KEY WORDS: ATHEISMS, SECULAR HUMANISM, NEW ATHEISM, MONOTHEISM, PROGRESS

John Gray's The Seven Types of Atheism is not about what the title first suggested to me. I thought the book might cover differences among atheists about whether to actively discredit theists’ assertions concerning atheism, whether to actively oppose theism, whether to actively attack conceptions of deities, and so on. While one type of Gray’s atheisms falls in that general category, the book instead generally discusses the author’s seven categories of philosophies, world views, or life stances that happen to have atheism as one of their tenets. However, these worldviews are independent of atheism. In other words, Gray discusses seven views that atheists might have in addition to atheism.

Gray defines an atheist as “anyone with no use for the idea of a divine mind that has fashioned the world” (2018, 2). So presumably an “atheism” would be a philosophy also without the use of that idea. Yet he discusses his seven atheisms more in terms of whether they have any use for other ideas that he says are traditionally associated with old-time religions. As such, the book appears to consist of the author’s musings in attempting to find one of the discussed views that he likes (in addition to atheism).

Don’t get me wrong: Gray was the London School of Economics’ School Professor of European Thought. He certainly delves into the thought of many prominent European thinkers, but the scattered nature of his dives corresponds to the breadth of his former job of being responsible for all of European thought. Nonetheless, his quest as he most specifically states it, to discern an atheism without roots in old-time religion, is laudable. The two caveats to that assessment are that the extra principles are external to atheism and that they do not necessarily come from religion.

My interest is humanism, the secular version of which is one of Gray’s seven atheisms. Yet Gray mentions it in passing in chapters discussing other of his types of atheism. Each of these mentions is negative. For example, on the second page of his discussion of New Atheism, he slips in the bald assertion that religion as the self-worship of humankind, first formulated by Saint-Simon and expanded by Comte, is “the template for the secular humanism that all evangelical atheists promote today” (2018, 10). So it would seem that a second, unstated purpose of the book is for Gray to attack secular humanism. More on humanism below.

First, Gray considers New Atheism. He cites Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris for the proposition that religion is an intellectual error. Gray points out that religions as illusion are still instrumental in helping humans understand their existence (2018, 13). Yet Gray discounts new understandings as the biggest threat to the monotheism of Christianity. He posits history as having that status, by way of the lack of evidence of the occurrence of events predicted in Christian canon. He assumes that all believers in other religions do not consider their canon as historical truth, but asserts the opposite for Christianity. But a 2017 Gallup poll showed that only 30% of Christians in the US believed the Christian Bible was the word of God (Saad 2017).

Indeed, the book contains a number of factual errors. Another is that Christianity spawned the creation of the secular realm by creating a demand for freedom. The reality, of course, is that legal protection for freedom was independently invented in polytheistic Greece, before Christianity was invented. The demand for a share of power gave rise to democracy for some in Greece, who then forced a level of freedom of speech. That in turn led the Sophists and others to openly question belief in the gods. The result was a backlash of impiety prosecutions of thinkers like Anaxagoras and Socrates. A further error is Gray’s assertion that the ancient Greeks did not prosecute impiety.

Gray rightly criticizes the New Atheists for thinking that science can provide ethics or values. When naturalists considered that idea, George Moore called it the “naturalistic fallacy” more than a century ago. Accordingly, humanists in the US settled that debate for themselves in the first half of the 20th century (see Murn 2018, 95–144). Gray singles out Harris’ ethics as being based in “monotheism,” Gray’s ersatz for Christianity. But Gray does not provide a proof. At the least, the New Atheists have neither demonstrated they can prove a scientific basis for a system of ethics, nor disputed the humanist view on the source of ethics. So while Gray is right to criticize the New Atheists on the extent to which they assert science can provide ethics, he adds nothing to philosophy by doing so.

Gray next takes on secular humanism directly. Erroneously, Gray asserts that secular humanism adheres to the view that human progress is continuous and inevitable. That assertion is not surprising in light of his earlier book, Straw Dogs, in which he equated humanism and belief in progress (2003, 4). Contrary to Gray’s straw man, all the Humanist Manifestos in the US do not even hope that progress is inevitable. Likewise, Paul Kurtz’ “A Declaration of Secular Humanism” does not use the word "progress." Instead, secular humanists in the US have acknowledged that the “universe is indifferent toward the human venture that means so much to us” (Otto 1924, 289). As Steven Pinker recently explained, humanists know that there has been much progress over time in human society based on the vast evidence proving it, but acknowledge that problems still arise and that each of them must be successfully resolved in order to preserve the progress that has been made (Naff 2018, 13, 15, 16). More so, since the early days of modern US humanism, humanists have argued that those not following humanist principles are in danger of destroying the progress humanity has made (Morain & Reiser 1943, 53, 55–56).

