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rutledge20910's review against another edition
3.0
Not his strongest (that would be his Proust book), but interesting.
bittersweet_symphony's review against another edition
5.0
Alain de Botton will make uncomfortable the most pious religionists and unyielding atheists in his endeavor to bring them into harmony with each other--they need one another. Just as religion needs to be redeemed from the religious, humanism must be salvaged from bombastic atheists like Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens.
He admits that this book is not the "first attempt to reconcile an antipathy towards the supernatural side of religion with an admiration for certain of its ideas and practices; nor is it the first to be interested in a practical rather than a merely theoretical effect." He builds upon the tradition of Auguste Comte, who recognized as many of his contemporaries then and atheists today do not, that "a secular society devoted solely to the accumulation of wealth, scientific discovery, popular entertainment and romantic love - a society lacking in any sources of ethical instruction, consolation, transcendent awe or solidarity - would fall prey to untenable social maladies."
He echoes William James' focus on fruits not roots, in pointing us toward the pragmatic nature of truth. He discourages us from getting hung up on abstractions or the tenuous claims about the supernatural. Alain de Botton finds kinship with the thought of Joseph Campbell who likewise invited us not throw the baby out with the baptismal water when it comes to the demonstrably false historical claims or unfalsifiable (or unprovable) notions of the supernatural. Alain de Botton cautions us that "religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone."
He writes beautifully, authoritatively, and accessibly. He could be considered a secular humanist, but labeling him as such would write off his ideas as common or dole. He gently provokes, empathizes, and inspires in the same sentence. "In a world beset by fundamentalists of both believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts...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."
In Religion for Atheists he "hopes to rescue some of what is beautiful, touching and wise from all that no longer seems true." Again, his thought runs in parallel with Joseph Campbell who preached that the historical or literal claims of religion are secondary, if not irrelevant, that the power of religious stories rest in their mythological power, their ability to help us live well, to find wisdom as we move forward on our inward journeys. He divides the book into 10 chapters ranging from topics of community, kindness, and education, to pessimism (perhaps his most provocative chapter), art, and architecture. Within each he references the wisdom religions have gifted humanity regarding each of these realms, how secular society has failed to replicate it as successfully as religion, and then offers his vision of their secular form.
For community he proposes agape restaurants. To kindle kindness he elaborates upon libertarianism's place in society, although he somehow misunderstands its inextricable and fortunate connection to capitalism. He skewers the current state of higher education: "Graduation speeches stereotypically identify liberal education with the acquisition of wisdom and self-knowledge, but these goals have little bearing on the day to day methods of departmental instruction and examination. To judge by what they do rather than what they airily declaim, universities are in the business of turning out a majority of tightly focuses professionals and a minority of culturally well-informed but ethically confuses arts graduates aptly panicked about how they might remuneratively occupy the rest of their lives...We have implicitly charged our higher-education system with a dual and possibly contradictory mission: to teach us how to make a living and to teach us how to live. And we have left the second of these two aims recklessly vague and unattended." And so on he goes through each aspect of society.
We must educate the soul.
He argues that culture can replace scripture, but our institutions and application of culture have a long way to go before they can see the success canon has had on the inner lives of believers.
His chapters on community and education stand out most in my mind. Hearing an atheist comfortably use the term soul, to talk about the higher ideals of humanity, to have an intellectual interest in the real life application of lived ideas is rare. Those ideas which do not contribute to our living well are irrelevant at best: "science should matter to us not only because it helps us to control parts of the world, but also because it shows us things that we will never master."
His international project, The School of Life, is a real life extension of what he outlines in this book, his undertaking to replace traditional religion with a religion of humanity, where culture informs us how to live well, where we create rituals that can inspire us.
Some atheists leave behind the faith of their upbringing, embittered, or disinterested in religion. For those who have experienced a faith transition, longing for the richness of religious life without the supernatural or theistic underpinnings they can no longer believe, this book offers an encouraging road map for recapturing it. Alain de Botton will put off religionists and atheists alike, but in the language of kindness, he leaves us a vision for how we can regain paradise lost, by celebrating and, in parts, by embracing the wisdom that religions have gathered and preserved for thousands of years.
He admits that this book is not the "first attempt to reconcile an antipathy towards the supernatural side of religion with an admiration for certain of its ideas and practices; nor is it the first to be interested in a practical rather than a merely theoretical effect." He builds upon the tradition of Auguste Comte, who recognized as many of his contemporaries then and atheists today do not, that "a secular society devoted solely to the accumulation of wealth, scientific discovery, popular entertainment and romantic love - a society lacking in any sources of ethical instruction, consolation, transcendent awe or solidarity - would fall prey to untenable social maladies."
