Tag Archives: A. C. Grayling

A bible for atheists

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Atheist, A. C. Grayling has written a book giving fellow atheists advice on ways to live a good life. Other than as an act of sheer hubris, giving advice on a commodity – goodness – which has no meaning for atheists seems particularly pointless. If atheism is true, the moral actions of humans are entirely predetermined by evolution, including Grayling’s writing of this superfluous book.

From here:

In The Good Book, Professor Grayling attempts to whisk together in one tome the wisdom of Ancient Greek philosophers, Confucian sages, medieval poets and the discoveries of modern science.

Without any reference to gods, souls or afterlives, it aims to give atheists a book of inspiration and guidance as they make their way in the world.

In place of the more well-known Ten Commandments, his atheist principles are: “Love well, seek the good in all things, harm no others, think for yourself, take responsibility, respect nature, do your utmost, be informed, be kind, be courageous.”

Professor Grayling, the president elect of the British Humanist Association, is unambivalent about the biblical mission of his work.

“The point about the religious bible is that it purports to give us some direction. It contains the commands of a divinity wishing us to live a certain way,” he says.

“In fact it has a message which is that there is one great truth and one right way to live.

“The modest offering of The Good Book is that there are as many good lives as there are people who have the talent to live them, and that people must take the responsibility for thinking for themselves and making that decision for themselves.

“What this book does is try and offer them resources for thinking about that.”

The absurdity of A. C. Grayling

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From here:

One thinks with sorrow of the hundreds of thousands whose lives have been horrendously lost or affected by the great Japanese earthquake and tsunami, which will put a black mark against this year 2011 in the annals, coming so soon after the earthquake that hit Christchurch in New Zealand. The events are almost certainly linked tectonically, reminding us of the vast forces of nature that are normal for the planet itself but inimical to human life, especially when lived dangerously close to the jigsaw cracks of the earth’s surface.

Someone told me that there were to be special prayers in their local church for the people of Japan. This well-intentioned and fundamentally kindly proceeding nevertheless shows how absurd, in the literal sense of this term, are religious belief and practice. When I saw the television footage of people going to church in Christchurch after the tragic quake there, the following thoughts pressed.

In the rest of the article, Grayling goes on to point out the absurdity of believing in a God who does one of the following:

  • Creates a world where earthquakes have “awful outcomes”.
  • Creates a world which he subsequently abandoned and left to fend for itself.
  • “Inflicts violent and agonizing sufferings arbitrarily on sentient creatures” and is, therefore, “vile”.

The one possibility he doesn’t cover is the one claimed by Christianity: when God created the world it was good, without death and suffering. Both were introduced at the Fall by Man’s rebellion. God still did not abandon humanity, but sent his Son to redeem us; although suffering in this life still exists, God will eventually remake the universe and restore it to its original state – without sin, suffering or death.

Grayling would probably claim that this is absurd, too – yet it is significant that he chooses to demolish that which Christianity does not claim for God rather than what it does.

Other than that absurdity, Grayling’s railing against what religion doesn’t claim for itself is not rendered less wrong-headed by his evident belief that human suffering is in some way bad. A not particularly logical – one could even say absurd – view for a person who believes that sentient life is merely an accidental collection of interacting molecules – some of which conspired to write an article with A. C. Grayling’s name attached.