An Emotional History Of doubt

In John Bunyan’s Classic Masterpiece “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, The Two Friends “Christian” And “Hopeful” Meet A Man Named “Atheist” On Their Way To Search For Heaven. As Soon As They Tell Him About Their Destination, The Man Bursts Into Hysterical, Sarcastic Laughter, Calling Them Ignorant For Embarking On An Arduous Journey Towards A Place “That Exists Only In Dreams”. The Two Friends Continue Their Way And Plug Their Ears To His Words, But Bunyan Was Fully Aware, As He Wrote His Text In The 1670s, That Those Sarcastic Words Possessed A Terrifying And Seductive Appeal. The Idea Of “Atheism” Was Hovering Like A Ghost Over Western Cultures That Were Once Purely Christian.

From This Eloquent Starting Point, Historian Alec Ryrie Sets Off In His Thought-Provoking Book “Unbelievers: An Emotional History Of Doubt” To Dismantle One Of The Most Entrenched Narratives In Modern History: The Story Of The Death Of God In The West.

From This Eloquent Starting Point, Historian Alec Ryrie Sets Off In His Thought-Provoking Book “Unbelievers: An Emotional History Of Doubt” To Dismantle One Of The Most Entrenched Narratives In Modern History: The Story Of The Death Of God In The West.

The Illusion Of Beginnings: Atheism Was Not Born In Enlightenment Salons

For Many Decades, A Stereotypical Narrative Settled In Minds Saying That Atheism And The Decline Of Religion In The West Were The Creation Of The Minds Of Philosophers, Scientists, And Intellectual Elites. The Common Story Says That The Scientific Revolution And The Enlightenment Era In The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries, Thanks To Thinkers Like Spinoza, Voltaire, And Kant, Up To Darwin, Had Launched A Sweeping Cognitive Attack With Logic And Science On The Fortresses Of The Church, Making Religion Gradually Just A “Redundant Hypothesis”.

But Alec Ryrie Rejects This Narrative, Describing It As An “Intellectualist Fallacy”. The Timelines, The Suspects, And Even The Nature Of The “Murder Of God” (As Nietzsche Described It) Are All Wrong. The Intellectual Elites Always Tend To Overestimate The Power Of Ideas, Deluding Themselves That They Are The Ones Who Make The Weather Of History, While In Reality They Are Just Late Passengers Trying Retrospectively To Explain The Storms That Have Already Blown.

The Book Poses A Fundamental Question That Turns The Equation Upside Down: What If People Stopped Believing First, For Emotional, Psychological, And Societal Reasons, And Then Found Themselves In Need Of Philosophers To Formulate Rational Arguments Justifying This Sudden Shift? Humans, As Ryrie Sees It, Do Not Make Their Major Life Choices Based On Cold Calculations, But Rather Make Them Intuitively And With Their Entire Emotional Being. Faith Is An Intuitive Emotional Choice, And So Is “Unbelief”.

From Here, Ryrie Presents An “Emotional” History Of Doubt, Tracing Two Main Emotional Currents That Swept Away The Certainties Of The West:

• “Anger” Flowing Against The Power Of The Church And Its Men.

• “Anxiety” Hidden And Disturbing From The Collapse Of Religious Certainty And The Individual’s Inability To Maintain Their Inner Faith.

The Age Of Doubts: The Anger Of The Commoners And The Blasphemy Of Drunks

Ryrie Takes Us On A Journey To The Middle Ages, Which Are Often Described As The Absolute “Age Of Faith”, To Prove That Doubt Was Always Present As A Faint Murmur, Even If It Did Not Yet Possess A Coherent Philosophical Manifesto. Atheism In That Era Was Not An Intellectual System, But Was Closer To A “Rumor” Or Unconscious Doubt, Embodied In The Story Of The Mythical Book “Of The Three Impostors” That Emperor Frederick II Was Alleged To Have Inspired, In Which Moses, Jesus, And Muhammad Were Described As Mere Deceivers Who Bewitched The Minds Of Humans. Although This Book Did Not Actually Exist In That Era, The Mere Whispered Circulation Of Its Title Was Evidence Of The Psychological Readiness To Reject The Sacred.