Gray does not cite a single humanist from the US (I don’t see Sam Harris as a humanist, although some of his writings are humanistic). The only author associated with the US that he cites as a secular humanist is not regarded as a secular humanist by secular humanists in the US: of all people, Ayn Rand. Humanist values in the US exclude objectivists such as Rand. Those values in the US have always been progressive and, as Gray seems to deny, dependent on “human needs and decisions.” By US standards, Rand is an atheist, but not a humanist. To the extent that she or other atheists believed that progress was inevitable, and Gray does not cite any of Rand’s work for the proposition, Gray is right to criticize this unscientific view. Certainly some Marxist humanists and a few others have expressed that view over the years. But he is wrong to call it secular humanism.

I don’t see support in British or even Continental secular humanism for Gray’s assertion. The Articles of Association of the Humanists UK apparently do not mention progress (Wikipedia n.d.). Similarly, the many definitions of humanisms stated on the organization’s website do not mention progress (Humanists UK n.d.). British philosopher A. C. Grayling, Vice President of the organization, certainly does not advocate that position. Instead, he acknowledges that entropy applies also to human society, and insists that philosophy struggles to maintain the gains humans have made (2010, 287). As a scholar of European thought, Gray should at least consider the views of humanists in his own country. Finally, Gray does not cite the Amsterdam Declaration of humanism, which does not use the word, “progress” (Humanists International 2002). Gray’s implication that British and Continental secular humanists believe in the continuous progress of human society requires a showing of proof that he does not offer.

Like his showcasing of Rand, Gray's suggestion that Plato is the ancient standard bearer for secular humanism is totally off base, at least for US humanism. Granted, in order to salvage a few tidbits of inspiration from his other writings, too many secular humanists in the US ignore Plato's admonition in Laws 909A to execute some nonbelievers. But humanism in the US looks much more to the Sophists, which Plato generally kept at arm's length.

Not surprisingly, Gray in other ways does not accurately describe secular humanism as it is known in the US. For example, the first paragraph of the chapter discussing it describes the “belief that humans are gradually improving” as “the central article of faith of modern humanism” (2018, 24). In contrast, humanism’s embrace of evolutionary principles compels humanists to conclude that humans, as with any species, can go extinct by failing to properly adapt (Skinner 1972, 92). Right now, humanists view human-induced climate change as one possible basis for regression in the human species, if not outright extinction.

In the same vein, Gray cites John Stuart Mill's rationalism as if it is central to secular humanism. Certainly, humanist thinkers have to fight rationalist tendencies among people who call themselves humanists. Unquestionably, humanism needs to up its game on the role of emotions and values in its philosophy and in everyday life. But secular humanism’s valuing of reason is not rationalist (see, e.g., Murn 2018, 254–55). Humanism counterweights human values against the rationally derived scientific knowledge that gives humans more power to affect their fate—if they choose.

Furthermore, Gray says that the relativism of humanism means that there cannot be universal truth in ethics. In resolution of the naturalistic fallacy, secular humanism in the US openly rejects the notion of truth in ethics. That does not mean that humanists do not make truth statements about ethics. His lapses get worse, portraying Friedrich Nietzsche as well as Rand as the most influential humanists. I’d love to see Gray quote Nietzsche on the inevitability of progress!

Gray’s last avatar of secular humanism is Bertrand Russell. Russell’s views changed notoriously over the decades. While detractors called his writings “atheistic,” he called himself agnostic in his late period. Certainly, he disavowed Christianity, but that does not make him a secular humanist, much less an atheist. In his favor, Corliss Lamont placed the later Russell to be in the camp of naturalistic humanism. Russell may have called himself a humanist (Murn 2018, 61). Some of his values, i.e., pacifism and anti-imperialism, clearly fall within the range of humanist values in the U.S. As a Brit, his would have been a European humanist. But given that he lived for 40 years of modern humanism and yet never explicitly wrote about or embraced humanism, much less secular humanism, the conclusion has to at least be that he is not a representative of secular humanist thought by any measure. Gray’s treating him as one does not make it so.

In Straw Dogs, Gray made it clearer that he is not just opposed to the idea that progress is inevitable. He is opposed to the idea that progress is desirable. He states flatly that pursuing progress, which in his mind includes anything from self-improvement to struggling for justice, is a waste of time (2003, 197–98). He praises idleness, which makes his disparagement of Russell ironic, given that the latter wrote an essay praising idleness before Gray came along (1965). Humanism in the US embraces diversity and pluralism, recognizing that some people will pursue progress and others may not. Gray’s attempt to force one view, that progress is not desirable, on everyone sounds as much like a religion as the formulation of secular humanism he attacks. Humanism in the US is much more oriented toward the liberty of the individual to choose idleness or progress.

