Alain de Botton's new book "Religion for Atheists" is a bold attempt to convince atheists, or those who don't believe in the existence of God, that it is possible to derive important lessons from religions around the world without accepting any supernatural claims they might make. Mr. de Botton is unequivocal about his atheistic stance, and frankly says that he doesn't believe in any supernatural being or phenomenon. But this atheistic position that many people probably adopt today, he claims, should not prevent them from appreciating the effective ways religions have provided to meet what he calls the needs of souls that tend all too often to be left unattended in our secularized world but remain none the less existent.
Based on this central principle, he refers to various fields ranging from education to architecture and shows us how religions have traditionally interpreted or dealt with the problems typically associated with those fields. For example, we tend to assume that the purpose of education is to impart valuable information. Hence our puzzlement over a university lecture that focuses exclusively on certain obscure literary works of a foreign thinker who died several thousand years ago, however much importance its lecturer argues they have. This kind of situation happens because of the fact that education has forgotten its original mission: to fill the moral vacuum that was left by the ebbing of the influence of religion. Religions used to teach each of its adherents how to find happiness, how to deal with suffering, and how to become a better, mature person---a kind of therapeutic pedagogy, the need for which remains as strong as ever despite the fact that we are now living in a godless, secular world. Mr. de Botton therefore argues that education, especially in the field of humanities, should ideally provide a reasonable substitute.
Another field that he zeros in on is art. Mr. de Botton complains that the high esteem we hold museums in is made almost useless by our nonsensical prejudice that art should be only for its own sake. Religions have used works of art as important tools of reminding us of those qualities that we understand at heart are important but too often forget or fail to act upon, and have had no qualm about admitting art serves a utilitarian purpose, like that of enhancing our happiness or of healing our souls. This attitude is, according to Mr. de Botton, still relevant today, and should influence ways we appreciate works of art.
These considerations, provocative as they may be, are deeply interesting and thought-provoking. Some of his ideas, however, are more controversial. For instance, in a section on the contrast between libertarianism and paternalism, he says religious paternalism used to help people be better than they would have been left to their own devices, whereas libertarianism, in which people are permitted to do whatever they like as long as they are law abiders, leaves people at a loss for where to seek moral guidance. But it is precisely because one’s conviction that s/he has an infallible understanding of what is truly good or bad for humanity brought about tremendous bloodshed that our predecessors decided to enshrine the rights of individual freedom. Even if some aspects of paternalism are indeed appealing, it seems to be difficult to let go of the well-cherished principle that every individual is a sovereign over himself.
Another topic some might find unpalatable is his discussion of The Book of Job, which he claims is one of the most consoling texts for atheists. In this biblical story, Job, a wealthy, happy man, experienced a series of grave misfortunes, lost his children, his wealth and even his health. His neighbors said that he must have sinned and been punished, but he was convinced of his innocence and began to doubt the benevolence of God. At this point God admonished him for his haughtiness. Compared with the vastness of the universe and its mysteries, human beings were petty, insignificant creatures, and as such they had no qualification to fathom God’s intentions. After this admonition, Job came to realize the pettiness of human life and the nothingness of his own existence. This story, says Mr. de Botton, helps us, like Job, to realize how small and how insignificant our everyday troubles and sorrows are, in comparison with the grandeur of the universe. But if you notice an analogy between what Job experienced and the tsunami that people in the north eastern part of Japan went through last year, Mr. de Botton’s argument becomes less convincing. For how many would agree that those who got indignant at the disaster’s unfairness were arrogant for presuming to judge what’s fair and unfair? How many would say that the disastrous event, which claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives, reminded people of the smallness of their everyday desires and sufferings and the nothingness of their own existence? Very few, indeed.
Notwithstanding these controversial points, this book as a whole is an interesting attempt to add a new dimension to, and therefore stimulate, the otherwise insipid debates between the religious and the non-religious fundamentalists.
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After getting a few insightful comments from a colleague of mine, I also wrote the following responses:
Well, maybe we all have some fear for the unknown, but those staunch atheists like Richard Dawkins would say that the very fear can be completely explained in Darwinian terms and does not need to be expressed in the form of awe or reverence for any supernatural being. As for the possibility of traditional religions taking back their former prestige, I am not sure whether it will happen so easily, since the ebbing of the influence of religion is not so recent a phenomenon. Over the past three hundred years science and reason have conspired to wage war against religion, as a result of which religion can never again enjoy the degree of credibility it once did, at least with respect to its supernatural tenets. Although I went to a Christian elementary school, I always wondered why dinosaurs didn't appear in biblical accounts of the beginning of this world or why the omnipotent and benevolent God had not created human beings in such a manner that they could resist the temptation to commit crimes, questions even gullible school children can now be fully aware of. That the influence of religion has been eclipsed by that of science, technology or whatever is also reflected in the fact that Obama referred to nonbelievers as a component of American citizens in his inaugural address. Intellectuals, even those who don’t describe themselves as atheists, can no longer believe in religion, at least not in the same way their ancestors did.
Dawkins would say all of this is a happy development that should be more widespread, a point which I am not so sure of. Iron intellectuals like him may easily accept the brute fact that human beings and their lives don’t have any ultimate purpose or meaning, that they came into existence for a completely accidental cause and might possibly die out for just as accidental a reason. But what of those softer and gentler people, who cannot face it without going insane or committing suicide? They must believe in at least something larger than themselves in order to live happily. Unfortunately, however, the progress of science and technology has made it difficult even for them to accept as literally true the basic tenets of traditional religions. So that’s why Bottonic attempt comes in handy. What traditional religions have taught might be wrong, or at least inaccurate from an objective point of view, but the ways their tenets and rituals have answered our inner needs can provide a good insight into human nature that we can use to make our lives happier and render the world better.
In a nutshell, the Bottonic claim is, as the title of the book implies, that the existence of God, miracles or supernatural phenomena is no essential element of religion, and that both religious fundamentalists and absolute atheists are beside the point in confusing the wheat with the chaff.
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Of course, my experience cannot be an effective indicator of what's happening in the West nor do I have any intention of claiming that we live in the atheist world. And it's also true that because de Botton is a British philosopher, of Jewish origin, he couldn't help having Westerners in mind when he wrote this book, though he also refers to the Buddhist tradition in many sections and at least pretends to write for a wider circle. But the timing of its publication implies that one of its purposes is to present a reasonable anti-thesis to Dawkins' logically powerful vision of an anti-religious world. His "God Delusion," which has become very popular and provoked so much controversy, is designed for not only intellectuals but also garden-variety agnostics or skeptics who, if they read it, cannot resist its argument even if they feel it intuitively disquieting. Indeed, to transform those people into devout atheists is the very purpose of that book. So even if the target de Botton homes in on is those run-of-the-mill moderately intellectual people, yet as they have already been exposed to Dawkinsian Atheism, he has no choice but to tackle Dawkinsian arguments at least at some level and provide an intellectual antidote to them. So, as you say, the readers he has in mind are not absolute atheists but moderate ones, but if he is to talk cogently to the latter, he must show that the former is not relevant and why.