Anger Manifests As The First Driver Of Doubt In The Middle Ages Through The Phenomenon Of “Blasphemy”. The Crude Blasphemy, Which The Inquisitions Looked Into Daily, Was Not Just A Slip Of The Tongue, But An Expression Of Popular Resentment Towards Priestly Authority, Strict Moral Restrictions, And Even Towards The God Who Was Believed To Allow Suffering.

When An Angry Spanish Peasant Or A Losing Gambler Shouts That “God Is Nothing” Or Mocks The Doctrine Of Transubstantiation Of Bread And Wine Into The Body Of Christ With Biting Words, He Was Not Reading Philosophers, But Was Emptying A Charge Of Anger Towards The Clergymen Who Drain His Money. This Anger, Despite Its Crudeness, Was The Beginning Of The Formation Of Primitive “Secular” Spaces, Such As Taverns And Gambling Halls, Where The Rules Of Heaven Do Not Apply.

Doctors And Humanists: The Seeds Of Silent Rebellion

Alongside The Anger Of The Commoners, There Was A Colder Anxiety And Doubt Brewing In The Doctors’ Rooms. The Author Explains How The Medical Profession Has Historically Been Associated With Doubt; European Medicine Derived Its Roots From The Greek Galen, Who Did Not Believe In The Immortality Of The Soul. Doctors, By The Nature Of Their Profession, Were Looking For Natural Causes For Diseases (Naturians) And Trying To Change Destinies Instead Of Surrendering To Them As “Divine Will”. This Trend Created A Silent Gulf Between The Doctor And The Priest, Manifested In The Veiled Sarcasm Of Some Doctors Towards The Church’s Miracles Of Healing, Which They Considered Mere Exploitation Of The Pockets Of Naive Patients.

Then Came The Italian Renaissance To Make Matters Worse. The Humanists Did Not Initially Intend To Demolish Christianity, But Wanted To Revive The Eloquence Of Ancient Rome. But Their Fascination With The Texts Of Pagan Thinkers Like Lucretius, Who Viewed The Universe As A Random Movement Of Atoms And Spoke Of The Annihilation Of The Soul, Led To The Slow Seepage Of Epicurean Philosophical Ideas Into European Soil.

This Trend Reaches Its Pragmatic Peak With Niccolò Machiavelli. In His Book “The Prince”, And Other Discourses, Machiavelli Stripped Religion Of Any Metaphysical Sanctity, Turning It Into A Mere Political Tool To Tame Peoples And Build States. Machiavelli Did Not Present Theological Atheism, But Presented Something More Dangerous: Practical Atheism Stemming From Contempt For The “Naivety” Of Christian Spirituality, And Celebrating The Cold Pragmatism That Considers Religion Merely A Useful Trick For The Smart Ruler.

These Early Harbingers Of Popular Anger, Medical Doubt, And Humanistic Fascination Did Not Demolish The Edifice Of Christianity In The West, But Served As Frictions And Tensions That Could Be Absorbed Within The General System. But Things Were About To Change Radically And Violently.

The Erosion Of Authority: When Everyone Called Each Other Liars

Before The Reformation, The Catholic Church Was The Sole Reference For Truth. But When Protestants Began To Attack Rome, They Used A Deadly Weapon: “Methodological Doubt”. Protestants Described Catholic Miracles As “Superstitions”, Considered Saints’ Relics “Hoaxes”, And Mocked The Doctrine Of Transubstantiation By Describing It As “Cannibalism” Or “Cheap Magic”.

Catholics Responded In Kind, Attacking The Principle Of “Scripture Alone” Advocated By Luther, Asserting That The Absence Of Church Authority Would Lead To Interpretative Chaos, Where Everyone Would Make A “God” To Their Measure. Ryrie Explains That This Mutual Bombardment Between The Two Parties Led To A Result No One Expected: The Commoners Learned How To “Doubt”. When People Spend Decades Hearing Religious Authorities Call Each Other Liars, The Logical Result Is Not Their Bias Towards One Side, But Their Deep-Seated Question: “What If Everyone Is Lying?”.

