You Tube Theology

Exploring... Alec Ryrie: Extracts from the lecture series "The Origins of Atheism"

00:00 // Introduction
01:51 // How to Be an Atheist in Medieval Europe
09:38 // How the Reformation Trained Us to Be Sceptics
19:54 // How to Be a Shakespearean Atheist
29:55 // How to Be a Puritan Atheist
40:01 // The Spiritual Quest Against Religion
49:47 // Jesus, Hitler and the Abolition of God
59:35 // Outro

Watch the Full Series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU3TaPgchJtSK4ZteHydlJIaxWsoWJBvz

Once – so the story goes – everyone believed in God. Then along came science, freedom of thought and modern ideas, and people began to doubt. Now most people don't believe. Sooner or later, no one will. But this story isn’t true; and not just because the prophecy seems dubious. In reality, almost all of us answer the great questions of religion – do we believe, doubt or reject? – in ways that don’t really have much to do with ideas, science or philosophy. We take our stands, whatever they are, for more intimate and intuitive reasons, and then construct the philosophy we need to justify them. The history of both belief and unbelief is an emotional history before it is an intellectual one.

This lecture series was recorded by Alec Ryrie in 2018/19

Alec Ryrie was Gresham Professor of Divinity. He is also Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, Co-Editor of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History and President of the Church of England Record Society. From 2015-17 he was Visiting Professor in the History of Religion at Gresham College and gave two series of lectures on the history of Protestant Christianity. In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

The transcripts of the lecture series are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/series/origins-atheism

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