Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton

Apr 17, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, spirituality

In the arc of human history, religion was the source of moral and ritualistic doctrine until the Enlightenment when reason eclipsed it. Alain de Botton asks if on the altar of reason, secularists have forgotten the subtle, complicated, and intelligent aspects of religion which should not be abandoned along with the doctrine, but revitalized with the imprint of secularism.

The author identifies some of the lessons of religion including communal support, cultural influence, and financial power. He...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Tulpesh Patel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, ethics-philosophy

With Religion for Atheists, De Botton’s intention appears to be to reinvigorate Auguste Comte’s project for a new ‘religion of humanity', but seems to think that if atheists steal all the best tools for indoctrination from religious tradition without calling it ‘religion’ then it’s all fine.

Chapter one is titled Wisdom without Doctrine, yet one of the most common ideas presented throughout the rest of the book is that atheists should adopt the highly prescriptive approach of religions, which dic...more

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Apr 05, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion, philosophy

Alain de Botton suggests that if you are an atheist with an open mind, you may still see some benefits of religion. It may be possible to construct a humanist religion, as suggested by Auguste Comte--that lacks faith in a supernatural being--but supplies some very real benefits of organized religions. In particular, de Botton looks closely at Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. He shows how these religions are ideally organized to attract members, and that atheists can learn from these structure...more Alain de Botton suggests that if you are an atheist with an open mind, you may still see some benefits of religion. It may be possible to construct a humanist religion, as suggested by Auguste Comte--that lacks faith in a supernatural being--but supplies some very real benefits of organized religions. In particular, de Botton looks closely at Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. He shows how these religions are ideally organized to attract members, and that atheists can learn from these structured organizations.

What are these benefits? A most important benefit would be a sense of community. A church/synagogue/temple acts (or at least, should act) as a gathering place where people are welcomed, even strangers. A sense of belonging is nurtured, without degrading those people who choose not to belong, the "others". In contrast to fundamentalists, de Botton's approach requires a large degree of tolerance. Another benefit is to learn how to cope with pain, suffering, and strong emotions. Such coping skills are possible even without belief in a supernatural being, or in a "predestined plan".

De Botton is not interested in defending religious beliefs or atheism. He certainly does not try to prove or disprove the existence of a supreme being. He assumes that atheists do not believe in such a being, so he starts from there. He develops ideas for how secular institutions might fill in the gaps in religious institutions. For example, many corporations have a culture, or an ethos. Why can't household-name corporations run--de Botton wonders--"... a therapy unit or a liberal arts college"? And what could such corporation-run schools teach? Well, de Botton mentions that it is not difficult for a university to teach as much physics in a few months as Michael Faraday ever knew. So, why shouldn't it be possible to teach wisdom, leading "... to insights related to the self-aware and moral stewardship of the soul."

De Botton presents lots of ideas such as these. These ideas sound wonderful, but are they practical? My main question about this book, is whether it is really possible for secular institutions to fill the gap of religious institutions. Perhaps they can--we won't know until such ideas are tried.

The book really hit home, as I sat in an airplane bound for Portland, with a connecting transfer at Chicago,

"It can be hard to stay hopeful about human nature after a walk down Oxford Street or a transfer at O'Hare."

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Mar 19, 2013 Sanju rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy-spirituality

This book is not only for atheists. It is a lovely sentiment, very inclusive. The idea that so much of the world's religious traditions is wonderful and need not be rejected even if some of the tenets seem noxious. It speaks to the tiresome refrain of so "if you are not with me, you are against me." The Hindu concept that there are many paths, different paths work for different people recognizes that regardless of whether we subscribe to one or another religious tradition as our own, it behooves...more

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Mar 08, 2012 Adam Higgitt rated it 3 of 5 stars

Many people say they believe in some sort of higher being or essence but reject organised religion. Alain de Botton flips this on its head, arguing that religious rituals are important in helping us to be live better lives but insisting that God is a fiction.

de Botton's basic idea is one I personally find attractive. The triumph of secularism certainly appears to have shorn us of a variety of ways to reflect on our places in the universe and connect more meaningfully with others. His example of...more Many people say they believe in some sort of higher being or essence but reject organised religion. Alain de Botton flips this on its head, arguing that religious rituals are important in helping us to be live better lives but insisting that God is a fiction.

de Botton's basic idea is one I personally find attractive. The triumph of secularism certainly appears to have shorn us of a variety of ways to reflect on our places in the universe and connect more meaningfully with others. His example of marriage is a good one: when a couple wed their friends and family are there, investing in their relationship. Once the ceremony is done, the couple are left to their own devices, with little of what social workers would call "support networks", much less other formal occasions during which to reflect and nourish the bonds. As he notes repeatedly, secular liberalism is good at telling us what we free to do, but falls short in offering guidance about what we ought to do.

But there are problems. Liberalism has shied away from this didacticism in part because the prescriptions of the church, among others, proved to be wrong in many cases, preventing us from doing what we should (such as show equal respect for gay people) and encouraging us to do things we shouldn't (like persecute non-believers). AdB does not adequately square how such traps are to be avoided if and when we return to such direct moral instruction as he suggests. At times, he also appears to offer conclusions on the secular life with little or no basis in evidence. He suggests, for example, that people forget the lessons of great works of secular art, while the date-bound ritual of the religious equivalent is sooner remembered because one is required to revisit it. He may be right, but where is the evidence? Where are the studies that show that people's memory of important movies, books or paintings fade more quickly than awareness of scripture?

The argument is also weakened by some of the ideas de Botton produces for how to reintroduce ritual and reflections into our lives. He rightly points out that a stripped out analysis of something like the Catholic Mass would look strange if it were not already layered with meaning, and to that extent his notion of an Agape restaurant in which many of the communal objectives of church services could be met is not as daft as some reviewers have suggested. But doing away with the study of history at university? That seems like both a wild and excessive step, simply because of his contention that the discipline merely teaches bald facts and shies away from attempting to connect the past with deeper meanings.

And ultimately, this is where his manifesto for secular religion falls down. For while the idea that we need ritual back in our lives to flourish as people is bold, it is ultimately too small an idea to change society in the ways he demands. de Botton's case is sound, but he needs to make it better, and be less demanding about what needs to change as a result.(less)

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Feb 11, 2013 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: winter-20122013, tbr-busting-2013, published-2011, philosophy, lifestyles-deathstyles

mp3

A shortie of ~5hours

#48 tbr busting 2013

I have a soft spot for Botton's pop-philosophic-oeuvre and here he promotes the idea that religious rites are important to aid us to live psychologically healthier lives, whilst maintaining God is pure fiction.

3* The Art of Travel
4* The Consolations of Philosophy
3* Religion for Atheists

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Mar 31, 2013 Shay rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Despite the title, Religion for Atheists is in no way an attempt to convert non-believers. Stated bluntly, and up front, de Botton writes that “of course no religions are true in any God-given sense.” As such, there are no arguments about the truth of religion; de Botton begins with a basic assumption of atheism, and from there proceeds to examine religious traditions and rituals with an eye to incorporating them into secular culture, in order to enhance community, compassion, education, art and...more Despite the title, Religion for Atheists is in no way an attempt to convert non-believers. Stated bluntly, and up front, de Botton writes that “of course no religions are true in any God-given sense.” As such, there are no arguments about the truth of religion; de Botton begins with a basic assumption of atheism, and from there proceeds to examine religious traditions and rituals with an eye to incorporating them into secular culture, in order to enhance community, compassion, education, art and architecture, among others. De Botton draws examples from Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism, and imagines secular institutions and rituals which would imitate the emotional resonance of religion without the supernatural beliefs.

