How to be a Puritan Atheist

How and why did Christians in the 17th-century start wrestling with unbelief? What made these doubts so powerful?
A lecture by Alec Ryrie, Gresham Professor of Divinity 14 March 2019
www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...
Early ‘atheism’ did not always mean angry rejection of religion. The most earnest believers were often ones who wrestled most seriously with doubts.
This lecture will look at how and why Christians in the seventeenth century first began seriously to wrestle with unbelief, whether troubled by feelings that God was absent, worries about religious variety or fear of damnation. What made these doubts so powerful was that their roots were not philosophical, but emotional.
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[@vejeke]

I was raised without religious indoctrination. For me to be an atheist is as natural as for a Christian not to believe in Vishnu.

[@nightoftheworld]

45:18 "The _problem of suffering_ which is the most evergreen, rational argument against Christianity, doesn't seem to have had much purchase. The rational doubts that were cited: _whether the bible is to be trusted, whether there's an immortal soul,_ these were nothing new, they'd been around for centuries. The Protestant reformation hasn't made Christians ask these questions for the first time. Instead, it's taken doubts that had been suffused through the culture and it's distilled them-it's mobilized doubt as a weapon and encouraged ordinary believers to do the same, for fighting between the different communities. In the hope that they'll make their way through to a reflective and experienced faith rather than a simple and trusting one, but that journey was a dangerous one. Individual believers were compelled to confront their doubts, to ask on _exactly which foundation their long professed beliefs actually stood?_ It brought unbelief out into the open and did so quite deliberately on the principle that _you should keep the devil where you can see him._ And so the implicit doubts that had long pervaded Christendom become _explicit._ Of course the aim of this wasn't to turn believers into unbelievers, it was to turn naive believers into sophisticated, self-aware believers who'd confronted temptation and overcome it, and very often it worked. But becoming a sophisticated believer was neither a simple nor a controllable transformation. The process had costs and it had casualties-and it had consequences. These doubters, often paralyzed by despair and anxiety may not sound like they were likely to effect very much actual change, but in fact some of those who faced up to these doubts and managed to rebuild their lives afterwards became the leading challengers of the religions of their day as a result. They didn't see themselves as Atheists, quite the opposite, but in fact it was these _earnest wrestlers with doubt_ more than anyone else, who despite themselves, layed the foundations for _modern unbelief."_

[@markhughes7927]

As anyone who works with critical systems knows - 99% confidence is an intolerable level of risk........21:35

[@CandidDate]

People get bored and restless (elite rulers) or feel persecuted and treated unfairly (commoners) - spells revolution either way.

[@nightoftheworld]

35:43 "Trying to jump start your faith by going through the motions could end up just draining away whatever life there was left in it. The most powerful weapons against this temptation to unbelief weren't trite rationalizations or these techniques of self-manipulation, but arguments that combined logical force with emotional punch." _Hegel?_

[@nightoftheworld]

38:28 "[T]hat sense of awe, in this case intertwined with her love for her father is the same-so what begins as logic can end as worship."

[@dakrontu]

How bizarre: That a person does not believe, but is desperate to do so. What a terrible self-imposed agony that is completely unnecessary. What if you like strawberry ice cream but not banana ice cream? Can you imagine being desperate for a way to like banana and not strawberry?

[@matimus100]

10 people got 😨

[@ivanc.6064]

9:30 xD 38:00 nature like art does inspire us

[@TREUMER0304703199]

A puritan ´distance of God´ (ablative phenomenon) amid a-theistic approach!

[@garypowell1540]

I would very much prefer that whenever the words Atheist or Atheism are used it is made very clear as to the word's precise definitions for the purpose of the lecture. As an ordained minister myself, I keep it, simple, very simple. An atheist is someone that does not believe in any form of creation, that the entire universe and everything within it and without it is the product of some kind of cosmic inevitability, pure chance or accident. This sorts the men from the boys immediately and ends all of the constant wast of time discussing the details or traditions contained within different religions including Atheism itself, which is indeed a religiously held belief system based quite literally on absolutely nothing at all. In this sense, Darwinism and its highly associated evolutionary cosmology are the essential foundation stones of Atheism. The only ones holding up the entire edifice of materialism, and increasingly crumbling ones at that. Whether the Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Red Indians, African tribesman, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, or indeed Roman Catholics have it right or not, is of no importance whatsoever if this entire collective belief system denies the CREATION itself. One either builds one's house on solid rock or on shifting sands and no prizes for guessing what eventually happens to the latter structure. It either falls down or shifts with it. A true theologian or gnostic holds far more doubts than certainties, and this was as true in former times as it is today. He knew that allegorically based dogma, along with tons of traditions and familiar ceremonies, is what the people very much preferred and so plenty of this is what they were given. While if the seats are as filled as the collection plate, bank account, and property portfolio why change much if anything? Or at least they were with regards to Christianity until some people started pointing out that much of it had either nothing whatsoever to do with The Instruction Manual, and some of it was directly antithetical to the words and actions of the main characters, the proverbial hit the fan. A very big problem with very nasty consequences, which still has not been sorted. However, a typical reaction when big lies have been told for hundreds of years, and people start to find this out, while being dumbed down enough to believe that the destiny of their immortal souls depends on getting these kinds of largely tradition-based purely arbitrary details spot-on correct. The masses not only prefer not to think for themselves most of them can't do so however hard they try. They just want to believe that someone out there is taking care of all that keeping good with God kinda stuff, so they can get on with harvesting their crops or making some cash while taking care of themselves, their families, and if they have anything left to give, their wider communities. I preach a very simple message, which people seem to understand extremely well and very easily. DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD WISH THEY WOULD DO UNTO YOU. I do this while reminding them of the following. In the Beginning, God Created The Heavens and The Earth. Really chaps keep it simple and the people just about get it. The entire Christian message is contained within just these two sentences.