The Anger Of The “Rebels”: Atheism As An Act Of Political Rebellion

Here “Anger” Emerges Again As An Emotional Driver. In The Midst Of The Religious Wars That Tore Europe Apart, Doubt Began To Take On A Radical Character. Ryrie Focuses On Groups Like The “Illuminati” Or The “Ranters” In England, Who Pushed The Ideas Of The Reformation To Their Extreme Limits. These Individuals Were No Longer Content With Attacking The Pope, But Began Attacking The Idea Of “Hell” And “Original Sin”, Considering Them Merely Tools Invented By “Kings And Priests” To Enslave The Poor.

For These Angry Individuals, “Unbelief” Was Not An Intellectual Luxury, But A Cry Of Liberation. If There Is No Hell, There Is No Fear Of Rebelling Against The King. And If There Is No God Watching Every Move, Man Is His Own Master. This “Practical Atheism” Was Driven By A Deep Hatred Of The Social Injustice That Was Practiced In The Name Of Religion.

The Doubt That Inhabits The “Believer”: The Great Protestant Anxiety

But The Most Dangerous Type Of Doubt Was Not That Practiced By Rebels, But That Which Inhabits The Heart Of The Pious Believer Himself. Ryrie Dives Into The “History Of Anxiety” That Accompanied Protestantism. While Catholicism Offered “Safety” Through Rituals And Confession, Protestantism Threw The Entire Burden Onto The Shoulders Of The Individual. The Believer Had To Search Deep Within His Heart For “Signs Of Salvation”.

This Constant Self-Examination Led To A Kind Of “Faith-Based Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”. The Book Recounts Touching Stories Of Protestant Believers, Like The Poet Sarah Wight Or The Writer John Bunyan, Who Were Tormented By Doubt: “What If I Am A Hypocrite?”, “What If My Faith Is Just An Illusion?”. This Exhausting Existential Anxiety Sometimes Made The Idea Of “No God Existing” Seem Like A “Relief” Or A Way Out Of The Torment Of Conscience.

Ryrie Believes That This Anxiety Is The True “Laboratory” Of Modern Atheism. The Person Who Was Accustomed To Doubting The Sincerity Of His Religious Feelings Daily Became Psychologically Prepared To Accept The Idea That Religion As A Whole Might Just Be A Psychological Construct.

Atheism As A “Shadow” Of Faith

Ryrie Concludes This Context By Emphasizing That “Unbelief” In The Seventeenth Century Was Not A Denial Of God’s Existence As Much As It Was An Inability To “Feel” Him. Religion Transformed From A Self-Evident Truth Like Air, Into An “Issue” That Needs Defense And Emotional Mobilization. And When Certainty Becomes An “Effort”, Doubt Begins To Grow In The Voids.

The Religious Wars, Identity Conflicts, And The Internal Tearing Of Believers Paved The Way For The Emergence Of The “Philosopher” Who Would Come Later To Put Words Over These Emotional Wounds. Spinoza Or Hobbes Were Not The Ones Who Created Doubt, But They Were Simply Gathering The Debris Left By The Storms Of Religious “Anger” And “Anxiety”.

From Silent Rebellion To Alternative Certainty: How Reason Forged Its Weapons From The Glow Of Emotions?

As We Entered The Seventeenth Century, That Muffled Emotional Tension Began To Find Unprecedented Intellectual And Political Outlets. Doubt Was No Longer Just A Crisis Of Conscience Suffered By The Believer In His Chamber, But Turned Into A Historical Driving Force That Reshaped The Public Sphere In The West. In This Part Of The Book “Unbelievers”, Alec Ryrie Focuses On The Moment When Doubt Began To Take Off Its Defensive Cloak To Wear The Armor Of Attack, Based On The Accumulations Of Emotions That Had Reached Their Maturity.

