I recently read Alain de Botton's latest book, "Religion for Atheists" and did not find it quite as 'inspiring' as Amazon.com assured me I would. The main tag-line for the book, "even if religion isn't true, can't we enjoy the best bits?", sums up de Botton's main argument. As an atheist he begins with the presupposition that the supernatural elements of religion are false but argues that some religious ideas and rituals would be useful in secular society.
He believes that the moral ideas and community spirit that religion offers should be adopted into secular society. Some of his ideas include Agape restaurants, a day of atonement, and the reinstatement of the Feast of Fools (an annual week of debauchery to make it easier to stay faithful to your partner).
While I think that de Botton makes some compelling arguments for adopting religious rites in secular society I feel that he is making a mistake in rejecting the supernatural from the start. The spirituality that emerges from the supernatural, being able to feel something beyond the secular world, being part of a spiritual community as well as a moral one is important for a person's well-being.
Spirituality is more than just communing with a higher power; I think it would be hard to adopt religious rituals and ideas into society without being able to feel what they mean spiritually. People are not compassionate or forgiving or social because they have to be according to society's laws; they are because they feel something that compels them to act, a communal spirituality.
Reference:
de Botton, Alain. (2012).Religion for Atheists: A non-believers Guide to the Uses of Religion. Switzerland: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Hi Sophie,
ReplyDeleteI've actually recently acquired this book and have begun to read it after hearing him speak here in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago.
Although not religious, I do consider myself spiritual and I agree with you that something does not sit quite right with Alain de Botten's argument of being able to take parts of religions and use them in secular society to help improve quality of life.
It is as though this is quite a synthetic and forced approach to "borrow" elements from religion when these elements (such as a sense of community) really arise out of a shared spiritual faith, and weren't just invented because people thought they would be good things to include for well-being.
Perhaps one reason why these elements work so well within religions is because there is an element of faith in something supernatural and without this, it could feel quite empty and may not work so well in secular society.
However, this is not to say that I don't think secular society needs such things as more of a shared community, appreciation of art and music and beautiful places to gather, or that having such things would not improve people's lives. It just seems that to gather people into a community, there perhaps needs to a strong bond, such as faith in something, in order to have a substantial effect on the people.
Reference:
de Botton, Alain. (2012).Religion for Atheists: A non-believers Guide to the Uses of Religion. Switzerland: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.