I have a lot of time for John Gray and what I understand to be his view of the world: One that allows for mystery and the immaterial, while removing the exceptionalism of the human animal and requirements for divinity, telos and meaning.
Even so this book left me a little flat, probably because it seemed less an argument and more a reader’s digest — thinker, biography, key thought outlined, context, brief critique. The argument such as there is — that many atheisms are clear descendants of monotheism and subject to the same flaws — makes sense to me. But I would have preferred to read more about Gray’s own atheism, and in particular how he might respond to the twin slurs of nihilism and relativism. Perhaps this is simply not the place to find that.
As an aside, I was struck by the similarity of much of the phrasing to that of Adam Curtis, especially in the first half of the book covering thinkers with whom Gray is less sympathetic.
For the record Gray’s seven types of atheism are:
New atheism, which sees religion as a failed theory to be discarded by the advance of science but in so doing totally misses the point (e.g., Dawkins).
Secular humanism, which looks for progress of a humanity which can only be mythical (John Stuart Mill, Nietzsche, Ayn Rand)
Religion from science, which is similar, but in the absence of God sees humans ultimately becoming gods themselves (e.g., Kurzweil’s singularity, or Harari’s homo deus)
Political religions, forms of gnostic and millenarian atheism which see the world as flawed and plot for a new world order, but can be seen to fail as we never see any universal progress towards any of them (Marx, Herbert Spencer, Mill).
God haters, who rail against the evils of the world and discredit virtue while still looking both for an author for suffering, whether it be nature or humanity, and for meaning in it (Sade, Dostoevsky, Empson).
Atheism without progress, the pursuit of equanimity in a chaotic material world that is indifferent (Santayana, Joseph Conrad).
Mystical atheism, life as purposeless striving, but for which the lack of meaning is redemptive (Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Shestov).