Although atheists often critique theists for cherry-picking their beliefs—shellfish are fine now that we have refrigeration, but homosexual acts are definitely still sinful—removing the assumption of divine revelation does leave atheists free to borrow selectively from religion if they so desire. The problem here is to get atheists to agree about the aspects of religions that are worth emulating, particularly if, like de Botton, you want these secular rituals to be part of large institutions with a wide reach and deep pockets. De Botton offers a number of suggestions, some of which were intriguing and insightful, but others singled out areas in which religion has only been arguably successful, or where it has been more adept in theory than in deed. For example, he uses the Catholic Mass as an example of a unifying experience which erases divisions such as race and class, but in practice many congregations are segregated by the neighbourhoods from which they draw attendees. In this sense, his book is imbued with a sense of nostalgia for something which may never have actually existed except as an ideal. Additionally, many of his secular alternatives felt trivial and overly simplistic, lacking the significance of the rituals they were designed to emulate.

Over all, de Botton’s attitude towards religious practices consists of entirely too much reverence, and not enough criticism. Although he advocates “selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts,” he wholly fails to account for how his proposed secular saints and rituals will avoid practices of indoctrination and deification, and encourage the critical thinking that is essential to most atheists’ conceptions of secularism. Despite a chapter on the virtues of pessimism, it is all too easy to imagine this philosophy blithely and optimistically ushering in a “benevolent” secular totalitarianism of ritual and prescription. Those of a religious persuasion will have no need for these ideas, and those of a more atheistic or agnostic bent will find that de Botton’s suggestions lack the rigour of thought they would expect from a fellow skeptic. For those atheists who hear the siren call of ritual and tradition, but cannot bring themselves to believe in God, de Botton’s ideas may find some appeal, but this book is not otherwise recommended.(less)

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Mar 13, 2013 Subowal rated it 3 of 5 stars

I became a fan of Alain de Botton after reading his 'Status Anxiety' and 'Consolations of Philosophy'. Highbrows scoff at his style of presenting the deepest and most complex philosophical ideas with a powerpoint slide like simplicity. I, however, believe that the fundamental questions of philosophy are too close to the concerns of the ordinary person to be discussed in an arcane language and style. I admire his ability to discuss them in an accessible manner without compromising on depth.

His su...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Michael Palkowski rated it 2 of 5 stars

Overall, I find the thesis although potentially a 'big idea' in theoretically synthesizing religious scripture with secularism, it does so using a flawed assumption that people without belief have voids within their lives that can only be repaired by appropriating symbolic props or ritualistic practices from faith, ceremonies which either are problematic practically, flawed conceptually or already done in a different formulation in 'secular' communities. The result therefore is a string of ideas...more
Overall, I find the thesis although potentially a 'big idea' in theoretically synthesizing religious scripture with secularism, it does so using a flawed assumption that people without belief have voids within their lives that can only be repaired by appropriating symbolic props or ritualistic practices from faith, ceremonies which either are problematic practically, flawed conceptually or already done in a different formulation in 'secular' communities. The result therefore is a string of ideas which although interesting at times, begins from the premise that such an assimilation is needed to fill this imaginary secular void. I also resent de Botton's implicit notion that as an atheist I somehow appreciate culture wrongly as I was not instructed dogmatically on its importance. Furthermore thinkers like Zizek point out that we believe more today than we did in the past because we constantly distance ourselves from true expressions of emotion because we are afraid that it might mean too much. This sort of observation seems to crumble the central point the book tries to offer, but alas:

1: The first basic premise emerges from a kind of communitarian narrative about the power that religion has in unifying, creating communities that are not neo-tribal or predicated on status signifiers but rather basic communal humanity and understanding. This is a laudable endeavor but seems to bypass the fact that religious ceremonies such as Roman Catholicism's mass is not a community bounded together by peace and outside the realm of status. It is bounded by a very particular spiritual philosophical status that is fairly hegemonic in the requirement of belief to seriously take part (and to reject or marginalize other systems or belief systems). In removing this obligatory stylization that religion has in making it mandatory that you believe in the core tenants of the philosophy in question, you actually remove the point of the religion. The symbols and mythological structure can be appropriated for other means but the symbolization's affinity to the religion in question surely does not similarly exist. You have removed the core reason they existed in the first place. Egoism is pernicious in religious groups because of their belief system which often exalts their own way of living above those of other people unacquainted with the truth as they see it. For secular appropriation then, it would be problematic to render these narratives of individualistic/ group grandeur obsolete as any other reading would actually be a deliberate misreading. Religion is thus being conflated with basic humanism here.

2 The Agape feast and its Eucharist evolution is already widely practiced in disparate cultures across the world with strictly non religious affinities. An example of this is in Hawaii, the Luau party which emphasizes large feasts and entertainment largely to large communities. Banquets also serve functions in bringing people together. However I think as the meal has became increasingly individualistic in consumer societies and the insatiable reliance we have on fast food has rendered the home cooked meal a kind of antiquated fixture, the importance of communal eating has been eroded by the type of individualistic society we have, which is not necessarily a constitutional element of secularism. What has happened however is a boom in night life, in bars and clubs. The type of consumption has merely changed from ham to Jägermeister but we still meet in large groups surrounded by strangers, almost predicated on interacting with strangers. The interesting point though is that we have became so individualistic that we need to be drugged in order to communicate with other people. Secularism didn't create the void. However uniformity and the papal like prescriptivism involved in handing out haggadah style booklets to rigorously control 'acceptable' means of behaving and the subject of conversation at the fictional Agape restaurant is not a viable way to fill any void. If anything, having interludes of conversation on specific topics is almost akin to speed dating but with larger existential woes, it almost replicates the fast food culture that spawns the very worst individualism that seems to be a major point of critique for the author. The communal meal as a way to mend together fractured groups of social tribes is very interesting as a concept however and deserves more focus.

3. The day of atonement (Yom Kippur) from Leviticus is a valuable appropriation to consider for secular societies in emphasizing that everyone is not perfect and that forgiveness is a virtue. However it also gives a legitimation to the qualms that may be expressed. We are not expressing forgiveness because it swelled and made us feel ashamed, requiring closure but rather because it's a 'holiday' where such a feeling or expression can be expected. It could potentially trivialize the sincerity of the act itself as New Year resolutions trivialize the intention to improve and change by allowing people to express these ideas in a tightly controlled prescribed space. Forgiveness ought to be asked for when it's sincere enough to be unpredictable. A holiday may help to provoke this universally but I suspect, it's lasting influence would be another Hallmark card investment.

4. The adaptation of the old laity tradition 'Feast of Fools' similarly seems quaint, offering immunity rather than dealing with 'vices' like adults. This stems into the larger preoccupation with paternalism and guidance that seems to turn well known and appreciated concepts into maxims for subtle dictatorial 'guidance'. Take the concept of 'freedom' for example, de Botton changes the emphasis away from self autonomy and being left to ones own devices to being guided and helped by others. He is right in mentioning the 'feast of fools' as an example of the need for sanctioned contradictions, to allow for a space which is normless, non-obligatory and outside the realm of normal conduct to allow for normal conduct to continue unobstructed, but this is wholly contradicted by his own understanding of freedom.