The result of Gray’s attention on all the wrong people means he completely misses the boat on humanism in the US. Neither this book nor Straw Dogs discusses thinkers at the center of US humanism. People like Max Otto, Corliss Lamont, Sidney Hook, Paul Kurtz, and John Shook do not get a mention. He completely misses the humanistic psychologists like Abraham Maslow, Priscilla Robinson, and Carl Rogers. He shows no comprehension of the origins of humanism in the US, from its roots in Protagoras of ancient Greece to John Dewey. In Straw Dogs, he acknowledges Protagoras’ “man is the measure” fragment, which Gray misinterprets as anthropocentrism, rather than a fundamental epistemological principle (2003, 55). In all, from a US perspective, the book is an epic fail in its coverage of secular humanism.

So if Gray doesn’t like secular humanism supposedly assuming progress, what does he like? To get there, he has to toss out more ideas accepted by certain atheists on his way.

His next target is atheists who, Gray says, make a religion of science. Certainly, scientifically minded people have made mistakes in trying to interpret the facts of scientific findings. Gray cites Julian Huxley, who early on embraced the view of the inferiority of Africans to Europeans. But Gray ignores the fact that the Harlem Renaissance intervened to enlighten Huxley. By 1935, Huxley was mimicking the language of Renaissance writers and advocating humanism, which Gray seems to not know. In Huxley, Gray attacks the use of evolution to assert an inevitability of progress. Again, Gray is correct in criticizing that unscientific view. But WWII made Huxley change his mind: “Gone are all ideas of rapid inevitable progress” and “There has been disillusionment about science, too” (Huxley 1952, 65). And more emphatically, for a Brit, Huxley sure ended up sounding like a US humanist.

Gray’s argument about atheists making a religion of science focuses also on Voltaire. While his argument focuses more on reason than science, he does cite racist comments by Voltaire. Voltaire’s foundation for those statements was reason, but Gray forgets to provide evidence that Voltaire was atheist. Voltaire’s criticism of Christian fables is not a valid substitute.

A few steps later, Gray is criticizing transhumanism. With the recent revelation that Jeffrey Epstein was a transhumanist, Gray’s trepidation concerning transhumanism is poignant. He says that “the transhumanist movement is a modern variant of the dream of transcending contingency that possessed mystics in ancient times.” While the transhumanist dualist possibility of individual humans transcending their bodies contradicts the humanist scientific position of monism, Gray is right to also criticize transhumanism to the extent that transhumanists like Epstein view transhumanism as embracing the bioengineering of superior humans. In this latter instance, Gray is criticizing not an unscientific belief, but a value generally not accepted by humanists under current circumstances. The unresolved ethical issues are as expansive as the science is unproven.

Gray’s next foil is atheists who believe that knowledge can provide “salvation,” whatever that is. He does not define it, but worse, he immediately leaves the notion behind in favor of focusing on millenarianism. I surmise he is asserting the promise of salvation by a great leader. Gray expounds on Gnostics and Muenster and the Jacobins without giving a clue as to how any of it relates to atheism. He does assert that the earlier influences shaped Bolshevism. Whether they did or not is irrelevant (he does not prove the point). He suggests that Bolshevism, then Nazism, then contemporary liberalism were or are all religions of science. Certainly, science played a role in Nazi genocide, racism, and anti-Semitism. But the racist, nationalist, homophobic, and elitist values of Bolshevism and Nazism have nothing to do with science and everything to do with their respective atrocities. Thus, I would suggest that the proper critique is not that these ideologies made science a religion, but that these atheisms, if that is what they were, were racist, homophobic, and elitist.

Gray asserts liberals assume that people will accept liberalism as soon as they are educated on its principles. Certainly, liberals can be criticized on that point. For liberalism is not only a matter of knowledge, but is also a value choice of which people must be persuaded. Yet, weirdly, Gray asserts, contrary to the historical record, that “without monotheism,” again, his ersatz for Christianity, “nothing like the liberal freedoms that have existed in some parts of the world would have emerged.” For a scholar of European thought, he seems ignorant of the invention of almost all basic freedoms in the democracies of ancient, polytheistic Greece. We might excuse him for ignoring the invention of at least some of them independently in democratic societies on other continents in the ancient and medieval world.

Where Gray’s book most sounds like its title is in Gray’s inclusion next of whom he calls “God-haters.” His subjects are not who you might first guess: Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky, Russian Nihilists, and William Empson. Regardless, the principle is clearly one of how some atheists choose to attack religion rather than, say, simply abandon it. Unfortunately, his discussion does not contribute anything new on that issue. He simply disagrees with them.

Following that, Gray considers atheists who not only don’t value progress, but perhaps shun it. He lauds Santayana for combining value relativism with an ideal of contemplation. Santayana did not care about progress, according to Gray. But Santayana nonetheless praised a state of mind he had achieved that might be called “mindfulness” today. He was content to detach and isolate himself from the cares of the world. Yet that state of mind could easily fall into the category of “progress.” It certainly does under the values of humanistic psychology. But, as I mentioned, Gray seems unaware of humanistic psychology. In any event, this principle again has nothing to do with being an atheist, but is one value choice anyone can make.

