AC Grayling would like us to consider adopting humanism (with a small “h”) as an attitude, not a doctrine.


To understand humanism, we have to understand why we have ever been a race predisposed to theism at all. This is why the first part of his book The God Argument attempts to explain the evolution of belief, while the second part describes the principles of humanism.


The sold-out audience were rapt as the egalitarian, self-effacing and witty philosopher described the rationale behind the attitude: that religion exists almost solely as a crutch borne of our macho inability to conceive of happenings not due to human causation, and as a convenient antidote to fear.


Drawing from an immense wealth of knowledge and perhaps some satisfying evenings round a solid oak table with his more shouty friends Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, Grayling’s aim with The God Argument is to present a kinder, calmer alternative to the fashionable combative Atheist stance, while still renouncing religion entirely.


“A militant atheist,” claimed Grayling, “cannot exist. After all, you’re either a militant stamp-collector, or you simply do not collect stamps.”