5. He uses phrases like, "holistic conception of flourishing", to conflate secularism with consumerism. Both are not the same thing. Secularism merely states that you have the ability to be free from religious dogma and similarly can take on either one of those philosophies without fear of persecution and censorship. Secular societies suddenly in de Botton's world do not give a moments thought to lasting concepts of endurance, hope and so on because we are transfixed worrying about other messages that are piped in through commercial advertising. This is absolute drivel

6. The educational reforms proposed have elements of truth to them. We are over saturated with information to such a degree that we can feel overwhelmed and unable to properly attune our efforts accordingly. However, the insistence that secular educational techniques do not have parable like qualities seems to disavow the entire western philosophical cannon emerging from the Socratic dialogues which were based on questioning and leading to self emancipation, to self discovery and to fulfillment. The university as an institution fails because of the type of society we have, which emphasizes use value and necessitates that all education needs to have an explicitly stated purpose and that it must be applied to tests or examinations designed ostensibly to test students and their knowledge but instead merely produces a way of giving a false sense of accountability when students know nothing but the required literature and phrases that will give them the satisfactory grade on their test. It's an easier task to reform education to stop its incessant need for applicable use value than to have lecturers don the stylistic rhetoric of preachers. Ironically, de Botton wants education that only has use value predicated in sermons with applicable life lessons being sieved from the sludge of academic cannon. What this will do is merely move focus from one use value to another. We need to emphasize that education for education's sake is also a valuable use of time, that we constantly learn new information and develop as people without the idea that we need to apply every piece of information learned to our own immediate life. It's very narcissistic. Furthermore the de Botton classroom sounds ghastly to anyone seriously wanting to learn, it's application tediously small and the point lost. There are loads of sophisticated ways to make lecturing more interesting. Religious piety is not one of them.

7. Pascal's pessimistic work the Pensées is delineated as an example of crude realism, of pointing out that we are not perfect and that we are full of flaws. His aphoristic points about misery being the normal state of being and that true love is but a chimera are touted as somehow being humbling in a world supposedly full of secular optimism. However, the thesis strikes me as way too simplistic and not particularly observant of how deeply cynical and pessimistic people really are. Democracy as an institution is widely scorned with opinion polls citing universal corruption as the reason they don't participate. Entire countries are bounded by self help institutions that feed on the uncertain and troubled self image we have developed of ourselves as people. Such proselytizing and pedagogical manuals promising fulfillment simply wouldn't have a market if we were optimistic and reasoned about ourselves. There is a cynicism and deep mistrust for intellectualism, for art, for movies and music that now get adorned with labels such as 'patronizing'. Cynicism seems to define the very consumerism and individualism that our society bases its freedom on. We need LESS pessimism.

Overall, the book is like atheism + but instead of 'social justice', the additional factor is sieving the symbols and skeletons of religious piety and using them for our own means. It adds another faucet onto the ever burgeoning and misguided style of atheist activism that seeks not to emphasize atheism but other goals that atheism ought to be concerned with. Somehow we are impoverished intellectually if these other concerns are not addressed. The problem with this analysis though is that the central objective of secularism and atheism is not a taken for granted institutional truism. There are endless problems for us to deal with pertaining to religious extremism, pertaining to censorship of ideas, endless barbarism encompassed in violence, bigotry and senseless wars; impoverishment, stupidity and obscurantist objection to reason, medicine and progress. We have not won and these side conquests are simply a superfluous appendix and in this case, an unnecessary and flawed one.

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Mar 13, 2013 Edward rated it 4 of 5 stars

De Botton has written a very clever and instructive book. Forget about the questions of God’s existence which usually take up too much atheistic energy. What de Botton, an atheist himself, is interested in are not the particular beliefs of the great religions (the book mostly deals with Christianity and Judaism) or any attempt to do them justice or deflate them. Rather, he selects aspecets of religious practices from which secular institutions could learn many valuable lessons.

The book is not s...more De Botton has written a very clever and instructive book. Forget about the questions of God’s existence which usually take up too much atheistic energy. What de Botton, an atheist himself, is interested in are not the particular beliefs of the great religions (the book mostly deals with Christianity and Judaism) or any attempt to do them justice or deflate them. Rather, he selects aspecets of religious practices from which secular institutions could learn many valuable lessons.

The book is not systematic and de Botton is aware of this, arguing that not everything in a religion has to be accepted to see its good aspects. As he sees it, religion fulfills several human needs. One is the need to live together in some kind of harmony, and the other is the need to cope with pain and death. These needs are addressed as well by atheists, it’s simply that religion has usually developed better strategies to implement their fulfillment.

He points out that such a goal as “community” , for example, is met by churches which welcome all strangers. In our mostly urban and anonymous societies, strangers are ordinarily viewed as suspicious and contact with them is to be avoided. Self-preservation at work, yes, but think of the lost opportunities to meet and associate with people who could enrich our lives. Churches, even if only symbolically, provide a sense of community with their open doors to anyone who wants to enter.

Education is another area which religion wisely makes a lifelong enterprise, not just a matter of completing so many years of school in a particular place. The matter of “salvation, however it is viewed, is something a person works at his entire life, independent of degrees and hollow recognitions of limited accomplishment.

You can see de Botton’s approach – areas of life that we take for granted or seldom think of, are examined through a religious prism. Other topics he selects are “tenderness” (a rationale is given for the cult of the Virgin and it’s not all bad by any means), “pessimism” ( religion’s emphasis on an afterlife makes us acutely aware of the shortcomings of this life, something our endless modern optimism too often leaves out), “perspective” (if religion does nothing else, it reminds us that humanity is not the center of the universe – there is always something that transcends our shortsighted egotism), and of course “art” and “architecture” which have left behind them towering monuments. We need these structures to remind us of where we came from as we are inherently forgetful people.

De Botton, in fact, finds the wisdom of religion in all of these matters to be overwhelming, once religion is dislodged from its supernatural moorings. This wisdom all of us can learn from without necessarily subscribing to all, or even any, of a religion’s ideology.
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Jan 18, 2013 Chris Myrick rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't disagree with de Botton's overall points about the value of art, tradition, family, ritual or community. However, neither do many other atheists (nor, for that matter, do his other boogieman... those dreaded libertarians). Much of his thesis is built on straw-man arguments about how the secular and materialists devalue these lofty and important things. He not only lacks evidence for this, but doesn't even back his personal musings with any particularly useful anecdotes. It is true that m...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Jacob rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book made me think of an essay I read a while ago by a fellow named Morozov about the market for pop-nonfiction which has arisen to satisfy the demands of TED Talks. He found Hybrid Reality to be a string of absurdities, cloaked in irrelevant factoids and incorrectly applied buzzwords; his critique of their book seems to me equally applicable to Religion for Atheists. Botton writes with the meandering fatuousness of a man who doesn't have much to say about much but would like be thought a T...more This book made me think of an essay I read a while ago by a fellow named Morozov about the market for pop-nonfiction which has arisen to satisfy the demands of TED Talks. He found Hybrid Reality to be a string of absurdities, cloaked in irrelevant factoids and incorrectly applied buzzwords; his critique of their book seems to me equally applicable to Religion for Atheists. Botton writes with the meandering fatuousness of a man who doesn't have much to say about much but would like be thought a Thinker and rewarded with speaking engagements. His arguments are unsubstantial, and when he seems to be coming close to actually saying something, he throws out a red herring and runs off in pursuit. It was thus very amusing to me to find out that he did a TED Talk about this book almost immediately after it was released.

