                You are right, when people get a formal education of higher rank they become dull light for their religion which was bright light before study.

                Philosophically this people when they reach the pick of Everest in term of study they become ashamed of continuing to have that faith with which initially they come.

                I am going to tell you why, it is purely because they NEVER been FULLY converted, they only scratch the surface of it which pleasing the parents and some religion body where they get in touch with it at church or sam where else. It is very difficult to get people committed to the full. In my case lots of people hate me and they are not ordinary people but rather of high ranks as doctors which become my direct competitors.

                This is because on Jacob's ladder are 12 levels according to the number of tribes each tribe has it's priesthood the priesthood between tribes hate each other. If you want more insight which support what I say here is a example : on the place where Jesus was born was erected a church in the church are two groups of people full of priests on each side when it come to cleaning the floor of the church the groups start fighting with the brooms, a footage was presented on national Tv station around christmas.

                The roof of the church is liking and water comes on the church for many years, both groups are mad. I am not from this groups, myself I left the church because I cannot support all the envy on me and harassment so I made a new and true doctrine and church and I left them even I withdrawal my membership from them.

                They teach all kind of lies and make you to believe you are in heaven when everything is HELL. I made my own T-shirt to advertise my new religion, I am the pastor and all, when I teach all make sense and people get astonish for they never heard thinks as such before. I become pastor by the highest order of this Planet which is Angel of Independence In Mexico City Mexico (Google : Angel of Independence Mexico city) I received over 10 Religious Merits Awards for the reason is so much envy on me.

                The Bible mention about envy, false accusations, lies about the recipient all the time wants to kill me and I shall give to you an account about it : when I was in Rio de Janeiro Brazil they put staples in my food and were hanging on my intestines fro weeks for you to see to what point of hatred behaviour they reach. Who are they ? Answer : 7th.- day adventists.

                Members of any church are students also.

                I would like to post a comment and I cannot find the way, it makes so difficult.

          • ingenuous :

            11 Jan 2012 10:05:36pm

            I call shenanigans on this.

            I would like to see links to peer reviewed papers before I would believe that post-grads are more religious than undergrads, etc.

            As for scientism, yes, we must keep the concept separate from science itself. Confusing science with scientism is one of the ways that theists try to attack rational thought, by accusing science of being just another religion when, of course, it is nothing of the sort.

  • DesmondRutherford :

    14 May 2011 5:05:48am

    Whilst John Gray argues his case from an apparent perspective of rational debate, his reasoning seems faulty, submissive to, and derived from, religious

    What is more worrying is that his arguments seem oblivious to the depth of indoctrination applied to individuals under religious regimes, and also that such
    indoctrination is not genetic, but cultural.

    His claim that the existentialist philosophies are ineffable, is suspiciously ignorant of the worth that studies in 'comparative religion' brings to seeing that the
    nature of compassion, even in the secular humanist view, brings love, and not a desire to dominate others.

    Understanding such truths as there may be in any particular religion, is not dependent on accepting any or all scriptural texts, but relies on understanding of
    the difference between scriptural demands for the personification of a god, and the objectivbe scientific wonder of reality, such as Eddington's observation
    that, "Something unknown is doing we don't know what."

    Unfortunately for religion this means that the scripture must be questioned to the point of revealing not only its superstitious origins, but also that they should
    most likely be abandoned if the origin of the species is to be understood from scientific evidence; evidence of fact which will probably be in conflict with the superstition.

    We should not allow the priests of current religions to assassinate our psychological investigation of the human condition, or permit their persercution of the
    individual's psyche for monetary gain at the altar.

    Where religion seeks power and control over others for whatever reasons they believe, the secular humanist is more intent on liberating others from the religions' superstitious blind faith through revealing facts which are supported by evidence in reality.

    This amounts to an acceptance, an admittance, that we do not know; or if you prefer, that we think, we do not know, and that, I suspect, sits awkwardly for
    those who would twist reality to suit their indoctrination. After all, no one wants to admit that they don't know, but it is the honest position.

    If the atheist, or even the agnostic is the result of such intellectual honesty, then so be it. Intellectual discussion is not, by definition, evangelising.

    What is worrying, is that neither the atheist nor the religious cultist is immune from using, or being used to manipulate, others into acts of selfish
    aggression for personal aggrandisement, often with political and patriotic fervour, and sometimes for all the wrong reasons.

    As I said, the nature of compassion in the secular humanist view brings love, and not a desire to dominate others.

    Your belief however, is rightfully your own opinion, but evangelising it as the only worthwhile one, is why theocracies are so dangerou

      • Holly (Christ lives within) :

        15 May 2011 9:04:57am

        “...or permit their persecution of the individual's psyche for monetary gain at the altar.
        Would this comment have any parallel to "life is an investment of one's worth"? It compounds with return the more effort you put in of your talents or is that money at the altar? There would have to be some deep psychological meaning I am not as yet grasping. What are the implications here of your statement? It is always good to examine another’s viewpoint.

  • lynne :

    13 May 2011 9:08:14pm

    Athiests are just athiests, not new,not old....just people who do not believe in supernatural beings etc. Just people who appreciate what we have here on earth, and try to do the best with it. They do not preach, but if they have to, they will stand up to the religious who wish to discriminate against others eg. homosexuals, women, etc. This is not forcing ideas on to others, it is making things equal and fair for those who the churches like to suppress because of their misguided and evil interpretations of the bible. Because more athiests are speaking up and coming out of the closet so to speak, the churches are running scared and like to make up tales about these "new" scary athiests. It is the same as it has always been, except now people are more aware and it is easier to say you do not believe in these superstitions, without fear of reprisals as others have endured in the past.

      • Charming Billy :

        14 May 2011 1:35:02am

        Far from being "mere atheism" your portrait of atheism makes it clear that for you atheism entails a definite program of social and political beliefs.

        The problem is, if atheism involves nothing more than positive disbelief in the supernatural, then it's equally compatible with appreciating or depreciating life on earth; preaching or quietism; discrimination against selected groups or embracing them.

        In short, if I don't believe in the supernatural, I'm not obligated to believe anything other than that the supernatural doesn't exist.

        Of course as an atheist I can argue that atheism entitles me to reject the supernatural sanction for, say, discrimination. But atheism per se doesn't entail, logically, that discrimination is bad. For that you'd have to rely on another line of reasoning.

        Unfortunately that line of reasoning would involve adopting a pre-rational, undemonstrable conviction about, for instance, the dignity of human life, or -- horrors -- the will of God. In either case, the secular or religious, it starts to look like you're taking it on faith that discrimination is wrong.

        But faith, as we all know, is irrational.

        So your claim that atheism somehow underwrites your belief that we ought to make "things fair and equal" or refrain from "forcing ideas on to others" seems as arbitrary as my belief in God justifies the same thing.

        While I find your faith in atheism's power to make a better world touching, I'm too skeptical to think it could ever work.

        And, since unreflective, faith-based social and political reform inevitably involves suppressing dissenting views and practices, I have to oppose your views on the basis of my commitment to freedom of thought, speech, and conscience.

          • Patrick :

            15 May 2011 9:28:29pm

            Hello Charming,

            Your writing mixes the non belief in the super natural (atheism) with positions on discrimination, the dignity of human belief that can be held by an atheist which has no less validity than a religious belief. I as an atheist hold strong view against discrimination etc. I can see that to do otherwise is not good for a person's well being and that I would not like to mistreat or be mistreated by others. To conclude that "if I don't believe in the supernatural, I'm not obligated to believe anything other than that the supernatural doesn't exist" is silly as clearly atheists do have good beliefs. You seem threatened by people holding views that do not come from god. Being an atheist neither makes you a better or worse person than a religious person. And as for all you faith is irrational; well gee isn't that a great endorsement and for following a god. Funny how people can use irrationality for sound behavior when it supports their actions but deny others the right to make good judgement. The last paragraph " since unreflective, faith-based social and political reform inevitably involves suppressing dissenting views and practices..." Talk about throwing this at people as if that is what and how they believe and then concluding by decree that you have "..commitment to freedom of thought (REALLY?), speech, and conscience." and this makes you oppose other people's views essentially because they do not get spoon fed them from god . You have made straw man arguments, complete ignorance of other views other than your own and shown how weak the faith/irrational god belief equips you.

