The varieties of non-religious belief and Alain de Botton’s "Religion for Atheists"

Published in The Melbourne Anglican April 2012

I wonder how many species of atheist you know? In the light of the Global Atheist Convention coming to Melbourne this month, I’m drawing up an atheist taxonomy to make sense of the varieties of non-religious belief. Until recently my neat pigeon-holing of atheism divided my non-believing friends—with no disrespect implied—into the mad and the sad. Let me explain…

The mad atheists typified by the so-called New Atheists, are those at the vanguard of the ‘God wars’ currently fomented by a conflict-crazed media. These people are led by biologist and science populariser Richard Dawkins, the ‘high priest’ of New Atheism and like Dawkins they are very, very angry at religion. Apart from their rage, they can be recognised by 4 further characteristics: their belief that religion is to blame for the world’s woes; their dogma that science is the one and only road to truth; their ability to quote Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy verbatim; and being early adopters of technology, they know that the new iPad is called the New iPad and not the iPad 3.

The sad atheists on the other hand are those who wrestle with the God question seriously. They know that the stakes are high and that without God it is notoriously difficult to make sense of the world or of human life or death or joy or justice or even, at the philosophical end of the spectrum, of truth itself. But despite the cost, the sad atheist is convinced that there is no One who might offer a well of life-giving meaning to quell our anxieties.

Such was my neat dichotomy of atheism until it was rent asunder by popular philosopher Alain de Botton. Unless you are mediaphobic you couldn’t have missed the recent visit to Australia of de Botton; he received copious coverage promoting his book, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. And it is de Botton who has forced me to expand my taxonomy, adding another category—the glad—to the mad and the sad.

Read more »