The most cringe-inducing example of this has got to be Chapter VII, "Perspective." He says that Job should be an important text for atheists. He recaps the plot of the Book of Job, quotes from it, and gives a cursory summation of its implications. We then jump to talking about Spinoza. He concludes this section by saying, "Our secular world is lacking in the sorts of rituals that might put us gently in our place." Which alright, fine, whatever, I don't agree but go on. He mentions Jewish rituals which might gently put us in our place in the cosmos. He says that we should look to distant galaxies for a sense of scale. Then, apparently frightened by the notion of having to explain how this would be implemented and how it might affect society, he babbles about how far galaxies are from us for three paragraphs. I don't know, maybe if you're in search of profundity it sounds pretty good? I can see the byline for his speeches now, "An effortless synthesis of Old Testament faith, secular Judaic thought, and Sagan-like secular philosophy." But if you're just a guy skimming through a book a Christian on Facebook told you to read it's not very impressive.

The parts of this that I actually found personally irritating were the bizarre assumptions of what naturalists feel about the world.
"For some atheists, one of the most difficult aspects of renouncing religion is having to give up on ecclesiastical art and all the beauty and emotion therein."
What?! Who says this? No one says this. Either source someone saying, "I do not enjoy Bach because he is a filthy deist" or call the book, "Judeo-Christian Tradition for Idiots," because I can't think of a prominent atheist thinker saying that they dislike religious art because it is religious. That said, the chapter is somewhat redeemed by his hilarious position that avant garde is bad because you have to have a grounding in art history to enjoy it, and that we'd be much better off if we just stuck with circa Renaissance realism.

Oh, speaking of Judeo-Christian, that's the other thing. There's no Islam or Hinduism here, I guess because as a secular Jew from a Christian society writing about anything else would require research, which is hard. There's some nods towards Buddhism, but I got the feeling it was an afterthought, like oh, I need to incorporate a third religion so I can claim to be comprehensive.

That is actually a good summation of the book, it is a bunch of subjects cobbled together in a sleight-of-hand attempt at appearing wise and far-reaching. I recommend reading it if you want a few inadvertent laughs and a mild headache.(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Martin Pribble rated it 2 of 5 stars

After all the negative press I’d heard about the latest book by Alain de Botton, I was less than eager to read it. Sure it was about atheism and religion, so in theory it should be right up my alley, but the reviews I’d heard from people, combined with de Botton’s TED talk, “Atheism 2.0″, and the apparent reports that he intended to build a “Temple to atheism”, had me wondering if this book was worth reading at all. I have read work of his in the past; “The Art Of Travel” and “The Architecture o...more After all the negative press I’d heard about the latest book by Alain de Botton, I was less than eager to read it. Sure it was about atheism and religion, so in theory it should be right up my alley, but the reviews I’d heard from people, combined with de Botton’s TED talk, “Atheism 2.0″, and the apparent reports that he intended to build a “Temple to atheism”, had me wondering if this book was worth reading at all. I have read work of his in the past; “The Art Of Travel” and “The Architecture of Happiness”, and his writing always left me with a feeling of melancholy and yearning that I found discomforting. Sometimes he even bordered into the downright negative and overly analytical. Not exactly my idea of a feel-good story to say the least. But, like jumping on a hand grenade to save the minds of my fellow atheists, I decided it was my job, nay my duty, to at least listen to the audiobook of his latest published work “Religion for Atheists”. This is what I took away from it.

The book itself is a lamentation for the things that, in de Botton’s view, make religious ceremonies, trappings, architecture and art superior to the lives we lead today. According to de Botton, secular life has a huge hole in it, one occupied by our “soul” that needs to be fed and nurtured. Secular life does not, and cannot, in its current state, offer the “soul food” that religion offers; so maybe we should be taking parts of religion, the parts that de Botton identifies as irreplaceable in secularism, and use them for the greater good of humanity.

In and of itself this sounds like a good idea. I mean, who cares where the good ideas in humanity come from. If they work, we should use them, right? But for de Botton, many of the things he identifies as lacking in secular life are actually the things that we hold dear about secular life.

For example, his identification of art museums as museums to the past, where in his mind the art should be organised by “feeling” or “emotion” so that we walk away with a sense of understanding of life greater than what we can glean from history, while an interesting idea, is more of a pipe-dream than one of any constructive merit; if one knows just a little about art and history, a person can learn with much greater clarity the histories of other humans. And besides, we already have this. One look around the Rothko Chapelfollow in Houston Texas, and we see precisely what he is talking about; large canvases of dark colour with no figurative depictions in them, and seats in the middle where silent contemplation can take place. While this “Chapel” is more of an experiment in space, and is designed to be whatever the viewer wants it to be, it is a secular space, for it imposes no religion on the viewer; it simply is. It is devoid of messaging, and is somewhat of a “blank canvas” for people to enjoy in their own ways. Which is great for a church, but not so great when looking at art; one could call Rothko’s work in this instance boring, too plain or pointless in the context of art on a greater scale. We could put art in spaces of private worship, and we could order it according to emotions and feelings, but then we miss the broader picture; we miss the vast and deep history of art in mankind, while of course the intention of art museums is to teach us just that.

For me at least, with a history in the fine arts, art museums are places of learning and reflection, where we can wonder at not only at the skills involved in producing the works themselves, but also the emotions conveyed, the histories of the times and the lives of the artists involved. Art, like history, is a depiction of the social temperature of the time it is produced, and only a little digging (perhaps reading the plaque next to the work) will give the art greater context than simply a painting on a wall or a bronze sculpture in a room.

He also claims that art museums now, as opposed to the religious art of the past, has no message to convey; people can’t take away any life lessons, or glean any answers to difficult questions from the secular art establishments we have today. Well, maybe he’s right; modern art is about the self, and post-post-modernity seems to be reinforcing that fact. But is it possible that maybe he’s looking in the wrong place for answers about how to deal with cancer, or death of a loved one, or financial ruin? If, as he claims, art’s role is to instruct us with life lessons, and that life throughout the ages delivered the same kinds of problems now as it did in the 15th century, isn’t it possible that there is something to be gained from looking at the art from the 15th century which addresses these problems? And maybe that is his point, we don’t do that anymore. But do we need to?

His book goes through similar dismantlement of architecture, literature, and education, claiming that what they have to offer today gives nothing for the viewer, reader or learner to take away to lead a better life. He claims today’s landscape is one where people come second to corporations (which is true to a point), that what we learn from literature is forgotten too quickly and not reinforced in us on calendar dates, and that education only gives us the facts and not suggestions on how to lead a better life. Again, he may have a point here, but I think he misses the obvious fact; we are much more complicated in our modern lives than were our dark-ages counterparts, and the structures of our societies point us in a different direction. The learning about life must be taught early in life, taught alongside the basic learnings of the alphabet, the numbers, the colours. It must not be prescribed to us, but should be taught as a way to make decisions which will have the best outcome for all involved, without causing undue harm.

The biggest thing that irks me about the “philosophical” writings of de Botton is his perspective. He has managed to correctly identify the idea of feeling small in the universe as a way to humble us and make our lives seem more miraculous than religion can suggest. However, as an extremely rich man, one who was born into money and has traveled extensively, he seems to be extremely blinkered to the fact that the real problems in the world are not crises faced by the individual, but the larger scale crises of climate change, rising sea-levels, poverty, disease and civil wars. It is true that people are the cogs in the machine that make up societies, but we are kiddin ourselves if we think reshuffling an art museum, or having an international day of reading James Joyce is going to make lives richer for anyone but the upper and middle-class peoples of the world. The fact is that nearly a billion people on earth have less than the minimum required level of literacy.