              • Charming Billy :

                21 May 2011 5:31:01am

                "Being an atheist neither makes you a better or worse person than a religious person."

                That's my point.

                All morality is based on prerational convictions or intuitions. Therefore, theistic and atheistic morals both start from arational grounds.

                E.G., your claim you "can see that to do otherwise is not good for a person's well being and that I would not like to mistreat or be mistreated by others" isn't derived from a rationally self evident starting point, like axioms in geometry and logic.

                Your claim is a valid inference, but the principle you've derived it from is an arational or prerational -- not irrational -- conviction; presumbably something along the lines of "do unto others ..." or "it's wrong to hurt other people."

                That's a pre rational conviction about the moral fitness of certain actions. It's neither more or less rational than claiming that I God doesn't want me to hurt people. Neither claim can be demonstrated rationally.

                P.S. Since you're so smart, please identify the straw man in my argument and enlighten my complete ignorance of views other than my own.

              • ingenuous :

                11 Jan 2012 10:49:49pm

                Charming Billy, if you are still around all these months later...

                Some of your posts imply that you are a theist and some of the atheists arguing against you are missing the point, so I thought I would stick my oar in.

                It is true that atheism is purely a denial of theism, not a moral code or guide to a better life. However, once the obvious fact that there is no god has been established, then both sides (atheists and egg-on-face theists) must attempt to justify their moral codes to each other and find some way to get along.

                That brings me to what I think is your only factual error: your claim that morals have no rational basis.

                Morals grow from simple interactions between entities that can remember previous interactions. Even animal studies show moral choices in quite mentally limited species.

                As a simple example, how long do you think it would take before a group of cooperating early humans decide collectively that killing each other is a bad thing? "Thou shalt not kill" turns up automatically as soon as groups cohabit.

                Yes, many so called morals are entirely fabricated, but you can boil things down to the real ones fairly easily, then debate which of the arbitrary ones to layer on top. It can be done, but first we have to get rid of the idea that there is a handy sky fairy we can use as an ultimate arbiter when facts do not support our position.

          • lynne :

            20 May 2011 6:13:11pm

            And how has religion and belief in a supernatural being contributed to a better world? Quite the opposite I would suggest.

              • Charming Billy :

                21 May 2011 5:35:12am

                I love it when atheists say this.

                Well since you brought it up, it's only fair that you take some responsibility for helping me answer this difficult question.

                Please collect and tabulate statistics on the number of people harmed by religion versus the number helped.

                Until I have those numbers, both your question and my answer will be hopelessly impressionistic.

              • lynne :

                21 May 2011 1:46:34pm

                You must think I have supernatural powers myself if you think I can count every single person or thing that has been harmed by religion. A logical person would look at the religious wars through the ages....did not the bible say not to kill by the way? The Catholic Church and others actually BLESS the troops. We have the radical muslims proclaiming war on the "infidels" right throughout history. This is because the Catholic Church sent out crusaders to rid the world of these non-Christian forces. We have the Spanish Inquisition, murdering those who opposed the church. We have the invasion of South America in the name of God,,,murdering the natives of the lands there as they were classed as heathens. To this day we have the churches condemning the gays for just being gay. They are persecuted for incorrect interpretations in their bible. Need I go on? The church has much blood on it's hands and it never seems to stop. If the religios help people, they have an convert. So, this is a selfish way to help others anyhow. They also want to go to their heaven so this is another reason ,,,athiests help people because they want to, not for any heavenly rewards. Just use your brains and you can work it out for yourself, it doesn't take a genius.

              • Charming Billy :

                22 May 2011 12:36:36am

                Many people have been hurt by religion. Many people have benefited from religion. But until there are reliable figures we can only speculate about whether more have been harmed than helped. Your answer doesn't even acknowledge that religion has, in fact, been a force good, regardless of whether one concludes that on the whole it's bad.

                "If the religios help people, they have an convert."

                Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Your generalization is not unsupported but the motives of religious people are so varied and mixed -- just like everyone else -- that the charge they're motivated by the desire to convert has limited applicability.

                "athiests help people because they want to, not for any heavenly rewards"

                Christian social ethics are a response of gratitude for the unmerited benefits that God has already given us, not on the expectation of reward. For Christians, we can't earn a reward. We can only reject it. This is classical, ecumenical, Christian doctrine, not something I made up.

              • lynne :

                24 May 2011 8:58:01am

                I am going on the "Christians" I know. They are not better than me, even though I say so myself. I think I am more moral in some ways although others can judge. but...I am not bitchy or unkind...some of these Christians are, very much so. They have closed minds as far as homosexulatiy goes, and condemn those who are. I get offended and furious as I have a gay son and gay friends and find it evil to judge them because of the way they were born. I knew a very old Catholic woman who lived in fear of entering a non-Catholic church, who did not talk to non-Catholics, who would not let her children play with protestants, who put this hatred into her 4 children. I know of christians who have been extremely cruel to animals..look, I could go on, but religion has made them worse instead of better,,,no excuses either.

              • lynne :

                21 May 2011 5:45:39pm

                Charming....athiests say it as it love it or loathe is just the truth. How about you replying as you have put the ball in my court re statistics. I have actually written out another blog regarding such, but not sure if it will get on, so just saying...and by the way...please spell the word athiest correctly..only fair as I write christian the correct way albeit I do not put a capital, do not think the word deserves it...

              • Charming Billy :

                22 May 2011 1:07:58am

                It's a very complicated question. My call for tabulated statistics isn't really research proposal, more plea for people to think less superficially about the problem.

                In fact, I don't think it's possible to come up with that statistic. It's only since the Enlightenment that it's become possible to think about religion motives in contrast to secular motives, so the only reliable or meaningful comparison of the benefits of religion versus secularism comes from the last two centuries -- and most of that from Europe and North America. And Secularism since then has had as mixed a record as religion.

                For the rest of the world, and for Europe until the end of the 18th century, there was no distinction between the secular and the religious in the way we understand it today. So I don't think it's possible to say that "religion has harmed more people than anything else" ... or more than secularism ... or more than science, etc. Secularism wasn't really an option for most people until after the Enlightenment started working its way through society in the late 18th Century. Before then nearly everything, good and bad, was linked to religion in some way.

                There's plenty of grist for everyone's mill in that, but I don't see how one can make conclusive statistical argument for either religion or secularism.

              • lynne :

                22 May 2011 12:41:23pm

                Apology to Charming...I was the one spelling atheist incorrectly..hang my head in shame...

  • Buzz Moonman :

    13 May 2011 4:10:59pm

    This piece from Gray is so shallow, he makes Dawkins' half baked religious criticism look like that of a deep and profound philosopher.

    Gray misses the points about what is New about Atheism and what Secular Humanism proposes.

    Secular Humanists do not doubt that human lives can be transformed when the moral values of humanism (one description of which is the humanitarian aspects of the Sermon on the Mount) are harmonized with the political values of secular humanist social liberal democracy.

    Religion has three main aspects; the supernatural, the political and the humanist. The humanitarian character of the humanist aspect is universal and found across most philosophies of life. Here you will find accord between the religious and Secular Humanists. Dawkins’ main flaw is in the way he doesn't focus on the positives that Secular Humanism and religion have in common. He focuses on the negatives of the supernatural only. He also doesn't do a political analysis of religion which shallows out his analysis.

    Dawkins allows the religious to dictate the terms of his analysis and fails to point out that the when people learn to live with the uncertainties of existence and out grow the supernatural and political aspects of religion, what they are left with is the humanist aspect which is then able to harmonise morals with politics.

    But Dawkins' metaphor of religion as a virus is a good one as even Theists acknowledge that religion is more caught than taught.

    Monotheism is inherently authoritarian and naturally intolerant and so cannot harmonize humanist moral values with its political values. The USA still struggles with this harmony which is why so many good Christian folk there can’t stand the reality of a black man in the White House because their political values contradict the humanist moral values of their moral teacher Jesus.

