Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists looks at the God debate with fresh eyes
All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton both rejects the supernatural claims of religion and points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live.
And he suggests that non-believers can learn and steal from them.
Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions to get practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death, Alain de Botton shows us a range of fascinating ideas on a range of topics, including relationships, work, culture, love and death - and that could be of use to all of us, irrespective of whether we do or don't believe.
In the Sunday Times top-ten bestseller Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton takes us one step further than Dawkins and Hitchens have ventured and into a world of ideas beyond the God debate . . .
'A serious and optimistic set of practical ideas that could improve and alter the way we live' Jeanette Winterson, The Times
'A beautiful, inspiring book . . . offering a glimpse of a more enlightened path' Sunday Telegraph
'Packed with tantalizing goads to thought and playful prompts to action' Independent
'Smart, stimulating, sensitive. A timely and perceptive appreciation of how much wisdom is embodied in religious traditions and how we godless moderns might learn from it' Financial Times
'There isn't a page in this book that doesn't contain a striking idea or a stimulating parallel' Mail on Sunday
'Packed with tantalizing goads to thought and playful prompts to action' Independent
Alain de Botton was born in 1969 and is the author of non-fiction essays on themes ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His bestselling books include How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Architecture of Happiness, Status Anxiety, Essays in Love, A Week at the Airport and The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. He lives in London and founded The School of Life (www.theschooloflife.com) and Living Architecture (www.living-architecture.co.uk). For more information, consult www.alaindebotton.com.
I found this thought provoking. Now while I find the assertion by some Atheists that a logical conclusion of their (dis)belief will be that everyone will embrace the same disbelief as misguided, I also see that many people remain with their religion unthinkingly because of some of the things listed in this book. Community, ritual, purpose, hope. However, just like there isn't one religion I don't think that any one answer will work for everyone.
This book is a dialogue that needs to happen. People need to examine what is in their religion for them and decide in better ways to make it work for them. I can also see a role for leaders within any community group to help with situations, call them what you will, but if someone has to take time out from their lives to visit the sick, bury the dead, console the living etc., they deserve recompense for the disruption in their lives. But they also need oversight and accountability to prevent some of the excesses and ills of existing religions.
What isn't mentioned really in the book: Life cycle rituals beyond death and marriage, there's also birth, the welcoming of a child into a community; Menarche/puberty rituals; a ritual for becoming 18 or 21 or both that doesn't necessarily include getting insanely drunk; even a divorce ritual or a ritual to celebrate a return to work after an illness.
The focus of his commentary is on Buddhism, Christianity and Judiasm and there's an implied absolute universality in ritual experience that isn't true from my experience of Christianity. While the framework of the religions are the same the experiences are different (as I discovered when I was talking to a US Catholic). His research also missed a building dialogue among some thinking pagans about the seasons of the year and the formulised feastdays that need to be changed to better reflect local variations and experiences. That mining local culture rather than slavishly adopting another set of customs and practices, not that some won't adopt other practices that suit them.
It got a lot of extra marks for making me think but I don't think he's thinking much outside personal experience. It's also a pity that he isn't being more general in his addressing of people, this book needs to be debated by Theists as well as Atheists.
I will probably add more to this review as I digest what he was saying.
Reading updates
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6 June, 2012:
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6 June, 2012:
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