Breezily confident essayist Alain de Botton announced in a recent
Twitter post: “If atheists really want to overcome religion, they should
appropriate all of its positive sides rather than emulate its flaws.”
That’s a miniature edition of his latest full-length missive, a
systematic and inventive mapping of why (and how) atheists like de
Botton can and should find religions useful and consoling.
After
establishing the book’s foundation, that “no religions are true in any
God-given sense,” and God doesn’t exist, de Botton tells readers they
are now free to view religions differently, “as repositories of a myriad
ingenious concepts with which we can try to assuage a few of the most
persistent and unattended ills of secular life.” This isn’t a purely
original ambition, as de Botton acknowledges near the book’s end with a
brief discussion of 19th century French sociologist August Comte’s
invention of a secular “religion.” But in de Botton’s take, he happily
and brazenly picks a little of this and a little of that from his
personal religious buffet — a tactic he likens to the literature-lover
focusing only on a select group of writers — to reveal how religion
might fill gaps in what he calls nonbeliever’s impoverished lives.
Thankfully,
he isn’t trying to compare specific religions but religion generally to
secular life, and he demarcates the narrative in his customary
methodical style, this time by nine facets within the religious prism:
community, kindness, education, tenderness, pessimism, perspective, art,
architecture and institutions. He then uses specific rituals and
constructs from Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism to illustrate bold
concepts for overhauling secular life.
After deconstructing the rigidity of Catholic Mass, for instance,
he proposes as secular counterpart to religion’s community a humble
Agape Restaurant where people can break bread with strangers and ease
isolation. Saint figurines are later likened to stuffed animals, and
behavioral star-charts recommended to guide adults to goodness. He
argues that art galleries should be arranged to achieve the purpose of
churches, and that erecting electronic billboard versions of the Wailing
Wall will help people feel company in life’s sorrows. Modern education
receives the most provocative renovation, with history and literature
departments chucked in favor of using their information as tools in such
courses as understanding marriage or dying.
Secular life has all
the right ingredients, de Botton writes; it just needs help with the
recipe. Founder of
The School of Life, which addresses such issues as
why relationships are challenging and how we can improve the world, de
Botton is anxious to tweak it, offering this book as guide for those
disinterested in dogma but seeking inner nourishment and structured
advice on living.
One has to appreciate his pluck as much as his
lucid, enjoyable arguments, and this book, like his previous titles, is a
serious but intellectually wild ride. If anyone can “rescue some of
what is beautiful, touching and wise from all that no longer seems
true,” it’s de Botton.
Reviewed by CHRISTINE THOMAS
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/25/2712392/a-guide-to-religion-for-atheists.html#storylink=cpy
Focused on advocacy for youth reading and writing, Burning Through Pages has set out one momentous and worthy goal: "To inspire a love of reading in today's youth by recommending, donating and discussing books."
cover art by Francis Cugat. I surmise that this release is timed with the December 2012 opening of the newest Great Gatsby film version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy and Tobey Maguire as Nick. 
(although these are also offered for adults).