    Other western countries are further down the road to harmonizing this.

    When I became an Atheist in the late 1960's, there was no community for me to join. I was on my own. I didn't even know what Atheism was, but I knew that I didn't need religion to be a good and decent person. I didn't know anyone else who thought like I did. There were no popular books falling off the tables in the bookshops offering an explanation.

    A decade later, I came across Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian in the book collection of a housemate and eagerly read it. That sent me to the philosophy shelf but what I found there was too technical and beyond my abilities to absorb. What I needed was something pitched at my level that would give me an entry point into this philosophy and enable me to move up to the more difficult works. But such was not readily available.

    It stayed this way for another two decades.

    And then came the internet and WHAM, I found a worldwide community of like minded people busy talking and discussing issues

      • Charming Billy :

        14 May 2011 6:33:00am


        I’m not sure what you mean here. Most good Christian folk who object to Obama base their objections on specific political issues that were in place long before Obama was elected and in any case have no bearing on his race. Conservative Christians who object to, for instance, abortion would find fault with Obama if he were white, just as they did with Clinton. If the same Christians found Bush’s deficit spending less objectionable than Obama’s, well, that’s good old partisan hypocrisy, not racism. They did it before Obama and they’ll do it after he’s gone. So, unless you have some privileged insight into the motives of the good Christian folk of the USA – which I truly doubt --I don’t see how you can maintain that their real objection is to Obama’s race.

        As for the inherent authoritarianism and intolerance of monotheism history proves, as in the case of Roman polytheism, that polytheism can be as intolerant and authoritarian as any other belief. While on the other hand, the monotheistic Christian states of Western Europe have historically lead the charge toward pluralism and liberty. Clearly there’s no logic that inevitably leads from monotheism to authoritarianism or from polytheism to freedom.

          • Buzz Moonman :

            16 May 2011 9:48:55am

            Charming Billy

            I didn't say all the Christians in the US opposed to Obama do so on race grounds. My information on this initially came from talking to white Republican voters in a southern US state during a visit there recently. While the ones I spoke to weren't concerned about Obama's race, they knew Republican and Democrats who were opposed to Obama on race grounds and wouldn't vote for him on this basis. This is not surprising as when Obama was born, segregation was a fact of life in the south and such attitudes do not disappear just by changing the law. They take generations to be removed and then maybe not completely. The Tea Party are spending so much time on nonsense like Obama being Muslim and not American born cause they can't publicly use the N word. Though there was one famous incident where a congressman called him "boy"

            I have noticed in the last couple of months that US on line commentators are now talking about the race component of the opposition to Obama and I think this will increase. So Americans notice this race based opposition too. I reckon it will intensify as the right try to get traction against Obama as issues like being a Muslim and non American born fall by the wayside somewhat. Some people will drop their guard and use the N word.

            During the 2008 election there were reports that white southern Baptists were not voting for Obama on grounds of his support for gay marriage and abortion, but the black Baptists were prepared to look past those differences and vote for him as it was of great importance to them to get Obama elected. Similarly conservative Christians had different approaches to Obama.

            Yes polytheism is just as intolerant and authoritarian as monotheism. I didn't make any claims about polytheism but it certainly wont lead to freedom. It was Europeans who were Deists, Agnostics and liberal Christians, thinking outside the confines of religion, who led the charge to change in the west, not Christianity. History shows that monotheism results in totalitarian governance when it has practical political power. Current affairs also shows this.

              • Charming Billy :

                21 May 2011 5:40:36am

                " The Tea Party are spending so much time on nonsense like Obama being Muslim and not American born cause they can't publicly use the N word" Again, I don't think you enough information to support this charge.

                "During the 2008 election there were reports that white southern Baptists were not voting for Obama on grounds of his support for gay marriage and abortion, but the black Baptists were prepared to look past those differences and vote for him as it was of great importance to them to get Obama elected." Black Baptists voted for him because he was black, in spite of his views on gay marriage and abortion. White Baptists who voted against him because of views on same are less open to the charge of racism than their Black brethren who ignored Obama's objectionable liberals views to vote for him on the basis of his race.

                "History shows that monotheism results in totalitarian governance when it has practical political power." So is what you're really saying is that BOTH poly and monotheism lead to totalitarianism?

              • Buzz Moonman :

                21 May 2011 3:06:28pm

                Maybe you just need to see a bit more US talk TV. There is an increasing amount of discussion about racism being behind some of the campaigns against Obama.

                No, I can’t show that the white Baptists are not voting for him because they are racists. Do you think that there wouldn’t be any racist white Baptists in the south? Doesn’t seem likely does it. I’m pointing out that they didn’t think it was important for the country to have a black president. Black Baptists did think it was important to have a black president for the country and Obama was a good choice, despite them disagreeing with him on a few issues.

                If it gets political power, then polytheism will result in totalitarian governance as does monotheism if it gets political power. Theism and political power is not a good combination and results in social disaster. Secular Humanist liberal social democracy is your guarantee of religious freedom. Not even having Charming Billy’s sect running the country would guarantee Charming Billy’s religious freedom.

      • Buzz Moonman :

        15 May 2011 9:28:45am

        Part 2

        And then came the internet and WHAM, I found a worldwide community of likeminded people busy talking and discussing issues that we were not allowed to talk about around the regular social scenes as it was considered impolite. I found the world was teeming with Atheists and Secular Humanists who are of the Atheist opinion. I wasn't alone.

        What the internet has done is create a community of Secular Humanists where before there were just isolated individuals. Of course the same internet is used by the religious but they already had their communities.

        This mass community is what is “New” about Atheism. The Atheism itself is mostly the same old opinion that has been around since the Greeks first articulated it in writing, with the addition of new advances in science.

        If only such a community and the internet and popular books on the subjects had been around when I was a teenager.

        This is one thing that folk like Gray either don’t understand or don't want to understand about what is New in the Secular Humanist and Atheist sphere.

        Bagging a few Secular Humanists like Dawkins is not a criticism of Secular Humanism or its principles. Gray shows that he has nothing to say against Secular Humanism if all he can do is bang away at an upper middle class English don who has some of the social characteristics of that part of Englishdom. Dawkins and co are not authoritarian bullies and have no authority over any other Secular Humanists, nor an ability to lay down a "faith". They offer opinions and get plenty of disagreement in the Secular Humanist community.

        The Secular Humanist community operates in a manner that strives to harmonize moral and political values. It shows that this is an age of Enlightenment and that the Enlightenment is still ongoing and it hasn't stopped as it hasn't finished yet. We are still striving for a better social system. This is what scares organised religion. After two thousand years, organised religion has failed to harmonise its humanist moral values with its political values. Secular Humanism is doing that harmonising in a very short time in comparison and is progressing all the time, which Gray acknowledged when he notes that our secular humanist liberal social democracy is far superior to Theocracy.

        Secular Humanists don't bang on about Stalinism because we are Secular Humanists, not Stalinists. We are not authoritarians. Stalinism is discredited and no longer a domino theory threat and while those states are still a threat to their citizens, Stalinism is not sticking its nose where it is not warranted in our immediate society. I doubt you will get any disagreements from Secular Humanists about the wretchedness of Marxist Communism. Despite the fact that it lifted the living standards of hundreds of millions of people, I don't recommend it.

      • Buzz Moonman :

        15 May 2011 9:30:18am

        Part 3

        Yes, there are murderous scumbag Atheists. There are murderous scumbag vegetarians too. But neither Atheism nor vegetarianism are ordering principles. Atheism is an opinion that needs to be attached to an ordering principle.

        This is a common misunderstanding with Theistic arguments, equating Atheism and by association, Secular Humanists who are of the Atheist opinion, with secular totalitarian ideologies. In this, as in many other things, Gray's information is not factual. Communism and Fascism have an authoritarian ordering principle. Monotheism also has an authoritarian ordering principle. All three of them result in totalitarian governance whenever they obtain practical political power and all three then cause social disasters when wielding that power. Speaking for myself, but I suspect that Dawkins, Dennett and Harris fit this category too, I am not and never have been a Communist nor an authoritarian of any persuasion and I do not support an authoritarian ordering principle. Monotheists however, do actively support an authoritarian ordering principle.