Philosophy As A Linguistic Translation Of Emotions: Hobbes And Spinoza

Traditional History Of Philosophy Tells Us That Thomas Hobbes In England And Baruch Spinoza In The Netherlands Are The Spiritual Fathers Of The Intellectual Radicalism That Paved The Way For Atheism. But Ryrie Rereads These Two Giants From An Emotional Perspective; Hobbes Was Not Driven By An “Abstract Desire To Deny God”, But Was Terrified By The Chaos Of The English Civil Wars Fueled By Religious Conflicts. His Emotional Driver Was The “Fear Of Chaos” And His Pursuit Of “Security”. Therefore, In His Book “Leviathan”, He Did Not Deny God, But Stripped Religion Of Its Claws, Turning It Into A State Function Completely Subordinate To The King, With The Aim Of Silencing The Destructive Energy Of Religious Anger.

As For Spinoza, He Was Driven By Another Kind Of Emotion: The Longing For “Spiritual Peace And Freedom” Away From The Fanaticism Of Religious Institutions, Whether The Jewish One That Expelled Him, Or The Christian One That Besieged Him. When Spinoza Presented His Revolutionary Idea That “God And Nature Are One And The Same” (Deus Sive Natura), He Was Not Presenting A Cold Mathematical Equation, But Was Providing An Emotional Way Out For A Generation Tired Of The God Of Wars And Sects, Searching For A God Who Does Not Get Angry, Does Not Take Revenge, And Does Not Demand The Blood Of Heretics. Philosophy Here Did Not Create Doubt, But Gave It Moral And Intellectual Legitimacy.

Science And Mechanics: The Universe As A Clock That Does Not Need A Daily Maker

At The Same Time, The Scientific Revolution Was Establishing A New View Of The World, Which Was A View That Expanded Into The Emotional Void Left By The Decline Of Religious Certainty. With Isaac Newton And Robert Boyle, The Universe In Minds Turned Into A “Huge Tight Machine” Resembling A Clock.

The Paradox Is That Newton And Boyle Were Devout Believers, And Wanted Through Revealing The Laws Of Nature To Prove The Greatness Of The Creator. But The Unintended Emotional Impact Of “Newtonian Mechanics” Was Exactly The Opposite. Western Man Gradually Felt “Dispensability”. If Natural Laws Manage Everything With Extreme Precision, Then The Need For Direct Divine Intervention To Create Miracles Or Run Daily Affairs Faded Emotionally. God Turned From An “Intending And Caring Heavenly Father” To A “Retired Engineer” Who Set The Laws And Then Stepped Aside. This Psychological Transition Made The Idea Of The Complete Absence Of God A Familiar And Unterrifying Idea.

The Rise Of “Practical Atheism” And The Beginning Of The Secular Age Of Doubt

Ryrie Observes In This Stage A Phenomenon He Calls “Practical Atheism”. It Differs From Philosophical Atheism; Since These People Did Not Possess An Integrated Theory To Deny The Existence Of God, But Simply Lived Their Lives “As If God Does Not Exist”.

Commercial Expansion, The Discovery Of New Worlds (Which Turned Out To Include Peoples Living Morally Without Knowledge Of Christianity), And The Rise Of Consumer Culture Contributed To Creating Purely Worldly Interests. The Old Protestant “Anxiety” Began To Melt In A Sea Of Material Preoccupations. People Were No Longer Afraid Of Hell Because They Simply No Longer Had The Time To Think About It, And The Tavern, The Cafe, The Stock Exchange, And The Lodge Became Alternative Spaces Satisfying Human Desire For Belonging And Socializing Without The Need For Church Rituals.

This Era Was The Moment When The Small Emotional Streams Met To Form A Roaring River; Where The Anger Of The Rebels Met With The Anxiety Of The Seekers Of Certainty, And Everyone Was Covered With The Cloak Of Science And Political Pragmatism, For The West To Become On The Verge Of A Major Leap Towards Pure Enlightenment.