It is true that religions have held the steering wheel morality and ethics, and offered suggestions on how to deal with hardships we all inevitably face. de Botton says that this role in society has not been replaced by anything, and that we walk our lives without any guidance or insights from the wisdoms of the past. My problem here is one that troubles me in many walks of life, where people cite tradition and habit as a way to justify the way we do things now. It is actually the converse situation to the idea that de Botton says he is suggesting, taking the good things from religion and using them in a secular space. In fact it seems that de Botton has a yearning for the rites and practices of religion that he can’t seem to identify in today’s society, and is suggesting that we take these “successful” past practices and inject these into our modern lives. I say we need concentrate on getting all of humanity back on track, and no amount of navel gazing and self contemplation can bring this about.

I really think de Botton wrote this book as a way to try to bring all of his previous ponderings into line with his inability to believe in, not only god, but humanity itself. It seems to me that he is upset at the world, and wishes he could believe in god in order to make his life better. He walks in the middle of the road, applauding religion and religionists for their piety and belief, and yet tells us that in essence they are all deluded to believe in god. His audience then grows, from just the 16% of the world’s population who are non-believers, to everyone who likes to dabble in pseudo-philosophical banter. While it is filled with anecdotes and examples, and there is no denying that he is a knowledgeable and intelligent man, what he comes up with at the end is not in fact about “Religion for Atheists”, but a spewing out of the justifications for the religious standpoint, and actually a glorification of the role religion plays in day-to-day life. Rather than focusing on religion as a starting-point and working our way from there, I think he would have been better to look at all the positive things humanity has produced historically, religious or not, and made a thesis of how we could bring those together to better ourselves and the world. But then his audience is diminished, and he wouldn’t sell as many books.

The biggest flaw in de Botton’s thesis is actually the first thing he writes in the book, the title. “Religion for Atheists” is not, as it claims, “A non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion”, but actually a sad lamentation on de Botton’s own frailties and insecurities about the richness of his own life, and the fact that he doesn’t believe in God, but wishes he could. While it’s not a terrible read, and one that at least got my mind going, even if it was only to counter his standpoints, it was not by any means groundbreaking. I would recommend you read this only if you want to know what’s in the book, not if you are expecting to find some suggestions for how to better your own life.(less)

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Oct 08, 2012 Tyler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, religion

The “purpose of this book,” writes Alain de Botton, “is to identify some of the lessons we might retrieve from religions.”

De Botton in this short and eloquent book attempts to underscore, for the secular world, what he sees as the value of religion for all of society. He does so in a writing style that befits a bemused and observant Montaigne in his tower. De Botton is ever the practical philosopher, extracting lessons where others see perhaps only a pedestrian or cement edifice.

The greatest p...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Lauren Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-favorites

“God may be dead, but the urgent issues which impelled us to make him up still stir and demand resolutions..."

A book titled Religion for Atheists has got me before page one. Sounds like a wonderful idea—let’s move beyond mocking the religious for absurd supernatural beliefs and instead look to the genuine contributions that religion makes to their lives. Because, with all due respect to Richard Dawkins et al., all those millions are responding to something. Spirituality is as integral to the hum...more “God may be dead, but the urgent issues which impelled us to make him up still stir and demand resolutions..."

A book titled Religion for Atheists has got me before page one. Sounds like a wonderful idea—let’s move beyond mocking the religious for absurd supernatural beliefs and instead look to the genuine contributions that religion makes to their lives. Because, with all due respect to Richard Dawkins et al., all those millions are responding to something. Spirituality is as integral to the human experience as music or mathematics.

I’m an enthusiastic fan of Alain de Botton; I admire anyone willing, for the sake of philosophy, to live for a week in an airport. In this book, he employs his clear and straightforward style to argue “...not that secularism is wrong, but that we have secularized badly…”. When he says in his opening chapter, “we have allowed religion to claim… areas of experience which should rightly belong to all mankind…” he’s echoing my own thoughts. The waning of religiosity has left some needs unmet, I think that’s obvious. In its place, people use sex, drugs, work, money, celebrity or sports obsessions, and who knows what all, with varying degrees of success. But this book suggests another approach. Instead of throwing out religion altogether, perhaps we can co-opt its more successful features?

Each of the following chapters cogently describes one such void of modern life, and points out how religion addresses it: loneliness vs. community, legal civility vs. acts of kindness, education vs. wisdom. After all, what can an adult do with his yearning for tenderness, or her guilt for not being more successful? When something bad happens—as, sooner or later, it will—a cosmic perspective can be more consoling than a self-absorbed point of view. Nor does the concept of infinity require the supernatural.

Like Christopher Alexander's classic, A Pattern Language, which aims for its readers to rethink architecture, each chapter ends with a prescription. In this case, de Botton suggests some way to incorporate one of religion's clever devices into secular life—for example, restaurants that foster community by having people dine with strangers. This is where the book gets seriously loopy. But who cares; these are clearly suggestions made to start you thinking.

A more profound idea is this whole approach to building a stable and harmonious society by conscious tinkering with its institutions. If the risk is small, and you really believe you could improve matters, why wouldn’t you try? Holy St Asimov, is psychohistory here at last?(less)

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Sep 06, 2012 Darryl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion

RELIGION FOR ATHEISTS by Alain de Botton (authour of The Consolations of Philosophy, among others)

So in accord with my own views I wish I could have written it. If only I were as erudite as de Botton!

"demonstrates his usual urbane, intelligent, and witty prose, always entertaining and worth reading"
Library Journal

Here is the first few paragraphs:

1.
The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true – in terms of being handed down from heaven to the...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Lauren Albert rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, religion

I will always think of this as "Religion for Atheists and Believers: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion and a Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion in This Life (Rather than After). It is a lovely book--I am not an atheist but I have read and enjoyed many of de Botton's books. Even many believers have come to distrust those who claim to tell us what matters about religion and how to experience it. I figure that the things even an atheist can see as valuable in religion, might just...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Menno marked it as to-read

from August 2012 Harper's Magazine:

The Literary Response to Radical Atheism
By Christopher R. Beha

Christopher R. Beha is an associate editor of Harper’s Magazine. His first novel, What Happened to Sophie Wilder, was published in June by Tin House Books.

In the current issue of Harper’s Magazine, I write about three books by writers I call the “New New Atheists.” The New Atheists—among them Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens—wrote bestselling books in the past decade tha...more from August 2012 Harper's Magazine:

The Literary Response to Radical Atheism
By Christopher R. Beha

Christopher R. Beha is an associate editor of Harper’s Magazine. His first novel, What Happened to Sophie Wilder, was published in June by Tin House Books.

In the current issue of Harper’s Magazine, I write about three books by writers I call the “New New Atheists.” The New Atheists—among them Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens—wrote bestselling books in the past decade that fiercely attacked belief in God. The fundamental difference between these polemicists and the next wave of atheist writers is evident in the titles of their books. In place of Dawkins’s The God Delusion, we have Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists. In place of Harris’s The End of Faith, we have his follow-up, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. And in place of Hitchens’s god is not Great, we have Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality.