        For Mao, religion was another authoritarian ideology that was getting in his way. While Mao was an murderous scumbag who was an Atheist but not a vegetarian, he was certainly not a Secular Humanist, was he. Atheism does not exist in a vacuum. It is an opinion that requires an ideology to be attached to it. That ideology can be authoritarian or non authoritarian. Mao and Stalin chose authoritarian ideologies and dispatched anyone who got in the way of their ideology, be they religious or atheist. Tibet was of course a Buddhist feudal dictatorship and freedom was not known there. But slavery was.

        Mao and Stalin were not demonstrating what happens when atheism becomes a political project. They were demonstrating what happens when an authoritarian ordering principle becomes a political project. There have been plenty of Atheist political leaders in western democracies and those countries have not descended into the social disaster that comes from totalitarianism, be it secular or religious. That's because, while they are Atheists, they have a secular humanist social liberal democratic ordering principle. There is bipartisan agreement that Australia’s greatest Prime Minster was John Curtin. He was a non religious believer (as were many in his government) who steered Australia through our darkest days in the fight against authoritarianism and that government didn’t succumb to the depths Gray claims non believers will if they are given political power. That’s because they were not authoritarians, they were secular humanist liberal social democrats. And that's why the Secular Humanist Atheist Julia Gillard will not be setting up Gulags for her opposition. Her humanist moral values are in reasonable harmony with her political values, though there is still some work to be done there.

      • Buzz Moonman :

        15 May 2011 9:39:42am

        Part 4

        Advances in science are mirrored in advances in ethics and society. Human societies advance and retreat at different rates and there has to be some societies at the forefront. We happen to be one of those societies at the forefront and there is no need to apologise for that. Certainly in the west, humans are not the same socially and culturally that they were even half a century ago, let alone before the second Enlightenment and the Renaissance. Belief in progress started before Christianity, which merely incorporated it into its ideology.

        Humans kill one another now in larger numbers due to the development of weapons of mass destruction, such as the machine gun and the warplane. The American civil war and World War One lifted the benchmark on mechanised killing up towards its present level. Neither of those wars involved "atheist regimes". It was run of the mill Christians who managed to ramp up the killing. The nuclear armed regimes that we are more worried about are theocratic regimes because the MAD doctrine doesn’t work with them as they really are mad. There was an illuminating interview on PM this week with an Iran watcher.

        I don't bother with Nietzsche because he was wrong IMO and was still wrong when he passed his use by date early in the last century.

        Yes, people are influenced by ideas that have been around beforehand. That's how Christianity got so many of its ideas from those heathens and Atheists in Greece. As does the Enlightenment. Mind you, Christianity wasn't too keen on that Greek idea of democracy and shuffled that one off to the dungeon. There were even Christians who were these dreaded liberals who kept banging away at Christianity, trying to bring it into a state where its moral values started to approach its political values. They weren't exactly appreciated for their efforts were they, but they cut through eventually in some areas and helped kick start the Enlightenment and dragged Christianity into social and political progress. It’s my understanding that even the Vatican had to stop issuing Bulls denouncing democracy after the 1850s when they realised that progress was being made by those outside their control and they would be cast aside if accommodation was not made.

        I don’t expect religion to disappear as there will always be people who can’t handle the uncertainties of existence. Some of us can live with those uncertainties and are not impressed with the speculations over the conceptual possibilities of Theism. We see it as highly improbable. But when religion affects my life, then its politics has become my politics and there is a need to respond.

          • Johnno :

            11 Jan 2012 10:58:20pm

            Buzz, quite a bit in those posts... did enjoy your comments though. regards

  • Cate :

    13 May 2011 3:55:28pm


    Love the essay - thank you ABC.

  • casewithscience :

    13 May 2011 1:38:46pm

    Look, I am an atheist and I don't care if anyone else in the world is an atheist, christian, buddhist, muslim or whatever, thats all a choice for those other people.

    However, as an atheist, I do want to reserve my right to ridicule any person bringing their beliefs into the public square. If someone says the earth is 6000 years old because their holy book says so, then I want to be able to point at them and call them a fool.

    That is the nature of modern atheism. We don't want to convert, just reserve our right to express.

      • MK :

        15 May 2011 5:59:48pm

        Wo great to know you speak for All Atheists?
        Seems to be a common theme,
        a lot of these rational logical superior atheists seem to be able to speak for all other atheists,
        How do you do it? what magic is it?
        some form of telepathy?

  • Eric :

    13 May 2011 12:46:06pm

    If we were all born to devout Musim families, we would all be Muslims. Later a few would change, but that would require a depth of thought and a greater depth of honesty.

    To change requires us to question what we have been taught. That can cause us to be rejected by our families, so it also requires courage.

    Few people have the level of honesty, courage and the ability to rationalise to that depth. When we meet such a person they are to be admired for their qualities.

      • Shane 2 :

        15 May 2011 3:46:35pm


        Very true. I was born in a muslim majority society. There were people over there who chose a different path to their parents but they were few. Many ended up with more pedantic, fundamentalist views than their parents. My parents are agnostics so my religious view are similar to theirs. The acorn has not fallen far from the tree.

  • Philip Gray :

    13 May 2011 9:56:22am

    Religion is a comfort for it's followers, much like a soiled blanket might comfort a small child. For descriptive purposes, I will use a blanket to be an analogy of religious belief.

    I am friendly with the idea of letting others keep their blanket for themselves. That does not mean that I am friendly with them bringing their bodily fluid stained blanket into my house. I am not friendly with them bringing their soiled blanket to my children's schools and forcing my kids to play with it or treat it as some sort of king. I am not friendly with the idea of being forced to treat someone's bodily fluid soiled blanket as commendable.

    I have no doubt that religion will survive the onslaught of zealot atheists, such as myself, but eventually it will be forced to change by those who will not continue to tolerate the rudeness of it's followers in forcing their unwashed blanket upon people that want nothing to do with it.

      • Davo :

        16 Jan 2012 8:47:45am

        Interesting. This offensive comment could easily be placed on the other foot.

  • Anoni Breadstick :

    13 May 2011 6:39:51am

    Atheism is not a religion, and the people who call themselves Atheists only have one common factor in their idenities and beliefs: the lack of belief in one less god than their theistic counterparts.

    The author should look at the definition of secular and secularism, as he does not quite seem to have a grasp of the concept and how it differs from atheism.

    Religion and science are not dichotomous. It just seems that way since the two involve nearly entirely different ways of thinking, and some atheists may be more involved in the scientific realm.

    The problem with saying that certain things like morals and historical thought have been shaped by religion, is that religion in turn has been derived and shaped by these elements. This is the same flow of influence as you see in terms of cultural influence - a good example being the West and Japan.

    Belief in the Scientific Method and the concept of "Science --> Technology --> Progress --> Everyone Benefits" can be just as faith-based and dangerous as any religious establishment.
    It is both dangerous to believe something whole-heartedly without undeniable proof (as one does for religious scriptures), but it is also dangerous to believe that some sort of evidence testing and objectivity will make something true is also dangerous.

    The idea that somebody's beliefs makes one person not equal to another is the most dangerous notion of all.

  • Shane 2 :

    12 May 2011 10:59:30pm

    Dawkins doesn't preach war or suppression of freedom of speach, in support of atheism. In that respect he is much more moderate than thousands of Islamists. Dawkins, Harris, Hitchins etc are vastly more moderate than previous generations of Atheists such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Honecker, Ceaușescu, Kim, and Pol Pot. We live in an age of moderate atheism rather than the ruthless supression of religion in a previous age. When Saudi Arabia allows Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Atheist conventions we will know that benighted society has emerged from the a Dark Age.

      • crow :

        10 Jan 2012 12:03:26pm

        you seem to be mistaking communist with atheist.

        Stalin trained to be a priest and never renounced his religion, Pol Pot said that he had authority for his actions because he was speaking directly to heaven.

        doesnt sound like athiesm to me.

        of those, only Mao can really be considered atheist, though he didnt renounce his religion, only suppress it for loyalty to the party.

