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Imagine What happens when belief in God is removed — and what takes its place?
In this second part of our series on atheism, the Curious team invite us to meet some of the thinkers who profoundly shaped modern unbelief: Feuerbach, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud and Russell. Their challenges to Christianity went far beyond simply saying, “God does not exist.” Was God a projection of human longing? Was religion a tool of oppression? Could evolution remove the need for a Creator? And when Nietzsche announced that “God is dead”, was he celebrating the disappearance of Christianity — or warning the West about what might happen when the foundations beneath morality, meaning and purpose were removed?

The episode then turns its attention to the extraordinary rise — and subsequent fragmentation — of the New Atheism of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. Why did their books capture the imagination of so many people after 9/11, and why did a movement united by opposition to religion later find itself divided over morality, identity and what atheism actually stood for? Along the way the team ask an even more basic question: what does it actually mean to be an atheist?
From strong atheism and agnostic atheism to apatheism, misotheism and John Gray’s “seven types”, this episode asks whether atheism is simply the absence of belief — or whether every account of reality ultimately has to answer the deeper questions of meaning, morality, dignity, purpose and hope.

Further Reading
Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode….

https://sharedveracity.net/2021/12/11/how-believers-become-unbelievers-a-review-of-alec-ryries-emotional-history-of-doubt/

https://learn.ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/history-of-atheism


What we’re reading?
As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!

John Gray—
Seven Types of Atheism

Alec Ryri—
Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt

Alister McGrath—
The Twilight of Atheism

Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com

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Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions!

Atheism can look like the obvious alternative to belief in God, but its story is far more complex than simply “science replaced religion.” In this episode, the Curious team trace the development of unbelief from the ancient world through the Enlightenment and into the modern West, asking why atheism remained a minority position for so long — and what changed. From Diagoras, Democritus and Epicurus to Hume, Voltaire and the intellectual revolutions that followed, we explore the different ideas that slowly reshaped the way Western culture thought about God, reason, morality and human freedom.

Along the way, the team challenge the idea that atheism is one single worldview. Marx, Nietzsche, Russell and Dawkins do not all mean the same thing when they reject God, and even the word atheism has had a fascinating history — Christians themselves were once accused by the Romans of being “atheists” because they rejected the pagan gods. So how did a marginal philosophical position become one of the dominant stories of modern Western culture? And what assumptions does atheism itself bring to the table? This week’s Theology for the Curious is an invitation to look beyond slogans and understand the deeper history behind one of the most influential intellectual movements of our age.

Further Reading
Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles, for and against, that compliment this episode….

https://sharedveracity.net/2021/12/11/how-believers-become-unbelievers-a-review-of-alec-ryries-emotional-history-of-doubt/

https://learn.ligonier.org/podcasts/5-minutes-in-church-history-with-stephen-nichols/history-of-atheism


What we’re reading?
As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!

John Gray—
Seven Types of Atheism

Alec Ryri—
Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt

Alister McGrath—
The Twilight of Atheism

Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com

Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious
Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious

Click here to text us your thoughts and questions!

For seven months, theologians gathered through a bitter Dutch winter to answer questions that had already spilled far beyond the walls of the church. A professor was dead. His followers were fighting for their theological inheritance. A powerful statesman awaited his fate. And delegates had travelled from across Europe to a small Dutch city to decide what Christians could — and could not — say about grace, freedom, election and the saving purposes of God.

Four centuries later, the arguments have survived almost everything else about the controversy. Why does one person believe while another does not? Does God choose us because we believe, or do we believe because God has chosen us? Did Christ die in precisely the same sense for everyone? Can saving grace finally be resisted — and can somebody genuinely united to Christ ultimately walk away? Behind the familiar labels Calvinism and Arminianism lies a much more complicated and human story. This week the Curious team continue their exploration of the impact and reach of the teaching of Jacob Arminius as they enter the Synod of Dort and discover how five disputed articles helped shape a theological conversation that Christians are still having today.

Further Reading
Here’s a bit of homework for you….we’ve included a few articles that compliment this episode….

https://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/confessions/canons-dort

https://www.crcna.org/news-and-events/news/digging-history-synod-dort

https://seedbed.com/a-primer-on-prevenient-grace/

What we’re reading?
As a feature to our notes, we are adding the book or books that we’ve browsed related to this episode…enjoy!

W. Robert Godfrey—
Saving The Reformation: The Pastoral Theology of the Canons of Dort

Send your questions or thoughts to: theologyforthecurious@gmail.com

Support us on Instagram @theologyforthecurious
Find us on TikTok: @theologyforthecurious