The New New Atheists tend not to take up the question of God’s existence, which they take for granted as settled in the negative. Instead, they seek to salvage what is lost when belief erodes, concerning themselves with what atheists ought to believe and do in religion’s stead. Botton, for instance, asks how the benefits of faith—a sense of community, a sense of wonder—might be found in the secular, while Harris addresses what might be the most vexing problem facing atheists: how morality is possible without God. Only Rosenberg—a philosopher at Duke with a predictable commitment to rigor—insists that doing away with religion means doing away with most of what comes with it: a sense of order in the universe, the hope that life has some inherent meaning, even the belief in free will. If it’s true, as Rosenberg insists in contradiction of Harris and Botton, that we can’t have the benefits of belief without belief itself, this raises another question. Setting aside matters of truth and falsehood, are we not better off believing? Broadly speaking, atheists seem to fall into two camps on this matter. There are disappointed disbelievers, those who would like to believe in God but find themselves unable. Then there are those who find the very idea of such a being to be an outrage. Among the latter camp, Christopher Hitchens famously compared God to Kim Jong Il, ruling the universe like his own North Korea. We ought to count ourselves lucky, Hitchens said, that such an entity does not exist outside the human imagination, because the only appropriate response to it would be fury and rebellion.

I happen to count myself among the disappointed disbelievers, which is why I was interested in the attempts of Harris and Botton to salvage some religious splendor for the secularists. So I was only more disappointed to find Rosenberg’s insistence that such efforts were hopeless far more convincing than the efforts themselves. During an email exchange with Rosenberg, I asked him which camp of atheists he fell into. His response acknowledged my impulse: “There is . . . in us all the hankering for a satisfactory narrative to make ‘life, the universe and everything’ (in Douglas Adams’s words) hang together in a meaningful way. When people disbelieve in God and see no alternative, they often find themselves wishing they could believe, since now they have an itch and no way to scratch it.”

So what are we to do about this unscratchable itch? Rosenberg’s answer in his book is basically to ignore it. The modern world offers lots of help in this effort. To begin with, there are pharmaceuticals; Rosenberg strongly encourages those depressed by the emptiness of the Godless world to avail themselves of mood-altering drugs. Then there are the pleasures of acquisitive consumer culture—the making of money and the getting of things. My own, provisional solution rests in the way of art, and in particular in literature. Fiction, at its best, not only suggests but insists upon the possibility of some order in the world, even if we create or impose that order. Likewise, it insists that human experience has meaning, and that in that meaning lies a form of solace. Rosenberg’s response to all this, I’m sure, would be: more power to you. At the same time, he would urge me not to make the mistake of believing that the solace I find in art is any more real or meaningful than the solace others find from shopping or from altering the chemicals in their brains. To which I want to say, why not? By Rosenberg’s own reckoning, nihilism follows logically from atheism. But nihilism, in turn, leaves one unable to make normative demands of others—or, for that matter, oneself. Even the demand that one follow logic or not believe in God.
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Jul 11, 2012 Harold rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a provocative look at religion for those who have "lost faith in faith". The premise of finding enduring values in religion without accepting the divine origins of these values is intellectually appealing and innovative. The suggested secular replacements for the "divine" values leave something to be desired. In his chapter on community, the author proposes an Agape House or Center where the community could gather and share in an atmosphere of mutual goodwill appears contrived. Reli...more This book is a provocative look at religion for those who have "lost faith in faith". The premise of finding enduring values in religion without accepting the divine origins of these values is intellectually appealing and innovative. The suggested secular replacements for the "divine" values leave something to be desired. In his chapter on community, the author proposes an Agape House or Center where the community could gather and share in an atmosphere of mutual goodwill appears contrived. Religion has a long history which contributes to its appeal of continuity and stability. In today's culture of the individual uber alles and instant success, the factors of time, tradition and shared experiences are given short shrift. I especially found his example of a shared orgy, similar to the tradition of Holy Fools Day in medieval Christianity, as simplistic and unnecessary. However, some of his proposals have true value. As a humanistic, nature-oriented Jew, I found his example of the shared confession of guilt among the community at Yom Kippur as having secular potential for all non-believers if professed in a humanistic liturgy. Also, the many examples of religious art and architecture as visual teaching tools to express compassion, anger, failure, love, dreams and our ultimate demise as possibly being capable of translation into secular rituals. The human desire for beauty, ritual, shared values, solace when confronted with life's inevitable disappointments and losses could be "sanctified" with rituals connected to nature. We are all children of the earth and the stars and our shared imaginations could construct rituals which could reflect this. One example, which centers around marriage, could focus on the universal need for companionship, love and propagation of the species which permeates all cultures and simultaneously exists within non-human animals. The profound feelings of loss through death could be ritualized through the scientific truths that nothing is destroyed all transformed, from the DNA which we share with all living things on earth to the death of distant stars which provides the heavy elements which are the building blocks of all life. (less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Greta rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: spirituality

This book was a real eye-opener for me. While I wouldn't describe myself as particularly religious and I wouldn't call myself an atheist either, I found the ideas and suggestions Alain de Botton puts forward in this book to be incredibly thought-provoking. He describes with eloquence and humor the ways religions have, in the past, provided guidance and support for mankind and how we, in the 21st Century, are lacking much of this. There is a void that has opened up that needs to be filled where t...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Deirdre rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fromlibrary, non-fiction

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. Peopl...more 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.(less)

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Apr 13, 2012 Simon Howard rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really like Alain de Botton and his accessible, absorbing approach to philosophy. But I really didn't enjoy this book, I'm afraid.

The structure of each chapter the book is very formulaic:
a) Identify a positive aspect of religion
b) Muse that this is lacking in modern society
c) Propose a secular solution

The majority of his arguments collapse at stage b. For example:
a) Churches get strangers talking to one another
b) Restaurants don't
c) Set up new restaurants

The problem, of course, is that the as...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Chuck Erion rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: currents

Alain de Botton’s latest book, Religion for Atheists (McClelland & Stewart, $29.99) is creating a stir – but not as big a stir as its author and publisher might hope for. Subtitled A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, it challenges modern-day atheists to recant their wholesale rejection of religion and “borrow” the strengths of religions’ teaching and practices. But de Botton, author of eight previous books of philosophical essays, is not naïve about how both believers and atheist...more Alain de Botton’s latest book, Religion for Atheists (McClelland & Stewart, $29.99) is creating a stir – but not as big a stir as its author and publisher might hope for. Subtitled A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, it challenges modern-day atheists to recant their wholesale rejection of religion and “borrow” the strengths of religions’ teaching and practices. But de Botton, author of eight previous books of philosophical essays, is not naïve about how both believers and atheists will react to his book: “The strategy outlined in this book will, of course, annoy participants on both sides of the debate.” Without naming them, I suspect the author is responding to the all-or-nothing school of “fundamentalist” atheists: Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great – how religion poisons everything), Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett. To keep from having to cover all religions, he restricts himself to Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.
I think that this book is useful for both sides – for atheists and for those of faith. I count myself in the latter group and found it a refreshing appreciation of some aspects of church participation and the spiritual life from an outside perspective. I would hope that atheists will gain insight from it into the values that religion brings to secular culture.
The book seems relatively short for such a huge topic (320 pages) and is laid out with copious photos making it feel more accessible, less academic. De Botton starts with the eroded sense of community in today’s fast-paced culture. He looks at the Catholic Mass as a community-building ritual that cuts across class and family divides. “…Friendship has a chance to grow only when we dare to show what we are afraid of and regret.” The next chapter examines kindness. Original Sin is a doctrine that all atheists and even some Christians find troubling. But the author embraces the notion: “(it) encourages us to inch towards moral improvement by understanding that the faults we despise in ourselves are inevitable features of the species.”
The longest chapter is on education. The author wants to redesign the curricula from pre-school to university to “turn out better, wiser and happier people” rather than tightly-focussed professionals and job-ready tradespeople. Likewise he foresees a new generation of travel agents who can direct you on a pilgrimage to an historic and/or natural site tailored to your specific emotional or physical malaise. The penultimate chapter looks at institutions both corporate and public for ways in which religion can reform them to meet the needs of the inner self. For example, art galleries should be arranged by theme rather than historical era. The book closes with a reverential look at the 18th-century French philosopher Auguste Comte who tried to establish a religionless church.
De Botton’s prescriptions for change slip into confused wishful-thinking. If the ardent atheists threw baby Jesus out with the bathwater, this author wants to reshape the tub and fill it with a tepid mix of humanistic principles without any belief in a Cosmic Plumber. Like most atheists, he lacks discernment of the varieties of theology. Like them, I don’t believe in a theistic being that intervenes in history and favors one denomination against all other “heathens”. But I also feel patronized by his assumption that the moral values and institutional practices of religion can be cherry-picked and recast in a totally secular fashion. De Botton’s vision feels like an Orwellian society ruled by philosopher kings.
Some nominal Christians will go to church this Easter Sunday having skipped all “the gory bits” of Jesus’ crucifixion. Religion demands more than liberal good feelings; we need more than Religion for Atheists to be stirred up.

