You might think that being an atheist is pretty straightforward – all you have to do is not believe in God (or gods) and you’re in the club. But as with theism, atheism comes in different forms where the central idea is bundled up with other essential ideas. If you dissent from these additional articles of faith then you are definitely not in the club, i.e. atheism has its heretics too.
In the English-speaking world, the dominant form of intellectual atheism is not only atheist in its essentials, but also neo-Darwinist and humanist. Thus when the distinguished American philosopher Thomas Nagel published an entirely secular critique of neo-Darwinism, he caused a bit of a stink. The Dawkins brigade were somewhat less than thrilled and it was named as the ‘Most Despised Science Book of the Year’ in the Guardian.
In a book review for the New York Times, Nagel introduces us to the thoughts of a fellow heretic (albeit one he has his own disagreements with) – the British philosopher John Gray, who though an atheist is not a humanist:
This is very naughty of Mr Gray, pursuing orthodox atheism to its logical conclusions is not something one does in polite society. And in any case, does he have anything to put in place of humanism?
As a matter of fact, he does. It’s set out in his book The Silence of Animals, a philosophy which Nagel summarises as follows:
But this is where Gray’s own logic runs into the buffers. You see, if we are supposed to just let the world be, to accept nature as it is, then surely that means we must also accept human nature as it is (humanity being an entirely natural phenomenon according to Gray). Yet, it is very clearly not in our nature let the world be – or to free ourselves “of the perpetual need for commentary, understanding and transcendence”.
We are not like the animals. Something within us is always looking for ultimate explanations. We can’t simply put it away, it is part of who we are.
It’s almost as if it were there for a reason.