Casting off the various beliefs he has thus criticized, Gray spends his last chapter considering what he can accept. For that, he builds on his praise for Santayana. Indeed, he cites Schopenhauer as being even more detached than Santayana, to the point of valuing the silencing of the will. Yet Gray admits that Schopenhauer’s views were mystical in the manner of many religions. Not satisfied, Gray moves on to Spinoza and Lev Shestov. But their religiosity interferes with their compatibility with Gray’s project. Their “atheism of silence,” as he puts it, attracts him nonetheless.

Gray’s conclusion offers a surprise. It finds humanity inadequate as an object of worship. Yet he never explains why worship is necessary at all. Indeed, his apparent need for worship is arguably the biggest carryover from monotheism that can be named. Only in the conclusion does Gray reveal this essential part of his project. Certainly, it corresponds to an earlier statement in the book that “[f]ew things are more natural for humans than religion.” While “religion” has many facets, Gray does not distinguish them.

As for worship, the ancients generally did not have personal gods. “Worship” meant things like leaving offerings for the clerics and attending festivals on important religious days. In written history, late Babylonian clerics and very early Judaism introduced true worship of one or a few personal deities. Christianity increased the worship exponentially to the point of idolization. Given that Gray is saying worship is a leftover from monotheism in the form of Christianity, none of his seven types of atheism worship any thing anywhere near to the extent that monotheisms worship their one deity. Nonetheless, he states in his last paragraph that “contemporary atheism is a continuation of monotheism by other means.” Perhaps only his atheism?

In the end, Gray advocates mindful silence combined with atheism. US humanism instead advocates a pluralistic kind that lets people be silent if they want, or even agnostic, yet recognizes that valuing progress, including self-actualization and mindfulness, is a valid choice, along with anything in between.

As it happens, worshipping silent atheism is not the way Gray most closely resembles monotheists after all. That honor goes to his rhetorical tactics in the book. As I have made clear, he defines secular humanism in a manner that has nothing to do with secular humanism. It is a common tactic theists employ when attacking secular humanism (see, e.g., Murn 2019, 135–40). The theists do it intentionally in order to bolster their attack, while it is not clear that Gray purposely set up a foil, or did it out of ignorance. But given his academic perch, for him to have never encountered writings by mainstream humanists in researching humanism would evidence professional gross negligence. The evidence therefore strongly supports the conclusion that he did it intentionally. If so, that act was a political act, much as the theists do it to try to retain their power. I would suggest that the US atheist movement will see much more of internal politics of that nature, as the number of “nones” grows.

References

Gray, John. 2003. Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals. London: Granta Books.

Gray, John. 2018. Seven Types of Atheism. First American ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Grayling, A. C. 2010. Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life. N.Y.: Walker & Co.

Humanists International. 2002. “The Amsterdam Declaration.” Accessed Feb. 11, 2020.

Humanists UK. “Defining Humanism.” Accessed Feb. 11, 2020.

Huxley, Julian. 1952. “Evolutionary Humanism — Part I.” In The Best of The Humanist: Humanist Philosophy 1928 – 1973. Charles Murn, ed. Washington, D.C: The Humanist Press (2018). 66–73.

Morain, Lloyd, & Oliver Reiser. 1943. “Scientific Humanism: A Formulation.” In The Best of The Humanist: Humanist Philosophy 1928 – 1973. Charles Murn, ed. Washington, D.C: The Humanist Press (2018). 53–58.

Murn, Charles. 2018. “Two Taboos in Humanism?” In The Best of The Humanist: Humanist Philosophy 1928 – 1973. Charles Murn, ed. Washington, D.C: The Humanist Press. 254–58.

Murn, Charles. 2019. “The Reliability of Reason: What the Skeptics Point Out.” Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism. 27:125–48.

Naff, Clay Farris. March/April 2018. “Enlightenment Now: The Humanist Interview With Steven Pinker.” The Humanist. 12–16.

Otto, Max Carl. 1924. Things and Ideals, Essays in Functional Philosophy. New York: H. Holt.

Russell, Bertrand. 1965. “In Praise of Idleness.” In Socialist Humanism: An International Symposium. Erich Fromm, ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc. 225 et seq.

Saad, Lydia. 2017. “Record Few Americans Believe Bible Is Literal Word of God,” accessed April 23, 2020.

Skinner, B.F. 1972. “Humanism and Behaviorism.” In The Best of The Humanist: Humanist Philosophy 1928 – 1973, ed. by Charles Murn. Washington, D.C: The Humanist Press (2018). 87–94.

Wikipedia. “Humanists UK.” Aims. Accessed Feb. 11, 2020.