[In The Margins book column for The Waterloo Region Record for Saturday, Apr 7, 2012](less)

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Mar 29, 2012 Claudia Moscovici rated it 5 of 5 stars

For me, Alain de Botton’s highly visible career as a public intellectual represents a personal journey as well. He took the path I wish I had pursued, as he did, much earlier in life. Therefore, here, I will not only review his newest book, Religion for Atheists (2012), but also chart the significance of this journey. Alain and I are intellectuals of the same generation, similar formation—in philosophy and literature—and with similar cultural ideals. Alain de Botton is one of the most vocal and...more
For me, Alain de Botton’s highly visible career as a public intellectual represents a personal journey as well. He took the path I wish I had pursued, as he did, much earlier in life. Therefore, here, I will not only review his newest book, Religion for Atheists (2012), but also chart the significance of this journey. Alain and I are intellectuals of the same generation, similar formation—in philosophy and literature—and with similar cultural ideals. Alain de Botton is one of the most vocal and prominent defenders of “a philosophy of everyday life”. He upholds the view--and shows by example, in each of his best-selling works--that philosophy and literature are not just for scholars or the intellectual elite. They are for everyone interested in taking some time off their busy schedules to enjoy the canonical works of Western philosophy and literature. If they read Alain de Botton’s books, they will be persuaded that—far from being dated or having a merely historical interest--these canonical works are still relevant to their daily lives. The ideal of engaging with philosophy and literature—let’s say, the wisdom of the ages--may seem perfect for an academic setting but, in my personal experience, I have found that for the most part it is not.

Although there are some reputable scholars in the U.S. who write about important human issues in a way that is relevant to the general public and easy to understand without being simplistic—I’m thinking of Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, Arthur Danto, Harold Bloom, Stanley Fish, Victor Brombert and a handful of others—for the most part, scholarly writing tends to be too specialized to interest the general public. Furthermore, during the mid to late 1990’s, when I was going to graduate school, the fields of Comparative Literature, English, French and other languages were dominated by exceedingly specialized, arcane theories—loosely called “poststructuralist” or “postmodernist”--that rested upon questionable premises and widened the gap between the general public and scholarly writing in the arts and humanities. For a persuasive debunking of those theories, I’d recommend Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont’s Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science, 1997.

Of course, there were and still are countless scholars in the Arts and Humanities—the vast majority perhaps--who write clearly about their areas of specialization and make important contributions to their fields. However, in most cases, their target audience is not, as it is for Alain de Botton, a general audience but rather a more restricted group of specialists. In my estimation, the specialized nature of scholarly writing combined with the predominance of arcane, trendy theories risked dooming literary studies to public irrelevance during the 1990’s.

In this academic context, it took a lot of courage and a certain leap of faith for Alain de Botton to leave the academia (when he was a graduate student in philosophy at Harvard University) in order to become a public intellectual promoting philosophy and literature. While this goal would have been quite common for European intellectuals during the 1930’s and 40’s, when--to offer just one example out of many--the Existentialist movement had such a vast impact upon culture, this notion has become nearly obsolete nowadays. As difficult as it is to become a public intellectual in an academic setting—due to the two main reasons I mentioned earlier--it’s even more difficult to achieve this status outside the academia. Today the general public has been turned off by scholarship and, generally speaking, has little interest and time for intellectual pursuits.

In an interview, Alain de Botton describes his choice to leave the academia in order to become a public intellectual as seizing the best opportunity: “In another age, I might have been an academic in a university, if the university system had been different. So it’s all about trying to find the best fit between your talents and what the world can offer at that point in time.” To turn this expression around, what De Botton has offered the world is a genuine love of knowledge; a sense of the practical applications of canonical works and a clear; elegant explanations of some of the best-known Western novelists and philosophers. His efforts have been consistently rewarded with resounding success. His first book, Essays In Love (1993) became an instant bestseller. The Romantic Movement (1994), Kiss and Tell (1995) and--my personal favorite--How Proust Can Change your Life (1997) quickly followed suit, becoming equally popular with the public. Alain de Botton’s success is well earned, not only because of the quality and accessibility of his books, but also because he works hard to maintain his public status and connection to readers. He travels around the world for book launches and talks; connects with fans on Facebook and other public forums; gives lectures at TED conferences and even runs his own production company, called Seneca Productions that makes documentaries about his works. For him, being a public intellectual—let alone being a writer--is more than a full-time job. It’s a life passion.

Despite its provocative title, his newest book, Religion for Atheists (2012), offers neither a polemical defense of religion for nonbelievers nor, conversely, a defense of atheism for believers. Rather, it’s the strongest and most compelling defense for humanist values I have read since Martha Nussbaum’s Cultivating Humanity (1997). De Botton compellingly illustrates that religious principles and allegories should play an important role in modern secular society. His main thesis is that “we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not been able to solve with any particular skill: first, the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and violent impulses. And second, the need to cope with terrifying degrees of pain which arise from our vulnerability to professional failure, to troubled relationships, to the death of loved ones and to our decay and demise.” (Religion for Atheists, 12)

In a way, De Botton expresses the secular contemporary version of “Pascal’s wager”. Seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal has famously stated in Pensées (1669) that since the existence of God can’t be proved or disproved, a rational person should bet that God exists and live “as though he had faith.” Then, logically speaking, if God exists he has everything to gain and if he doesn’t he has nothing to lose. Taking this kind of argument a step further, De Botton’s Religion for Atheists argues that even if we bet that God doesn’t exist, we should still adhere to some religious principles as if he did.

What do we have to gain from “De Botton’s wager”, so to speak? First of all, religious principles and rituals—such as mass and other means of congregation—give us a sense of community. Without this, we risk becoming isolated, self-absorbed and alienated individuals. Religion also teaches us about the value of kindness and being other-regarding, which is as necessary for a sense of community as it is for modern marriages and family life. Religious figures and prophets, De Botton further pursues, offer us role models that are worth emulating. This is especially important in a media-driven culture that encourages us to admire athletes and actors, many of whom have questionable conduct and values. World religions also emphasize the role of education: not as a practical steppingstone to a pragmatic job, but as a way of growing emotionally and intellectually as individuals.