The Baptism Of The Enlightenment And The Rise Of The “Alternative Religion”: When Morals Abandoned Heaven

With The Dawn Of The Eighteenth Century, Which Historians Termed The “Age Of Enlightenment”, The Story Of Doubt Entered A New Phase Of Maturity And Organization. Unbelief Was No Longer Just A Spontaneous Emotional Reaction Or Philosophical Treatments For The Besieged Elite; Rather It Turned Into A Sweeping Current Possessing Its Intellectual Tools, Its Literary Salons, And Its Alternative Sanctities. But Alec Ryrie, With His Usual Brilliance, Reminds Us At This Turning Point In His Book “Unbelievers” That This Rise Was Not A Victory For Pure Reason As Much As It Was A Redirection And Framing Of Deep Human Emotions.

The Battle Of Morals: Wrenching Virtue From The Hand Of The Church

The Traditional Religious Narrative Had Relied For Centuries On An Inevitable Idea: “If God Does Not Exist, Everything Is Permitted”, Which Is The Statement Formulated By Fyodor Dostoevsky Later With Brilliance. The Firm Belief Was That The Absence Of Faith Necessarily Meant Falling Into The Swamp Of Vice, Selfishness, And Barbarism.

Here The Philosophers Of The Enlightenment Fought A Fierce Emotional And Moral Battle To Break This Monopoly. Thinkers Like David Hume In Scotland, And Voltaire And Denis Diderot In France, Realized That The Only Way To Make Unbelief Socially Acceptable And Respected Was To Prove That “The Atheist Can Be A Virtuous Person With A Living Conscience”.

The Goal Was Not Just A Theological Dismantling Of Dogmas, But An Attempt To Build “Secular Morals” Based On Natural Human Sympathy And Social Duty. The Enlightenment Thinkers Argued That Man Does Good Not Out Of Fear Of Hellfire Or Greed For Heaven, But Because He Has An Innate Moral Instinct That Makes Him Feel Pain For The Pain Of Others And Rejoice In Their Happiness. This Emotional Shift Enabled Western Man To Abandon Faith Without The Lingering Guilt Or Fear Of Moral Collapse.

The French Revolution: Overwhelming Anger Embodied In The “Cult Of Reason”

These Moral Ideas Soon Turned Into An Explosive Revolutionary Energy With The Outbreak Of The French Revolution In 1789. Here, The Accumulated Historical “Anger” Against The Alliance Of The “Throne And The Church” Converged To Turn Into A Destructive Hurricane. The Revolution Was Not Content With Confiscating The Properties Of The Catholic Church, But Tried To “Dechristianize” Completely From The French Soil.

In A Scene Reflecting How Unbelief Needs Rituals And Emotions Exactly Like Religion, The Revolutionaries Established The “Cult Of Reason”, And Turned The Famous Notre-Dame Cathedral In Paris Into A “Temple Of Reason”, Where A Woman Representing The Goddess Of Liberty And Reason Was Placed On The Altar For The Revolutionaries To Circumambulate Around Her In Semi-Religious Rituals.

Ryrie Explains That This Extremism Was Not A Cold Rational Act, But A Highly Charged Emotional Ritual Of Revenge And The Desire To Fill The Huge Spiritual Void Left By The Absence Of The Old God. The French Revolution Proved That Reason, When Worshipped, Quickly Adopts All The Traits Of The Ecclesiastical Fanaticism It Came To Fight.

The Nineteenth Century: Atheism As A “Sacred Mission”

With The Transition To The Nineteenth Century, And The Arrival Of The Industrial Revolution, Doubt Took On A More Sober And Profound Character. The Author Focuses On A Fundamental Shift In The Nature Of Atheism; Since Unbelief Was No Longer Just A Comfortable Intellectual Choice, But Was Looked Upon As A “Moral Duty And A Sacred Mission” In Order To Liberate Humanity.

Atheism In The Nineteenth Century Turned Into An Alternative Creed Possessing Its Prophets (Marx, Darwin, And Freud) And Its Holy Book (Pure Science) And Its Salvific Ambitions To Establish Paradise On Earth Through Scientific And Social Progress. “Emotional Doubt” Finally Succeeded In Building Its Complete Intellectual Fortresses, And Was Ready To Record Its Ultimate Victory In The Twentieth Century.

