Religion for Athiests (Alain de Botton)

What if religions are neither all true nor all nonsense?

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on by Alain de Botton's inspiring new book, which boldly argues that the supernatural claims of religion are of course entirely false - and yet that religions still have some very important things to teach the secular world.

Religion for Atheists suggests that rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them - because they're packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton (a non-believer himself) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into, among other concerns, how to:

•build a sense of community
•make our relationships last
•overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy
•escape the twenty-four hour media
•go travelling
•get more out of art, architecture and music
•and create new businesses designed to address our emotional needs.
For too long non-believers have faced a stark choice between either swallowing lots of peculiar doctrines or doing away with a range of consoling and beautiful rituals and ideas. At last, in Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton, the author of the bestselling The Consolations of Philosophy and How Proust Can Change Your Life, has fashioned a far more interesting and truly helpful alternative.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Religion
• Atheism
• Botton
• Debate

[lovingsingleton]

LOL, every atheist on this thread is butthurt over this guy believing that people should learn morals. Why don't we just stop dividing ourselves and celebrate the qualities we all like?

[MrAbdelrahman444]

We in islam we don't get bored listening to the same verses for weeks!

Indeed The Holy Quraan contains the things we seek to know in this life,

it is intrepreting all of whats happening in the real life..

Evidence, each friday, Muslims are advised to read Surat AlKahf

each time we read it, we feel we wanna repeat it, because it discuss 4 major things we face

in life...

And pls no that, with Islam there are no mystry... all explained in Holy Quraan...

[breesus100]

learn from religion? - how to loose respect in useconds....! (unless you detest women, love belittleing humanity and love dogma that is...)

[breesus100]

temples for atheists - methinks someone watched the point go by...?

[86Corvus]

we dont need to LEARN from religions, our lesson from religion is DONE, it showed us how to brainwash and abuse peoples naivity, how to keep them obidient and exploited. Dear goodnes me... you sound mr Alain as an idoctrinated child that lost its invisible friends and is missing them even tho they were NOT REAL and were there to MAKE YOU DUMB AND OBIDIENT SLAVE TO THE PRIEST. Wake up. Its immoral to apologise for filth of religious thauth and cults and promote reconciliation with this shit

[86Corvus]

we should separate ourselves as much as we can from religious habit and thaught, we should not make psychoterapists our new priests and we should not threat universities as temples. The whole point of rational mind is that it does not need bullshit does not need to be led by the hand and ndoes not need to be learnd what to think but how which makes esential thing what makes religion-religion , im talkign about hte dogma , a inferior and evil idea

[86Corvus]

What i am seeing on the video is a man who lacks pride of rational thinking which has led him to try to adapt a religious mindset whilist being rational, those things are exclusive to each other wither you think and reasonably expect or you believe. The very title of the book makes my stomatch churn, religion is poison and vile to human mind. so is ritualism, its old and done. i dont need to be confined in rituals nor i need a guidance of some other people in my life.

[86Corvus]

holiday and stuck theyre label on it then went claiming it was only and always theyre holiday and used it against anny other religions and non religious persons. In the end we live in a culture that has those christian labels put on it but that does not make me left strandedin the middle, with atheism there is no MIDDLE either you believe or you dont and theres no other option.

[86Corvus]

im sorry mstr Alain but people can be taking part in christmass celebration without believing and it doesnt put them in between atheism and theism, they ARE atheists. I myself am celebrating christmass and make not one excuse about it for it is a CULTURAL and not religious holiday. Even if you want to point to its roots as christian they are no less important as the pre christian saturnalia - which is not at all. it shows that christians are culrural thieves and plagiators. they took pagan

[aardvarkcustard]

I havent read the book. Religion is very interesting but we need like a hole in the head. Can we not build a culture without religion? After all, religion is most often bad art - besides fostering all the wrong virtues and failing to cultivate a sceptical attitude, the kitsch sentimetality and self-righteous hectoring are killers of what culture is all about. In fact we are successfully building a culture without religion even tho it is always going to be sneaking back in.