Religion also teaches us a sense of modesty and reminds us of our limitations. Nothing brings this point home better than the problem of theodicy, or the question of why the suffering of innocents exists in a world governed by an omniscient and omnipotent divinity. The answer given by Christianity in The Book of Job, by Blaise Pascal, Simone Weil and even by Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov comes down to the following thesis encapsulated by De Botton: “Fragile, limited creatures that [we] are, how can [we] possibly understand the ways of God?” (Religion for Atheists, 198) There are some things beyond human comprehension but our limitations should not be an excuse for hubris or for believing that we’re above morality.

If I place De Botton’s important new book in the longstanding tradition of Western humanism, it’s because it underscores the importance of human ethical and social values that find their best expression through the invention of religion. Although postmodern critics, such as Michel Foucault and Jean-François Lyotard, have described themselves as “anti-humanists,” asserting that humanism posits overarching principles that lead to exclusion and hierarchy, Religion for Atheists demonstrates clearly and thoroughly why that’s not so. On the contrary, De Botton persuades us, we cannot exist harmoniously or happily as a secular society without respect for the religious principles and wisdom passed through the ages.

Claudia Moscovici, Literaturesalon(less)

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Mar 27, 2012 Susan Leonard rated it 1 of 5 stars

I was really looking forward to reading this but wish i hadn't bothered. I've read 1 other book by Alain which i thought was amazing so had high expectations, and as an atheist who already agrees with the central idea - that secular society can learn from religions - was looking forward to reading Alain's ideas.
For me, Alain protests too strongly the positive benefits he thinks society should adopt from religion, but misses half the argument ie any negative aspects (eg pedophilia scandals, atti...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Mary Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Religion for Atheists" tackles questions of the soul in a secular world. As someone for whom religion once structured my worldview (I was a Catholic nun for twenty years and have since left religion altogether), I agree with Alain de Botton's analysis that religion has much to offer unbelievers--not for its stories of the supernatural, but for its response to genuine human needs through community, art, education, and architecture over millennia.

De Botton's prose is lucid and precise. The book's...more

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Mar 11, 2012 Rebeccahowden rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think the most important thing to note first off is that you don’t necessarily have to identify as an atheist to get something out of this book. Alain de Botton is the staunchest of atheists- so much so that he refuses to even enter into the discussion of whether a god exists, but rather starts his argument from the assumption that all the more mystical aspects of religion are complete nonsense, then moves on to look at how else religions might be useful in helping us to live a better life. He...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Pete rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Religion for Atheists (2012) by Alain de Botton is an interesting but flawed book that looks at what religion provides for people that secular society does not do as well. de Botton also puts forward a vision for secular institutions to perform these functions. It’s a thought provoking work that makes many good points but that has been let down by some of the ideas not being more thoroughly thought through.

de Botton has a style, his books cover the application of serious philosophical and intel...more Religion for Atheists (2012) by Alain de Botton is an interesting but flawed book that looks at what religion provides for people that secular society does not do as well. de Botton also puts forward a vision for secular institutions to perform these functions. It’s a thought provoking work that makes many good points but that has been let down by some of the ideas not being more thoroughly thought through.

de Botton has a style, his books cover the application of serious philosophical and intellectual ideas and apply them to everyday life, he breaks his books into themed chapters and puts pictures throughout the book. They are ideal items for dinner party discussion. But there is an ease and simplicity to them that almost suggests that de Botton might one day come out and laugh at anyone who has read his books and say that he was just exploiting middle class vanity and writing pretend serious books for pretend intellectuals.

In Religion for Atheists de Botton the chapters are on: Wisdom without doctrine, Community, Kindness, Education, Tenderness, Pessimism, Perspective, Art, Architecture and Institutions.

The first three chapters on wisdom without doctrine, Community and Kindness are really very good. de Botton first describes his book and how secular society has lost something. In the chapter on Community de Botton does very well discussing how religion builds community. When discussing Kindness again the book points out just how well religion can inspire compassion. But the book looses its way in the education chapter. de Botton makes the point that in religious education education was given a direction and a point. He fails to note the weaknesses of religious education and the indoctrination that was inherent in it. The length of the education section, at some 66 pages compared to most of the other chapters at about half that also shows de Botton starts going somewhere peculiar in this chapter.

The chapters on Tenderness and Pessimism are better with de Botton finding firmer ground for his assertions. The chapters on Perspective makes a good point that religion shows people that they are a very small part of the universe. The chapters on Art and Architecture are weak. The book would have been better off without them. In the final chapter de Botton describes the sort of organisation he would like and discusses Auguste Comte’s attempt to create something similar.

The books strong points, that religion builds communities, that it can bring out the better side of humanity and that it has inspired, comforted and given good advice to people are very valuable coming from an atheist author. The book is far better than much of the silly, angry atheist books that have done well in recent years. But by overstating the case and not looking at the weaknesses of religious constructions the book makes a weaker case than it could have. (less)

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Mar 19, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I heard Alain de Botton on the radio and was curious about this book. I enjoyed his Week at Heathrow booklet and like his writing style.

The title is intriguing and he lays out his premise right away. The secular world has pushed religion out of the way and offers little in regards for compassion, spirituality and something to look forward after death. De Botton comes from Jewish parents who were not very religious and from his tone, is an atheist. He believes that various aspects of three main r...more I heard Alain de Botton on the radio and was curious about this book. I enjoyed his Week at Heathrow booklet and like his writing style.

The title is intriguing and he lays out his premise right away. The secular world has pushed religion out of the way and offers little in regards for compassion, spirituality and something to look forward after death. De Botton comes from Jewish parents who were not very religious and from his tone, is an atheist. He believes that various aspects of three main religions (Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism) can offer something for the secular world and he lays it out nicely with such topics as Kindness, Education, Tenderness, Perspective and Art. The use of images help but I do find the proposed images a little too contrived for my liking. And do I agree with David Brooks in his New York Times Book Review that " many of his ideas seem silly".

Do I buy his premise? In a way, yes. De Botton does make the secular world out to be a rather cold place whereas relgion has all that history, art and beautiful buildings....something for everyone. I don' t value organized religion much but he has some valid points worth reconsidering from a secular point. This book is not for everyone and even the title may bother both sides of the conflict....but why is there a conflict? Both sides draw a line and de Botton stands in the middle and takes from both sides. I like that. There is one religion notably absent but the times explains why?

Where he scores for me is on Art and Education. Here I totally agree and see religion as something to look at and to borrow or steal as he implies. I like his proposed museum based on themes rather than art periods. He also notes that advanced education has become too lofty while trying to be too practical refering to all those lawyers and business types who managed to manipulate the last economic melt-down based on greed. Yet he does generalize a bit too much and this is where the book falls down. I enjoyed the read and pondering his ideas. (less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Post Defiance added it

Shelves: nonfiction, religion

Originally posted at http://postdefiance.com/fresh-produce/, written by Timothy Thomas McNeely.

Angering everyone from fundamentalists to atheists, Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists attempts to approach various religions and take from them insights stripped of doctrine and orthodox faith.

Composed as an alternative to baby-with-the-bathwater style atheism, de Botton works to cull from faiths of the world all that is “useful,” without any of the baggage of belief in miracles, a theistic being...more

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