Guide to uses of religion won't appease either side

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Alain de Botton (CNS)

Book review

Religion for Atheists

A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

• By Alain de Botton
• M&S/Signal, 320 pages, $30

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Who will object to this book more? Will it be ardent believers insulted by the very suggestion that their cherished beliefs and symbols might be co-opted by heretics, or those strident atheists who want absolutely nothing to do with the trappings of irrational belief?

Both sides may have good reasons for their objections. While this volume starts strong, and the author makes some interesting points, flaws start to accumulate to the point that annoyance outweighs interest.

Alain de Botton's argument is that it must be possible to balance a "rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts," while asserting that we humans invented religions to address two central issues our secular world has not yet been able to solve.

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."

De Botton's first argument, regarding our so-called inability to live in harmony, is actually a non-starter, especially since science has begun to answer how, as social animals, we humans have it in our best interest to live co-operatively.

Through such adaptations as mirror neurons, altruism has been wired into our species. In fact, many may find it surprising to read that de Botton, an atheist himself, claims we will automatically revert to violent and anti-social behaviour without the threat of divine consequences.

Such stereotypical statements usually originate from "the other camp," so to speak. It's a good thing for him that the late religion-hater Christopher Hitchens isn't around to sink his fangs into this.

His second argument is worth further investigation. Without religious belief, we are indeed left facing the potentially traumatic reality of our own demise, and the demise of those we love, without the comfort that belief in an afterlife brings. However, de Botton spends relatively very little time on this topic.

While chapters are organized by topic, including community, education and pessimism, the book is focused more on discussions of visual themes such as art, sculpture and architecture.

In stating "how ugly huge stretches of the modern world have become," he proclaims his belief that things need to be spruced up.

De Botton is clearly focused on the visual, to the detriment of other facets of understanding. This is conveyed through the quantity and variety of illustrations in this volume, as well as the topics of his other works.

A well-known esthete, the Swiss-born and London-based writer is the author of several bestsellers, including How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel and The Architecture of Happiness. His bias towards the visual may be to blame for such superficial thinking.

Errors start accumulating, and some assertions are just wrong. He decries universities for their focus on instruction, and their deficiency in utilizing secular culture as a source of guidance and advice on how to lead our lives. Yet universities do encourage analysis and original thought, especially in comparison to the alternatives.

In a later discussion on educational institutions, he states that Auguste Comte, a 19th-century French sociologist who invented his own religion, accused capitalism of favouring a "skilled, obedient and unintrospective workforce." Yet those are arguably the self-same characteristics long favoured by most religions. Universities encourage far more independent thought than do most churches.

De Botton also includes many sweeping generalizations that irritate, such as that without God, human beings imagine themselves to be commanders of their own destinies, and grandiosely consider our human achievements as the measure of all things.

We only have to consider our recent discoveries about the nature of the universe to put our achievements in perspective.

Donna Harris edits the Manitoba Humanist newsletter and considers herself a contented atheist.

Religion for Atheists

A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion

By Alain de Botton

M&S/Signal, 320 pages, $30

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 12, 2012 J9