He echoes William James' focus on fruits not roots, in pointing us toward the pragmatic nature of truth. He discourages us from getting hung up on abstractions or the tenuous claims about the supernatural. Alain de Botton finds kinship with the thought of Joseph Campbell who likewise invited us not throw the baby out with the baptismal water when it comes to the demonstrably false historical claims or unfalsifiable (or unprovable) notions of the supernatural. Alain de Botton cautions us that "religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone."
He writes beautifully, authoritatively, and accessibly. He could be considered a secular humanist, but labeling him as such would write off his ideas as common or dole. He gently provokes, empathizes, and inspires in the same sentence. "In a world beset by fundamentalists of both believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts...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."
In Religion for Atheists he "hopes to rescue some of what is beautiful, touching and wise from all that no longer seems true." Again, his thought runs in parallel with Joseph Campbell who preached that the historical or literal claims of religion are secondary, if not irrelevant, that the power of religious stories rest in their mythological power, their ability to help us live well, to find wisdom as we move forward on our inward journeys. He divides the book into 10 chapters ranging from topics of community, kindness, and education, to pessimism (perhaps his most provocative chapter), art, and architecture. Within each he references the wisdom religions have gifted humanity regarding each of these realms, how secular society has failed to replicate it as successfully as religion, and then offers his vision of their secular form.
For community he proposes agape restaurants. To kindle kindness he elaborates upon libertarianism's place in society, although he somehow misunderstands its inextricable and fortunate connection to capitalism. He skewers the current state of higher education: "Graduation speeches stereotypically identify liberal education with the acquisition of wisdom and self-knowledge, but these goals have little bearing on the day to day methods of departmental instruction and examination. To judge by what they do rather than what they airily declaim, universities are in the business of turning out a majority of tightly focuses professionals and a minority of culturally well-informed but ethically confuses arts graduates aptly panicked about how they might remuneratively occupy the rest of their lives...We have implicitly charged our higher-education system with a dual and possibly contradictory mission: to teach us how to make a living and to teach us how to live. And we have left the second of these two aims recklessly vague and unattended." And so on he goes through each aspect of society.
We must educate the soul.
He argues that culture can replace scripture, but our institutions and application of culture have a long way to go before they can see the success canon has had on the inner lives of believers.
His chapters on community and education stand out most in my mind. Hearing an atheist comfortably use the term soul, to talk about the higher ideals of humanity, to have an intellectual interest in the real life application of lived ideas is rare. Those ideas which do not contribute to our living well are irrelevant at best: "science should matter to us not only because it helps us to control parts of the world, but also because it shows us things that we will never master."
His international project, The School of Life, is a real life extension of what he outlines in this book, his undertaking to replace traditional religion with a religion of humanity, where culture informs us how to live well, where we create rituals that can inspire us.
Some atheists leave behind the faith of their upbringing, embittered, or disinterested in religion. For those who have experienced a faith transition, longing for the richness of religious life without the supernatural or theistic underpinnings they can no longer believe, this book offers an encouraging road map for recapturing it. Alain de Botton will put off religionists and atheists alike, but in the language of kindness, he leaves us a vision for how we can regain paradise lost, by celebrating and, in parts, by embracing the wisdom that religions have gathered and preserved for thousands of years.
almartin's review against another edition
1.0
frrt. First 160 pages are a great summary of de Botton's TED Talk on the same subject, and a worthy sequel to [b:The Consolations of Philosophy|23419|The Consolations of Philosophy|Alain de Botton|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320528869s/23419.jpg|14280291] - talky, earnest, good-hearted, with de Botton doing his patented upmarket, erudite self-help thing. His message:
patience, humility, community, or trips out of the city to look at the stars on clear summer nights. These are all good ideas, and de Botton's light touch on these questions is peerless.
The remainder of this one, though, is a total mess - to the point where I began to wonder if the last chapter, 'Institutions', was some sort of mean-spirited joke at the expense of the reader; an exercise to see how many people he could get to nod uncritically at such howlers as
Secular society has been unfairly impoverished by the loss of an array of practices and themes which atheists typically find it impossible to live with because they seem too closely associated with, to quote Nietzsche's useful phrase, 'the bad odours of religion'.is, as far as it goes, is a useful corrective to some of the particularly strident brickbats that have been lobbed at the general concept of faith. I'm all for secular pilgrimages to Yosemite Valley,
patience, humility, community, or trips out of the city to look at the stars on clear summer nights. These are all good ideas, and de Botton's light touch on these questions is peerless.The remainder of this one, though, is a total mess - to the point where I began to wonder if the last chapter, 'Institutions', was some sort of mean-spirited joke at the expense of the reader; an exercise to see how many people he could get to nod uncritically at such howlers as
"It is a failing of historic proportions, for instance, that BMW's concern for rigour and precision has ended so conclusively at the bumpers of its cars rather than stretching to the founding of...a political party, or that Giorgio Armani's eponymous corporation has determinedly skirted the possibility of running a therapy unit or liberal arts college."The experience is a lot like reading a brash, half-baked philosophy paper by a particularly clever undergraduate who has found himself way over his skis as he reaches the turn toward the big 'so what' conclusion. If that's your bag, by all means. But for me, the conclusion - where de Botton feels compelled to explain why his proposals don't constitute a deranged personality cult - speaks volumes.
