"Against All Gods" by A. C. Grayling

For those of you who are familiar with this line of discussion A. C. Grayling's "Against All Gods, Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness", a slim volume, should sit nicely beside Richard Dawkins "The God Delusion" and anything by Christopher Hitchens.


Grayling's premise and passion is obvious. That any form of religion is a special interest group, nothing more, just the same as a rotary club, or another; and that as a religion, belief in the supernatural is "...the negation of thought". Don't get him wrong. Even though those that are religious are given, without thought special status, it doesn't mean they deserve disrespect. It just means that "[i]t is time to demand of believers that they take their personal choices and preferences in these non-rational and too often dangerous matters into the private sphere, ...". And that [e]veryone is free to believe what they want, providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others; but no one is entitled to claim privileges merely on the grounds that they are votaries of one or another of the world's religions."


One has to consider the specific words here; "providing they do not bother (or coerce, or kill) others." Grayling argues that coercion begins young, long before "mature" minds prevail. This is similar to Dawkins line of thinking.

"Against All Gods" is not strictly an anti-religion polemic. It is a statement of an even more stronger root. That if the supernatural is lifted (a category of all religions according to Grayling) a stronger unifying force can blossom. A humanitarian approach. For it is in this view that "we can have a proper discussion about the ethical principles of mutual concern, imaginative sympathy and courageous tolerance on which the chances for individual and social flourishing rest. We need to meet one another as human individuals...in a pubic domain hospitable to us all..." (p. 38).

Grayling makes many strong points but it comes down to this. Who am I to judge? And with the power invested in me by the evolutionary line that I come from, riddled with chance and circumstance, I have, in this 21st century, Youtube, hyped up sensationalism, the ability to finally turn the off the tube, or not read this book. Or, one can dare to read something outside their comfort zone.
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