Contemporary Secularism: When Doubt Became The Air We Breathe

Ryrie Dismantles At The Conclusion Of His Book The Nature Of The “Omniscient Society” Or The Current Secular Age. In The Past, The Atheist Or Skeptic Was The Person Who Had To Exert Emotional And Intellectual Effort And Muster Great Courage To Declare His Departure From The Familiar And The Sacred. As For Today, The Situation Is Completely Reversed In Western Societies And Broad Segments Of The World; Since Secularism Has Become The “Default Mode” In Which A Person Is Born And Lives Without Feeling The Need To Take A Specific Existential Stance.

Contemporary Doubt Is No Longer Revolutionary Or Angry Like The Doubt Of The Eighteenth Century, And It Is No Longer Anxious And Searching For Certainty Like The Doubt Of The Seventeenth Century; Rather It Has Turned Into A Kind Of “Quiet Apathy”. Millions Of People Live Their Daily Lives, Consume, Work, And Entertain Themselves, Without The Question Of The Existence Or Non-Existence Of God Crossing Their Minds, Not Because They Read The Books Of The “New Atheists” Like Richard Dawkins Or Christopher Hitchens, But Because The “Emotional Structure” Of Modern Society Does Not Provide Space Or A Pressing Need To Feel The Sacred.

“New Atheists”: Old Anger In Scientific Vials

Despite The Popularity Of The Phenomenon Of “New Atheism” In The First Decades Of The Twenty-First Century, Ryrie Views It As A True Confirmation Of His Main Thesis. When We Reflect On The Discourses Of This Current, We Find That They Do Not Present New Philosophical Arguments That Spinoza, David Hume, Or Nietzsche Did Not Say; Rather Their Attractive Power Lies In Their High Emotional Charge: “Anger”.

It Is The Overwhelming Anger Against Religious Fundamentalisms, Against Terrorism In The Name Of God, And Against The Interference Of Religious Institutions In Individual Freedoms And Civil Rights. Atheism Returns Here To Feed Emotionally On The Mistakes Of The Religious And Their Behaviors, Exactly As The Peasants Of The Middle Ages Or The Revolutionaries Of France Used To Do. This Proves Once Again That The Engine Of Unbelief Always Remains A Moral And Emotional Engine In The First Place, Even If It Wraps Itself In The Language Of Science, Logic, And Evolutionary Biology.

The Paradox Of The Present Age: The Anxiety Of The Believer And The Atheist Alike

Alec Ryrie Concludes His Book With A Deep Human Gesture That Highlights The Current Spiritual Landscape. The Author Sees That The “Anxiety” That Was Battering The Hearts Of Protestant Believers In The Seventeenth Century Out Of Fear Of Losing Faith, Has Been Transferred In Our Time To The Heart Of Contemporary Man In General, Whether He Is A Believer Or An Atheist.

The Contemporary Secular Man, Who Got Rid Of The Idea Of God, Resurrection, And Reckoning, Finds Himself Face To Face With Questions Of Meaning And Purpose. The Absence Of The Absolute May Grant Complete Freedom, But It Is A Heavy And Frightening Freedom That Makes The Individual Feel “Insignificance” And Nihilism Amidst A Vast And Silent Universe. On The Other Hand, The Contemporary Believer Lives In Constant Anxiety To Protect His Faith Amidst A World That Whispers Doubt To Him Through Every Screen, Every Book, And Every Public Space.

Conclusion Of The Reading: Ryrie’s Lesson For The Future

The Central Thesis Of The Book “Unbelievers: An Emotional History Of Doubt” Is Not Just A Narrative Of The History Of Atheism, But It Is An Invitation To Restore Cognitive Humility. Alec Ryrie Tells Us That We – As Humans – Are Emotional Beings Before We Are Thinking Minds. We Feel First, And Make Our Major Existential Choices Based On The Attractions Of The Heart, Spirit, And Intuition, Then We Go To The Shelves Of Philosophical Libraries To Choose The Arguments And Clues That Justify What We Had Felt Beforehand.