jpbradt's review against another edition
5.0
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com! http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14068971
iggymcmuffin's review against another edition
1.0
There is so much wrong with this book that I scarcely know where to begin.
*Editing*
Let's start with the poor editing. I've never seen a book so poorly edited in my entire life. Double spaced, large fonts, thick margins and a picture every second or third page all seem to deliberately inflate the page count. Sometimes the pictures have nothing to do with the text, rarely to they have captions, and never do they actually illustrate a point or add anything to the text being presented. For example at one point it de Botton talks about how education isn't very engaging and then puts a picture of a student sleeping at a desk. Later he has a bar graph titled "Millions of Pounds Spent Annually in the U.K. on" and showing 67m Pringles, 6.5m Poetry Books. The caption for this graph reads "Only religions have been able to turn the needs of the soul into large quantities of money." What do either Pringles of Poetry Books have to do with religions feeding the soul or making lots of money? It's just downright obtuse. To make matters even worse each chapter (most under 20 pages already) is further broken down into both major headings and numbered sections under those headings. The numbered sections are rarely more then a couple of pages and are frequently less then a page. They also don't correspond to any sort of natural breaking point, so it feels like they were just thrown in arbitrarily.
*Lack of Argument*
Never once does de Botton stay with a single subject long enough to form a cogent argument. He just assumes that he is correct and plays walk-a-mole jumping from subject to subject inside of a chapter with no real rhyme or reason. There are no citations. There are no sources. It's like he was just bull*&^%ting for 300 pages. There's so little to what he says and he jumped around so much that I can't possibly argue against most of it because I can't even tell what point he was trying to make most of the time.
*Overly Broad Generalizations and Strawmen*
For a self-identified atheist Alain de Botton doesn't seem to have any idea what atheists really are. Frequently he spends time filling pages with tired old tropes about how atheists can't live fulfilling lives or are some how deficient to their religious counterparts. this leads to absolute howlers like "one of the most difficult aspects of renouncing religion is having to give up on ecclesiastical art and all the beauty and emotion therein." Really? Says who? I never signed anything that says I have to stop appreciating religious art just because I'm not religious myself.
Additionally he frequently rails against modernity and modernism but at the same time conflates that with atheism as if they were one and the same package, when it reality they don't go hand in hand at all.
He also has a habit of making great and overly broad generalizations of Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, the Religious, Art Aficionados, and basically any other identifiable group mentioned in the book. It makes for a very unconvincing argument.
*Inane and Insane Solutions*
At the end of each chapter he present a solution to whatever problem he's trying to solve. Usually these are just back ideas but often they're ridiculous bordering on bizarre.
In the chapter on community he suggests that restaurants should not be a place to eat, but rather a place to meet people. It's as if de Botton has never heard of a pub or bar. Even worse his second solution is that we should have an orgy once a year with fart jokes. I'll let that settle in for a moment. Yes his solution is that we should annually have an sex with anyone we want all day and make fart jokes to blow off steam. There's even a picture of a hypothetical orgy (interestingly taking place in the same restaurant where he wants you to meet new people... ewww).
In the section on Education, while admitting his paternalistic view of things, he argues that we should not teach students how to think, but rather what to think. In section on Architecture de Botton suggests that travel agents should start psychoanalyzing their clients and sending them on trips to shrines that suit their state of mind or problems.
It's just bizarre as bizarre can be.
*TLDR*
On the cover The Washington Post is quoted as saying "Quirk, often hilarious...". I'd rephrase that to read "Crackpot, often ridiculous..."
*Editing*
Let's start with the poor editing. I've never seen a book so poorly edited in my entire life. Double spaced, large fonts, thick margins and a picture every second or third page all seem to deliberately inflate the page count. Sometimes the pictures have nothing to do with the text, rarely to they have captions, and never do they actually illustrate a point or add anything to the text being presented. For example at one point it de Botton talks about how education isn't very engaging and then puts a picture of a student sleeping at a desk. Later he has a bar graph titled "Millions of Pounds Spent Annually in the U.K. on" and showing 67m Pringles, 6.5m Poetry Books. The caption for this graph reads "Only religions have been able to turn the needs of the soul into large quantities of money." What do either Pringles of Poetry Books have to do with religions feeding the soul or making lots of money? It's just downright obtuse. To make matters even worse each chapter (most under 20 pages already) is further broken down into both major headings and numbered sections under those headings. The numbered sections are rarely more then a couple of pages and are frequently less then a page. They also don't correspond to any sort of natural breaking point, so it feels like they were just thrown in arbitrarily.