        Stalin disolved the Orthodox church admittedly, but then again King Henry VII dissolved the monastaries and noone would accuse him of being atheist.

        hostility towards the church by an authoritarian is often simply because the church is usually the only other power structure that can oppose a political party, rather than any atheist views.

  • Paul :

    12 May 2011 10:36:31pm

    There is a massive straw man here - the idea of evangelical atheists. Dawkins, Hitchens et al publish their books and make their case(s) in public but I don't see them or people who think like them door-knocking with pamphlets. Most demonstrative displays of atheism occur not as attempts to proselytise the virtues of atheism but as reactions to the more virulent and abhorrent manifestations of religion; for example, demonstrations against the attempts of the religious to insert their views on moral issues into law.

      • David :

        13 May 2011 11:46:28am

        Dawkins states in his book "The God delusion" that the purpose of his book is that believers who pick it up will be atheists when they have read it.

        The way that the atheists go about 'evangelising' may be different but they do it.

          • Shane 2 :

            13 May 2011 9:41:17pm

            Nothing wrong with evangelising. Environmentalists do it, capitalists do it, socialists do it, humanists do it, christians do it, marxists do it, meditators do it, football fans do it, rock group fans do it. If you think that something is the cats whiskers, then tell the world and let the person judge for herself. I do it. And I don't take a backwards step. Let everyone put their ideas, passions, and dislikes out there and let people decide where they stand. And to all you millions of religio-fascists out there, your beliefs are not any more worthy of freedom from condemnation that godlessness and man-goat love. Suck it up fascists. I won't take a backwards step.

      • Donnodagain :

        14 May 2011 2:04:40pm

        What about the signs on the buses in London: "There probably isn't a god, so don't worry." Paid for by British atheists. That sounds like atheistic evangelism to me.

  • Trevor :

    12 May 2011 9:32:19pm

    Religion in our part of the world is based on a blind belief in stuff that comes from the Bronze Age - when people made up stories to explain a world that confused & frightened them.

    Now we have science. We know a lot more about stuff. And are continuously learning more.

    I'm an atheist & a sceptic. I don't care what other people believe - I'm often gobsmacked of course by what people do profess to believe. But then often that comes from the cradle.

    I put my faith in evidence. Cant & hypocrisy are an anathema.

    I don't care to tell others how to live their lives - and ask the favour be returned. It usually isn't.

    I find it hard to respect people who believe in absurd notions such as the flood et al. To believe it means, for example, that somebody called Noah not only managed to collect & care for two echidnas & then return them to Australia - and all knowledge of the continent & it's flora & fauna then vanished for millenia - but that he could actually tell that he had a male & a female. Even vets have trouble with that.

      • Alex :

        17 May 2011 1:27:46pm

        Hi Trevor,
        You would be amazed how religious (and we must not generalize religious practice) affiliation is much more related to networking, friendship, acceptance within a group and therefore psychologic help then any belief that may seem blind to you. It is also related to a particular way of understanding the world, from a different cultural perspective like the reminiscent native around the world has. It is exactly the lack of respect for other people's perspectives that led the world to such violent colonization, including in Australia, under a so called Christian flag. Although in a less sophisticated way (tell me about the higher IQ, your statement has a lot to do with the central argument of the article we just read.

  • Alan Jones :

    12 May 2011 8:37:07pm

    Two comments:
    1) The Jews did not invent monotheism; they probably copied it from Akhnaten.
    2) While modern Judaism is not evangelical, the Jews were active proselitisers from about 300BC until the collapse of the Roman Empire in 400AD.

      • Shane 2 :

        13 May 2011 11:17:34pm

        Mazdaism may also predate the monotheism of the Israelites.

          • Gordon :

            17 May 2011 10:42:49am

            Mazdaism: is that related to Hyundeism?

              • Peter Piper :

                18 May 2011 10:32:14pm

                I hope you are not insulting followers of the one and only true God, Hyundai.

                If you are, then be very careful or you will be punished under Sharon's Law, and its not very nice.

      • Charming Billy :

        14 May 2011 11:23:04pm

        1) is debatable. Some have speculated this is the case, but it's far from settled, or even probable.

  • Dex :

    12 May 2011 8:08:47pm

    personally, I believe that theists have a right to be upset when someone like Dawkins or Hitchens rocks up. If you have believed something all your life, whether it be that the sun goes round the earth, that your christmas presents are delivered by a fat man in a red suit or that the moon is made of cheese, to have somebody turn up and just say "no. you're wrong. end of discussion" is not a very nice experience and they cannot be blamed for fighting back, although implying (intentionally or otherwise)that Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc, committed their crimes in the name of atheism is a bit harsh.

    We don't have to believe what the preachers say, theist or atheist, we don't have to be militant and we don't have to see the world in black and white. If you choose to, that is your decision and I respect that.

    I will judge you for no reason but your deeds

  • Hudson Godfrey :

    12 May 2011 7:00:19pm

    I found this piece insightful in some parts and profoundly disappointing in others. Imagine being incisive enough to argue that Dawkins theory of memes in indeed no more really than an interesting analogy and then to turn around and lumber atheism with the misdeeds of authoritarian regimes while simultaneously ignoring religion's history of the same. Both were more inspired by a lust for power and the delusion that a utopian world view is also necessarily a singular one.

    Most of all I'm really not comfortable with the word atheism or worse secularism used as it were to confect ideologies that are more correctly taken up under the banner of humanism. And I do think humanism can be religious as well as secular if people only put their minds to what they have in common rather than reverting to what is essentially the politics of tribalism which emphasise their slightest differences.

    I'd like to see some of that happen if only to refute Gray's cynicism in terms that would have us believe that all human progress is illusory. Sorry John but I'm quite happy with a warm bed and a cup of the Brownian emulsification over living a short brutish life in a cave.

  • Charles Penfold :

    12 May 2011 5:00:36pm

    Obviously it was a very hard task to rebuke such a cause that is based on objective, critical and logical thinking. The author here has wasted space, time and energy in a horrible attempt that is not surprisingly void of these attributes. Such a torturous article. Attrociously written and argued. A dismal, and needlessly, boringly lengthly attempt to compete with intellectual free thinking giants such as Hitchens and Dawkins.

      • Arni Zachariassen :

        12 May 2011 8:44:07pm

        Interesting strategy to employ an ad hominem attack in the defence of "objective, critical and logical thinking".

          • Stubby :

            13 May 2011 2:49:28pm

            No part of Charles' comment was an ad hominem attack.

            Charles merely made some merciless comments about the article itself. He was a bit brief and did not cite specific parts of Gray's article that he took issue with, but there was no personal attack on Gray.

              • gorlassar :

                14 May 2011 7:05:09am

                Stubby, I think Arni's jsut reminding us all that no self-respecting forum is allowed to go on for more than a few hours before someone uses the term "ad hominem" (cf. "Loony leftists")

              • Charming Billy :

                14 May 2011 11:16:06pm

                Mais oui. And not longer after the ad hominem "ad hominem" charge comes the cheap shot "cheap shot" accusation and the straw man "straw man" argument.

          • Charming Billy :

            14 May 2011 6:07:09am

            Even more interesting is the decision to forego "objective, critical and logical thinking" in order to defend same.

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                25 May 2011 2:29:16pm

                Charmant Billy
                Qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire mais?
                Dieu vous benisse!

      • Adrian Gattenhof :

        12 May 2011 10:01:46pm

        Well said. When science has liberated us so comprehensively from so much ignorance and superstition, whilst acknowledging its own limits, it astonishes me that intelligent, well educated thinkers can still take religion seriously, except for its social club aspects.

        To take religion seriously as a source of facts about the universe or our place in it, represents a failure of intelligence or education.

      • John Thomas :

        13 May 2011 12:09:12am

        Not at all, I thought it was a very good article, and made many interesting points, often seeing things in a new way (difficult, for these subjects). I didn't agree with everything, but on the whole good.
        Why is it that every 20th cent totalitarian regime, whatever its politics, has been attracted to Darwinism? I could tell you, but ...

      • gorlassar :

        14 May 2011 7:01:52am

        "TortUous" - goes round and round. "TortURous" - like torture.

