Atheism: No God, What Now?

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06/05/23 • 77 min

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This time: the tumultuous history of Atheism. The concept has been around since the ancient world but for centuries it was demonised and suppressed. Who could believe such a thing? Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey track the ultimate heresy from the earliest days of western civilisation to the freethinkers of the Enlightenment and the bare-knuckle oratory of the New Atheists.

What’s the difference between atheism, agnosticism, secularism and deism? What does it stand for? Can it explain the world while also satisfying the need for meaning and community? Was totalitarianism the monstrous zenith of atheism or just a substitute religion?

Thomas Paine, Bertrand Russell, Percy Shelley, Albert Camus, Richard Dawkins and more feature in the story of the fight for the right not to believe in God.

Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod

“Every day around the world it is incalculable the amount of damage done by religions saying; you can’t go there, you can’t marry them, you can’t say that.” – Ian Dunt
“Declaring oneself an atheist is still a bold claim.” – Dorian Lynskey
“It’s quite a humbling experience to think it’s taken us 1,500 years to get back to the position we were in in 300AD.” – Ian Dunt

Reading List:

Julian Baggini – Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

David Berman – A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell

Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus

John Gray – Seven Types of Atheism

Christopher Hitchens – God Is Not Great

Christopher Hitchens (ed.) – The Portable Atheist

Susan Jacoby – Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Necessity of Atheism

James Thrower – A Short History of Western Atheism

Tim Whitmarsh – Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Episode art by James Parrett. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast

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Thomas Paine, Bertrand Russell, Percy Shelley, Albert Camus, Richard Dawkins and more feature in the story of the fight for the right not to believe in God.

Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod

“Every day around the world it is incalculable the amount of damage done by religions saying; you can’t go there, you can’t marry them, you can’t say that.” – Ian Dunt
“Declaring oneself an atheist is still a bold claim.” – Dorian Lynskey
“It’s quite a humbling experience to think it’s taken us 1,500 years to get back to the position we were in in 300AD.” – Ian Dunt

Reading List:

Julian Baggini – Atheism: A Very Short Introduction

David Berman – A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell

Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus

John Gray – Seven Types of Atheism

Christopher Hitchens – God Is Not Great

Christopher Hitchens (ed.) – The Portable Atheist

Susan Jacoby – Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Necessity of Atheism

James Thrower – A Short History of Western Atheism

Tim Whitmarsh – Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion

https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast

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Previous Episode

Churchill part 2: Inside the Enigma Machine

Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt explain the most misunderstood ideas and people in politics.

This time: part 2 of their Winston Churchill deconstruction. The pair chronicle the turbulent decade that defined Churchill's political legacy. From Munich and his unexpected elevation to power, from the Bengal Famine to victory over Hitler, his surprise defeat in the 1945 election and his long, gloomy decline, they look at a life which still casts a shadow over Britain. And they even read Boris Johnson’s Churchill book, so you don’t have to.

Churchill craved greatness. Did he live up to his ideal? There’s only one way to find out...

Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod

“I think what he did was primarily journalism, rather than being a prime minister.” – Ian Dunt
“People think they can look at Churchill like a lifestyle guru they can replicate without the nuance.” – Dorian Lynskey
“Churchill personifies the European confusion that has lasted in this country to the present day” – Ian Dunt

Reading List:

Churchill by Roy Jenkins

The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson

Churchill: Military Genius or Menace? By Stephen Napier

Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. Ricks

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts

Oblivion or Glory: 1921 and the Making of Winston Churchill by David Stafford

Churchill’s Shadow by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Free Thinking: Churchill's Reputation – BBC Radio 3

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast

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Next Episode

Nuclear War part 1: The Unthinkable

1 Recommendations

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts you thought you knew.

This time: the ‘genocide machine’ – nuclear war. With Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer on its way and anxieties about Putin’s nuclear arsenal in the air, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey take us through how the human race learned to live with the first weapon that could potentially spell global annihilation.

From the invention of the atomic bomb in a novel by HG Wells to the triumph of the Manhattan Project and the horror of Hiroshima, a modern Pandora’s Box opens. Einstein calls his role in the story his “one great mistake”, Oppenheimer says he has blood on his hands, and an anxious world wonders if it will be blown up tomorrow.

This one has the lot: fear, guilt, paranoia and a glimpse of the end of the world.

Listen to Part 2 right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod

“It wasn’t just a weapon. It’s an angry god. It’s Godzilla.” – Dorian Lynskey
“The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish... The atomic bomb has spelled [these words] out for all to understand.” – J Robert Oppenheimer
“There should be a statue of Vasili Arkhipov in every town in the world. His refusal to fire stopped a nuclear war.” – Ian Dunt

Reading List:

Luis Alvarez – Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist

Martin Amis – Einstein’s Monsters

Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin – American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

David C. Cassidy – J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century

Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi – The Worlds of Herman Kahn

Herman Kahn – On Thermonuclear War

William Lanouette – Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard

William L. Laurence – Dawn Over Zero: The Story of the Atomic Bomb

Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk - Indefensible Weapons

Ronald Reagan – An American Life

Jonathan Schell – The Fate of the Earth

P.D. Smith – Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon

H.G. Wells – The World Set Free

The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, by Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels

The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast

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