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