        Hmm... you may have a point, actually...!

          • Holly (Christ lives within) :

            25 May 2011 12:45:57pm

            Romans 1:25
            .."They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised for ever!"

            As we go around and around and around ....tortuous yes indeed, living in a world of illusory gods.

  • Ben Lever :

    12 May 2011 4:05:08pm

    I don't want to go through all the false assumptions you've made because it would take all day. But one point I do want to engage with is your fatalistic notion that because human beings are seemingly hard-wired for religion, no amount of education will allow us to break free from it.

    Firstly, the mere existence of atheists serves to contradict this notion - and the fact that atheism is strongly correlated with higher levels of education doesn't help you much either.

    It's interesting that you bring up the rearing of children in relation to sexual urges. Of course, it's silly to believe that if we raise children in a sex-free environment they will not grow up to have sexual urges - just as it's silly to believe that even in a God-free household, children would grow up and not tend towards supernatural explanations for things.

    But (most) people don't raise their kids trying to prevent them from having sexual urges. Instead, people try to raise their kids in such a way that they know how to control these urges - so that they end up having safe sex between consenting adults, as opposed to just randomly jumping someone in the middle of the street, as the 'urge' struck them.

    Similarly, no serious atheist thinker is under the impression that we can eradicate the flaw in human cognition that tends towards mysticism and religion - merely that we can educate people, and give them the tools to override this primitive urge, just as we teach children to control every other animalistic urge.

  • thinkingdoesnthurt :

    12 May 2011 3:13:19pm

    There is much to the specific content of this piece I find questionable there is some worthy points to consider.

    Certainly some of Gray's summations of the writings of Dawkins, Dennet and Harris are not what I recall of reading the texts.

    However, the greater point I would contend is the insinuation the 'New Atheists' are not secularists first, and antireligion second.

    This is certainly how I characterise myself. I see all the usual issues with religion but I have no desire to employ the tactics of atheistic regimes as noted by Gray. Not simply because we have seen how they do not work but in principle I find the approaches abhorrent.

    It seems consistent to lack belief in a god, be openly and persistently critical of religion and religious belief but to advocate a pluralistic and secular society. For such an extended piece I find it telling Gray did not address this point. I suspect because it isn't favourable to his primary thesis and would severely undermine the critique of 'New Atheists'.

    Even assuming the various views Gray attributes to 'New Atheists' there remains no contradiction or conflict with secular liberalism.

    So while this piece goes to great length to note the disastrous and fallacious forms of thinking which can arise in the vacuum of atheism, Gray has offered nothing here to suggest how it should be done. Gray has given half an argument, ok assume the 'New Atheists' admit their fallacious thinking, what then? Surely a piece of this length could have gone this far, leaving behind some of the repetition. Or are we to expect a second article?

  • Carmen :

    12 May 2011 2:24:42pm

    There is so much wrong with this article it's hard to know where to start. Here are a few points:

    There is no evidence provided to support Gray's claim that "Secularisation is in retreat."

    The theory of memes is a reasonable and coherent theory that deserves far more serious attention than it currently receives. Natural selection will inevitably apply to any suitable situation where replicators are copied, varied and transmitted. Genes are one example of such replicators, and memes represent another.

    There is no evidence that "religion is hardwired in the species". Various evolved characteristics may predispose some people to adopt religious beliefs, but these beliefs can certainly be modified or abandoned because of education.

    There is no evidence that Hitler was an atheist. If anything, he was a Christian, and his hatred of Jews had deep historical roots in European Christianity.

    The crimes of Stalin and Mao were not driven by their atheism, but rather by their deranged lust for power. They established all-encompassing ideologies that were equivalent to political religions.

    How can belief in "universal democracy" be "more offensive to reason than the mysteries of religion"?

    Gray continually conflates atheism with secularism, but they are quite different. Atheists simply claim that there is no evidence for God, or for related religious beliefs. Secularists want there to be a clear separation between government and religion.

    Gray is a poor scholar, who either deliberately or naively misrepresents much of his subject matter, and frequently draws unjustified conclusions. There are many relevant thinkers and writers (such as Dawkins, Dennett and Grayling) who deserve our attention. Gray is not one of them.

      • Simon :

        12 May 2011 4:00:49pm

        Hear hear! Finally I'm reading something from someone who know how to construct an arguement.

      • Andrew :

        12 May 2011 5:09:37pm

        Carmen, this is just contradiction. What are your sources? John Gray has a reputation and some credentials (former professor of school of European thought at the LSE) and at the moment he is winning the contest with you for my attention about what, for example, the Nazi's based themselves on.

        I think your distinction between atheism and secularism is correct, but I'm not sure he's confusing them as you suggest. Perhaps we are drawing a nice neat linguistic line that suits us through some forces that are really a complicated, multicultural historical whole.

          • Carmen :

            12 May 2011 10:36:23pm

            Hi Andrew,





              • Andrew :

                13 May 2011 3:43:56pm

                I think I just wanted more background to your statements, and I understand that would make for a long post given you want to disagree with everything.

                When you say 'there is no evidence' do you mean 'he cites no evidence'?

                Dawkins' memetics is fun and all, and I'm not as down on it as Gray is, but it is more in the league of an interesting thought experiment than serious, evidence-based social psychology.

                When you say there is no evidence that religion is hardwired in the species, I want to know what you think hardwired means? Isn't attribution of personality to the environment something Dennet thinks spontaneously occurs in thinking beings with a model of the other? (this is maybe like Lacan's Big Other - anyone?)

                If Mao and Stalin's crimes were driven by a deranged lust for power, how is it different from a properly ranged lust for power? They obviously believed enough to convince their inner circle that some great and good future lay ahead, and was worth destroying opposition for now - wouldn't you like to have your beliefs taken as motivating your behaviour?

                Belief in universal democracy might hold as self-evident that all men (people) are created equal. This is patently untrue. No two are even alike, much less equal.

                So I guess I called your post contradiction because i thought you weren't hearing him and giving a response that recognizes and transforms his critique, you were only rejecting it and saying you had heard different. But you certainly aren't alone there.

              • Carmen :

                14 May 2011 6:45:48pm


                I understand. And it is difficult to provide relevant evidence in short comments.

                Yes, I wrote "There is no evidence provided…" by which I did indeed mean "he cites no evidence…"

                Regarding memetics: please see my response below, where I provide some good sources. You may have already read these, but I think they are persuasive that memetics is much more important that just a bit of fun.

                As I said, there are some evolved characteristics that predispose us to religious belief, but I think saying that religion is hardwired into us is too strong, and gives the wrong impression. And Gray seems to suggest that education can't affect such belief, which is just plain wrong.

                I've never read Lacan. He is worth it?

                Regarding "deranged lust for power" – one could say that Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott have a lust for power, but not a deranged one. Mao and Stalin murdered millions of people. Their lust for power, or at least their use of power when they had it, was deranged.

                It is not that all humans are created equal in the sense of not being different. The important consideration is that all humans have equal rights, and as much as practically possible, equal opportunities.

                I don't think Gray's highly flawed views deserve to be recognised or transformed. They deserve to be critiqued or ignored.

              • Andrew :

                16 May 2011 1:18:06pm

                Gray is actually trying to stop your hardwired religious impulse from telling you that atheism and science will explain everything, and that everything will always keep improving, if we just trust it. He doesn't think any religion is true, but he does think it is a manifestation of a very subtle and powerful function of our psychological construction which won't go away just because we change the content.

                The question of what universal democracy could be grounded on remains open. You are just articulating the faith, not explaining it or grounding it when you offer that definition. Gray is suggesting you can't ground it in science or even 'political science'.

                Perhaps you would go with Hobbes' idea that since any one of us could murder any other, there is an equal liability to violence? Except that's not really true. While we are all equally liable to physical destruction in the right circumstances, the probability of those circumstances will favour some and be bad for others. There really isn't a good answer. If you imagine a simple democratic community of a wise man and two fools, the greatest happiness probably lies in doing what the wise man says. The fools reject it and bring all three trouble.

                In fairness, Gray is something of a crank, at the extreme end of the pessimism scale about our ability to muddle through. But the challenges he puts here are real challenges.