*Lack of Argument*
Never once does de Botton stay with a single subject long enough to form a cogent argument. He just assumes that he is correct and plays walk-a-mole jumping from subject to subject inside of a chapter with no real rhyme or reason. There are no citations. There are no sources. It's like he was just bull*&^%ting for 300 pages. There's so little to what he says and he jumped around so much that I can't possibly argue against most of it because I can't even tell what point he was trying to make most of the time.
*Overly Broad Generalizations and Strawmen*
For a self-identified atheist Alain de Botton doesn't seem to have any idea what atheists really are. Frequently he spends time filling pages with tired old tropes about how atheists can't live fulfilling lives or are some how deficient to their religious counterparts. this leads to absolute howlers like "one of the most difficult aspects of renouncing religion is having to give up on ecclesiastical art and all the beauty and emotion therein." Really? Says who? I never signed anything that says I have to stop appreciating religious art just because I'm not religious myself.
Additionally he frequently rails against modernity and modernism but at the same time conflates that with atheism as if they were one and the same package, when it reality they don't go hand in hand at all.
He also has a habit of making great and overly broad generalizations of Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, the Religious, Art Aficionados, and basically any other identifiable group mentioned in the book. It makes for a very unconvincing argument.
*Inane and Insane Solutions*
At the end of each chapter he present a solution to whatever problem he's trying to solve. Usually these are just back ideas but often they're ridiculous bordering on bizarre.
In the chapter on community he suggests that restaurants should not be a place to eat, but rather a place to meet people. It's as if de Botton has never heard of a pub or bar. Even worse his second solution is that we should have an orgy once a year with fart jokes. I'll let that settle in for a moment. Yes his solution is that we should annually have an sex with anyone we want all day and make fart jokes to blow off steam. There's even a picture of a hypothetical orgy (interestingly taking place in the same restaurant where he wants you to meet new people... ewww).
In the section on Education, while admitting his paternalistic view of things, he argues that we should not teach students how to think, but rather what to think. In section on Architecture de Botton suggests that travel agents should start psychoanalyzing their clients and sending them on trips to shrines that suit their state of mind or problems.
It's just bizarre as bizarre can be.
*TLDR*
On the cover The Washington Post is quoted as saying "Quirk, often hilarious...". I'd rephrase that to read "Crackpot, often ridiculous..."
lazygal's review against another edition
5.0
Having a Kindle is dangerous: I saw the author on After Words and immediately bought the book.
The premise is that there are things that religion (mostly Christianity, but others are discussed) does really well, particularly instilling a sense of ethics, morality, caring and community, that secular institutions would do well to emulate. The difference in education, for example, as the university model has taken over, shows less emphasis on ethics or morals and more emphasis on literature as part of a school. Another example? Why are there no secular versions of the Stations of the Cross, like a Stations of Aging or Stations of Grief? Towards the end he mentions Comte's Religion of Humanity. It would have been interesting had this idea been given more credence.
The premise is that there are things that religion (mostly Christianity, but others are discussed) does really well, particularly instilling a sense of ethics, morality, caring and community, that secular institutions would do well to emulate. The difference in education, for example, as the university model has taken over, shows less emphasis on ethics or morals and more emphasis on literature as part of a school. Another example? Why are there no secular versions of the Stations of the Cross, like a Stations of Aging or Stations of Grief? Towards the end he mentions Comte's Religion of Humanity. It would have been interesting had this idea been given more credence.
karimiztan's review against another edition
3.0
Half the book was absolutely incredible, the later half just bored me to death.
agnesceciliajuliane's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
keepingupwiththepenguins's review against another edition
4.0
My full review of Religion For Atheists is up on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
Religion For Atheists is straight-forward in its layout, too: de Botton takes a problem in society, discusses how various religions have attempted to solve it, and then proposes a secular version that we might implement to better our lives. These problems are as varied as “Education”, “Pessimism”, “Community”, and so on. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone who’s curious about how stuff works, in general, and society/religion in particular.
Religion For Atheists is straight-forward in its layout, too: de Botton takes a problem in society, discusses how various religions have attempted to solve it, and then proposes a secular version that we might implement to better our lives. These problems are as varied as “Education”, “Pessimism”, “Community”, and so on. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone who’s curious about how stuff works, in general, and society/religion in particular.