ATHEISTS
The origin of the species
By Nick Spencer
Bloomsbury. 298 pages. £16.99
ISBN 978 1 472 902 962
Nick Spencer is research director of Theos, a liberal-leaning theological think tank on religion and society.
This is his well-researched and fascinating history of atheism, basically from the mid-16th century, but obviously with backward references to Lucretius and the ancient world. The author tries to take an evenhanded approach to belief and unbelief and asserts that ‘from the outset, atheism was a constructive and creative phenomenon’. Psalm 14 would see things rather differently.