                I've only read a very short intro to Lacan, and I've read a little bit of Zizek, who uses Lacan a fair bit. There is lots I don't know and don't understand about it. I am not the philosopher I wish I was. It's like a lot of insight from the humanities - the proof is in the using. It's a set of ideas, it fits some things well and illuminatingly.

              • Carmen :

                16 May 2011 2:47:06pm

                Thanks, Andrew. I appreciate your thoughts.

                Speaking personally as a scientist and an atheist, I don't think that any hardwired religious-style impulse compels me to think "that atheism and science will explain everything, and that everything will always keep improving, if we just trust it." I don't consider my naturalistic worldview and my respect for science in such religious and utopian ways. I just think that there is no evidence or good arguments for the supernatural, or for reliable ways of knowing that aren't based on reason and evidence.

                And I don't believe that I'm articulating any "faith" regarding democracy. I think that some form of democracy is the best political and social system we can have, and I want there to be equal rights and opportunities for all members of a democratic society. I don't think that these notions need to be, or can be, "grounded" in anything other than individual preference and societal consensus.

                I don't understand what you're getting at with the paragraph about Hobbes, etc.

                And what do you think are the "real challenges" that Gray has raised?

              • Andrew :

                17 May 2011 5:15:02pm

                The point about a hardwiring is that it's not going to present as an impulse, it is always the frame through which you see things. Affirming your naturalistic worldview and straightforward democratic principles comes with (perhaps?) a warm feeling of approval and soundness. It is very much the spirit of the age, and its nice to be on the side of right. The other thing to look out for is what seems obviously, obviously true. If you can't see into someone elses worldview, you have not much perspective on your own.

                The paragraph about Hobbes was referring to the enlightenment political philosophers who worked hard to develop an argument that all men are equal, because they lived in a world where people didn't believe that. The consensus and individual preference were for a more tiered world in which only (say) 30% (?) of people realised they were at the absolute bottom and wanted change. The others realised they didn't want to share with those at the bottom and wanted to maintain the status quo.

                In what sense is democracy 'better'? If there's no universal, fact-based reason for it, how can you believe it is true and truly just? Its not just that it's shared in our society because you believe it is the best - better than other known systems at least. If China delivers greater human happiness to its citizens in 20 years time, would you accept that Communist controlled capitalism with Chinese characteristics is even better again?

                I will give you the last word. Thanks for the pleasant tone. (btw I'm in science myself. Well, applied science.)

              • Carmen :

                18 May 2011 11:49:10am


                I don't need the last word, but thanks for the opportunity!

                I won't address your points in any detail, but I'll just make a more general comment. I don't think there is any way to argue for which worldviews and which social and political systems are more valid or "better" than any others except by appealing to evidence, if possible, or if not, then to rational arguments (again, if possible) and to personal preference. In my opinion, there is no source of what is "really" true or "really" morally correct, etc. I don't believe in a God, and I don't see how some kind of absolute truth about these kinds of matters can be "out there" somewhere, independent of us. So we just have to do the best we can with what we have.

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                24 May 2011 1:31:18pm

                'doing the best that we can' leaves room for 'don't try to hard' Whereas if there is an absolute moral truth 'out there', we have not as yet come to grips with, we are challenged to aim higher.

          • Ian :

            14 May 2011 6:01:34pm

            Every German soldier in Hitlers army wore a belt with "Gott Mit Uns" on the buckle. Every soldier swore swore this oath ""Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen." which means ""I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath.". How could anyone conflate Nazism with atheism.

      • Hudson Godfrey :

        12 May 2011 7:22:01pm

        Well said Carmen,

      • Ken West :

        12 May 2011 7:37:14pm

        Memes? A reasonable and coherent theory?

        Memes are not Darwinian replicators. What's the genotype? The phenotype? Please explain!

        Memes don't explain anything. There are older and better theories about how ideas gain influence.

          • Hudson Godfrey :

            13 May 2011 12:52:12pm

            Okay Ken,

            The theory of memes is analogous with genes but not with biology. I think you're making a huge oversimplification to dismiss the idea so lightly. What you're getting at though questions whether it is really a scientific theory as opposed to a philosophical one given that to be scientific it would have to be falsifiable and it remains to be seen how.

            So taking meme as a philosophical construct what you're challenged to do is not simply allude to "older and better theories" but enumerate them.

      • Arni Zachariassen :

        12 May 2011 8:54:59pm


        Come on now. There's no such thing as a theory of memetics. Memes are, as Gray points out, a metaphor. A metaphor that serves a particular function quite well, but a metaphor nonetheless. And as Gray rightly says, it's a very good example of scientific overreach. Dawkins is, as far as I can tell, a good scientist and obviously natural selection is a well attested scientific fact. But employing biological concepts in non-biological contexts is by no means as straight forward as Dawkins and his fans seem to think. It's a great metaphor in some regards, but it certainly has its limits. Simply calling it a theory will not change that.

          • Carmen :

            13 May 2011 10:19:19am

            Simon and Hudson – thank you.

            Ken and Arni – have you read much about memetics? From my reading, I think it's a sound and important theory. If you ever have the time and desire, I encourage you to read Dawkins' original formulation in the final chapter of his book The Selfish Gene, and then Susan Blackmore's excellent book, The Meme Machine. I also recommend any of Daniel Dennett's writings about memes. You can also find some good information on Blackmore's website:

  • John :

    12 May 2011 2:18:42pm

    The Process that is True Religion is the product of the inherent total psycho-physical urge to the evolutionary fulfillment and ultimate self-transcendence of Man in the Radiant Reality, or Life-Principle, in which he and the world are arising. Religion is not a matter of belief in the presumed "evidence" or "results" of religious activity on the part of a certain few historical individuals. Religion is not exclusively a matter of "revelation" in the sense of the specific historical communcations made by rare and prophetic individuals. Rather True Religion is the PROCESS itself - the evolutionary and self-transcending process of the psycho-biological transformation of Man.

    The Process of True Religion is inherent in the psycho-biological structures of every human being, except that it is only more or less developed in each individual. But the development of those structures depends upon cultural adaptation. That is it must be cultivated by a process of real initiation, a living culture of expectation and demand. Such a culture of Real initiation does not exist in the Western world, or is at least extremely rare.

    The problem is that religion is not commonly understood as a native psycho-biological function in Man. It is instead associated with merely symbolic cosmologies and archaic belief systems. In that case true religious acculturation is suppressed and obliged to remain at an infantile level. What is more, the adolescent movement of scientism is gradually, and also rightly, destroying the credibility of such childish religious culture.

    The phenomenon popularly known as religion is a childish, even infantile, expression of our possible higher acculturation and evolution. It is always associated with childish cultism, symbolic rituals, and irrational belief systems than never be penetrated to the point of establishing the true and universal religious Process.

    Religious cults are nearly always antagonistic to one another. Each claiming some kind of righteous superiority for its presumed special historical "revelation" - Christian-ism and Islam-ism specialize in this tactic. The level or participation in the limited cultures of such cults is mostly a matter of uninspected beliefs, external rituals, and superficial codes of social conduct. There is nothing morally, humanly, or spiritually superior about such "religious" consciousness.

  • RobertofBrisbane :

    12 May 2011 1:54:24pm

    John Grey seems to have great skill in redefining terms in a way to be unrecognizable by anyone else who uses them.

  • perspective :

    12 May 2011 1:05:32pm

    yeah like pol pot, Mao tse tung, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, all where big believers in god were not they! LMAO evil exists in people not in religions, but people exist in religions. so do we throw the baby out with the bath water??

      • Shane 2 :

        13 May 2011 10:22:22pm

        LMAO, evil exists in people AND in religions AND in other ideologies. If you sacred book teaches that torturing people in hell is righteous, your sacred book is evil. If your sacred book teaches that killing Jews is righteous, your sacred book is evil.

  • iswaswillbe :

    12 May 2011 12:27:08pm

    Great article, but a pity Mr. skims over the concept of anthropocentrism , as this is the real culprit of why human nature will gravitate to dependancy to `imaginary friends` rather than to real focus of their place and role in the world, and why any large belief system, religous or secular is in decline today.

