RELIGION FOR ATHEISTS
By Alain de Botton
Hamish Hamilton. 312 pages. £18.99
ISBN 978 0 241 144 770
When this volume appeared earlier this year, arch-atheist Richard Dawkins expressed his dislike of it. I can understand why. From Dawkins’s point of view, the book gives away far too much to the opposition.
Beginning with the customary sneering ridicule of people of faith (how these atheists play into our hands by acting just as pictured in Scripture, 2 Peter 3.3), de Botton’s thesis is that ‘secular society has been unfairly (?) impoverished by the loss of an array of practices and themes which atheists find it implausible to live with’ (p.14). And so the book becomes an exploration of the ‘good bits’ of religious practice, which, according to the author, secular society needs to reclaim and adapt for the psychological and behavioural help of its citizens.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …