{"id":2028,"date":"2012-02-28T17:23:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T22:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2028"},"modified":"2012-12-09T22:23:07","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T03:23:07","slug":"alain-de-botton-gets-it-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/alain-de-botton-gets-it-backwards.html","title":{"rendered":"Alain de Botton Gets it Backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog<\/a>. \u00a0More details here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Alain de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer\u2019s Guide to the Uses of Religion<\/a><\/em>, is, as you might guess, a bit persona non grata<\/em> with the New Atheist blogosphere. \u00a0After reading his most recent CNN Opinion piece (\u201cWhat atheists can learn from religion\u201d<\/a>), I\u2019m guessing religious folks will also be thinking, \u201cPlease, don\u2019t help us.\u201d \u00a0Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

Probably the most boring question you can ask about religion is whether or not the whole thing is \u201ctrue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026One can be left cold by the doctrines of the Christian Trinity and the Buddhist<\/a> Fivefold Path and yet at the same time be interested in the ways in which religions deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use of art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude at the beauty of spring. In a world beset by fundamentalists of believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts.<\/p>\n

It is when we stop believing that religions have been handed down from above or else that they are entirely daft that matters become more interesting. We can then recognize 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: firstly, the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply rooted selfish and violent impulses. And secondly, 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saying you can take the good and leave the bad from religious practise is actually a bigger insult to faith than it is to say you think we\u2019d be better off without it entirely. \u00a0De Botton assumes that religious ritual can be totally separated from it\u2019s content and context. \u00a0He seems to think he\u2019s paying them a compliment by implying they\u2019ve taken a lie (or, at least, a profound misunderstanding of the world) and used it as the foundation for a complex, beautiful, useful machine.<\/p>\n

Atheists who spurn religion are closer to agreement with the adherents of these faiths because they agree ideas have consequences. \u00a0Start with a falsehood and there will always be a festering weakness at the heart of the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tradition, ritual, and community aren\u2019t unique to religion, and, if they were, de Botton would probably have to do some thinking about how a fundamentally wrongheaded claim managed to stumble into such a good idea. \u00a0His advice to atheists is similarly misguided.<\/p>\n

It is more accurate to say that tradition, ritual, and community are powerful parts of human life than it is to say that they are good. \u00a0De Botton is correct that living without these influences would be an\u00a0impoverished\u00a0kind of life, but these aren\u2019t the kind of things you can embrace abstractly. \u00a0We want to live in a particular <\/em>tradition, reinforced by particular<\/em> rituals, and supported by a particular<\/em> community. \u00a0All three woven together in support of a particular telos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Atheists don\u2019t need to need to adapt the trappings of religion. \u00a0We just need to pursue truth, practise philosophy, and try and share both with others. \u00a0The fights about how to use ritual<\/a> and the role of authority and <\/a><\/span>hierarchy<\/a><\/span> are incoherent unless we have some idea of what principles we\u2019re designing these <\/span>structures<\/span> to sustain. <\/span>Once you\u2019re evangelizing and developing a worldview, the community can develop, but you can\u2019t build a tradition by fiat around a flat negation of someone else\u2019s ideas<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0Instead of asking atheists to revise their organizing principles, de Botton would be better off promoting the positive ideas atheists and everyone should organize around.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. Alain de Botton, author of Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer\u2019s Guide to the Uses of Religion, is, as you might guess, a bit persona non grata with the New Atheist blogosphere. \u00a0After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,68,48],"tags":[28,110,81,53],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-epistemologyphilosophy","category-morality-in-practice","tag-authority","tag-boring-gods","tag-interfaith-dialogue","tag-ritual"],"yoast_head":"\nAlain de Botton Gets it Backwards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. 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