  • IB :

    11 May 2011 8:49:54pm




  • Duncan :

    11 May 2011 8:38:21pm







      • Matt Marcinkiewicz :

        13 May 2011 12:42:15am

        "I'm not sure what Prof Gray means when he says 'the present hostility to religion' is a reaction to the collapse of political movements based on 'myths inherited from religion', since he gives no specifics."

        Gray says that the present hostility to religion is a reaction to the renewal of religious fervor that has occurred after the collapse of those political movements based on myths inherited from religion. He identified Communism and Nazism as being influenced by the religious ideal of salvation--the difference being that the salvation offered by fascism and communism would be attained here. The idea of human history being a unidirectional narrative that progresses towards an end (like Communism or fascism...or liberal democracy, too)...that is an idea that can be attributed to Western Christianity, as well

  • DQN :

    11 May 2011 6:05:34pm

    Wow - as intelligent, even handed, thought provoking and incisive article as we're likely to see on this topic. Great work.

      • Holly (Christ lives within) :

        12 May 2011 9:13:43am

        - GREAT ARTICLE -

          • Holly (Christ lives within) :

            12 May 2011 12:31:05pm

            What we need to be concerned about is if what this seemingly non violent sign is advocating, the removal of religion from mankind, AWAY WITH ALL GODS what we need to be concerned about is if “this fight takes flight” with any sort of leadership or framework. Mankind would have to put on God’s shield and armour more so than ever before in all of history. It is without question a threatening stand for modern atheists or secularists to be taking. It would be far better for the future of mankind if we went back to a sign that said “PEACE TO ALL” just with a little more enlightenment and less self-indulgence than the last time we tried. It is not a little ironical that Jupiter is again aligning with Mars on this very day 12/05/11; A celestial sign perhaps for us all to come into harmonious alignment as we move forward into the millennium. But let’s not have a rerun of The Age of Aquarius, that is just going too far.

          • shane :

            12 May 2011 1:58:51pm

            Sigh. Atheists are militant?

              • Shane 2 :

                13 May 2011 10:24:33pm

                Those that promote violence in the cause of atheism are militant. Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens are not militant.

      • shane :

        12 May 2011 1:56:03pm

        Even handed? Gray has written something as polemical as anything I've seen before. Secularism and atheists are the reason for the world's ills and only the return to religion will save us? All an atheist only means is without a belief in a deity. Apparently an evangelical atheist is one who says leave me alone. Gray seems to think that secularism means anti-religion? Methinks he is playing the oppression card.

          • Chem :

            12 May 2011 3:40:06pm

            I have to agree with this. All an atheist has to do is speak his mind and he's miraculously transformed into a militant, or strident.

            Secularism has never been about taking away religion. It was invented by the religious to stop them killing each other over small details. (For what's quite possibly the worlds worst history of it you can check my blog

            All in all a quite unconvincing article by someone who seems upset that there are differing views from his own.

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                12 May 2011 7:41:00pm

                Chem. I like you. God likes you. What’s not to like? You seem like an okay guy. We actually have a lot in common. I have all sorts of problems with people being ‘wrong on the internet’ too. What is that, can’t anyone get their facts straight? In fact, God and I like you so much you are invited to the Celebratory Ball. Just enter through the second gate and receive your Free Gift. Who said secularists and God botherers can’t get on when they extend the hand of grace.
                This offer is real and cannot be redeemed any other way. However, conditions do apply. Don’t be lazy, read the fine print.
                Your brand new best friend, Holly
                Sorry, but my worldview is, what are the chances,you guessed it, one of those God bothering Christians.

              • Dex :

                12 May 2011 8:06:44pm

                I think that there's a difference between an atheist "speaking his mind" and openly attacking religion, in the style of, to use a rather clichéd example, Richard Dawkins. Instead of saying "I'm a person too, just like you, only I don't happen to believe in a god or gods", such people say "There is no god! I'm right, you're wrong! there is no other way but mine!" it is people like this that I am assuming are being referred to as "militant" atheists.

          • Holly (Christ lives within) :

            12 May 2011 3:40:29pm

            Be careful the way you stack the deck, you leave yourself open to playing into the Hands of Time!
            Fortunately, the doors will be left open for all late-comers, such as yourself.
            Geez, what are the chances? About 1,728,000,000 IN ONE
            That would make an ecumenical heaven large enough for the virtuous of all peoples.
            Shane Congratulations! You drew the lucky ticket. Go straight past Jail and claim your Free Gift. We shall meet you at the entrance door. Don't worry; it shall all make sense in about 2 years. Just maintain your polemical disposition.

              • shane :

                12 May 2011 6:23:42pm

                I'm sorry Holly but you're making no sense. What is your point?

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                12 May 2011 8:20:14pm

                Shane. You listed too many of the arguments against and not for your own opinion. That is stacking the deck against oneself. The rest of the comment is something that will crystallize with time, but I assure you that you will be dealt a good hand.

              • DMI :

                13 May 2011 9:11:18am

                Please explain Holly - what the hell are you talking about?

              • Peyton :

                13 May 2011 12:23:59pm

                Holly, are you proposing Pascal's Wager?

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                13 May 2011 1:32:28pm

                I would not propose Pascal's Wager. God doesn't like calculating types who take gambles purely on the basis of their own self-interest. When God revealed Himself to me I wasn't even thinking about Heaven. There is no need to take chances with God, if you have a dream just go for it, if you have faith God aids and abets you all the way to achieving your inner-most goals in life. There is a frequency to the Kingdom of Heaven and there is a key to unlock that freedom, don't miss out.
                What I can’t understand is the way in which philosophers of the ages, searched and searched and did not find God, when He is knocking at the front door of each and every single one of us. We just don’t answer. What God has done for someone as simple as myself, through a little bit of faith, is unimaginable, incredulous, and beyond all expectations, like the woman who touched the garments of Jesus and knew that she would be healed. There are a million dreams out there to be unleashed; God is the orchestrator of our lives and the total sum of love in every form.
                I have to run now and go talk to two little girls about great big African butterflies and Cinderella at the ball, a bit of chaplaincy work. God doesn’t get a mention but man alive does He ever orchestrate it. I was going to talk about little butterflies, not great big African butterflies. God does not think in small measures, like man, His dreams for us are so out of this world I have to take great big deep breaths as if I am giving birth to something so large, I might not survive.
                The chances of you asking me about Pascal’s Wager, let’s put it this way, there is no such thing as luck, God simply chose you because there is ‘something special about you’.

              • lynne :

                20 May 2011 6:08:01pm


              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                22 May 2011 10:33:43pm

                Yes I am absolutely sure: “Getting excited and chemicals flowing”, is an apt description of what it is like to have God's Spirit dwelling within. Disprove that the brain functions in phenomenal ways, no I don't think there is any point in this. Prove to you that there is something more to life.... find a way of showing you that what I say is true, will take more than words I can present here. Your heart is not open to what I would have to say. Your statements are always reactionary, what joy is there in believing that this is all there will ever be?

          • Andrew :

            12 May 2011 5:58:35pm

            I think John Gray could do you as good a polemic against the church, but thinks it already very thoroughly attacked. I think he is in favour of genuinely belief-free atheism, such as that articulated by Nietzsche. He thinks there is too much hope, too much speciesism, too much beautiful soul syndrome in conventional Dawkinsian atheism. If these things were brought forth and subjected to the same treatment given God, he doesn't think anyone would believe in them.

              • KK :

                13 May 2011 8:22:28pm

                I agree here. Both atheism and religion have orthodox expressions and both also have genuine spirits of critical inquiry - that allow people to remain open to possibilities.
                Grey is i think pointing this out and bringing out some clear contradictions and myths in the process. A politics and culture of love will not come out of any authoritarian perspective religious or not.

              • Holly (Christ lives within) :

                10 Jan 2012 1:43:03pm

                Good comment.
                It's called laying the groundwork in the search for ‘truth. It’s out there somewhere and we will eventually find it.
                We just arrive at it from different paths.
                There is only one pure truth or there is no truth at all.

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