So this is the book that I am currently reading. It is a fascinating read! Thought that I might try and summarise some of the most interesting parts. I especially find it interesting because he talks a lot about Christianity as a Christian (albeit struggling to keep my head above water and not really managing...) it is interesting to hear/read about a dissection of 'my faith' from a considered perspective.
There is a nice little interview between Alain de Botton and Graham Lawton in the God Issue of the New Scientist (17th March 2012).
The basic premise of the book is that reglion supplies lots of useful and supportive structures that atheists have rejected along with the supernatural. He writes that the origins of religion are based on the challenges of living in community and coping with the unpleasantness that life can throw at us. Religions therefore control, heal and console us. Religions provide structure to the inner life - choreographers of spiritual/psychological moments. Religions bind communities and remind people to be good and kind. Religions also state just how life is i.e. that it can be terrible and not everybody has it good.
Some aspects of religion may be accessible to non-believers and therefore invites the possibility of integrating practices, attitudes and states of mind into secular life.
And what of the atheists? Why have they left it all behind? Because they cannot scientifically appreciate God. It does not make sense.
I have yet to read the whole book. I have listened to it a number of times while driving back and forth to Brighton and Heathrow airport over the summer months. I find that my memory for things - is better if I have actually seen it. Well have been so busy with work and other things that I have onlly made it to page. But everybody knows the last line by now.
"Religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone"
It is a fascinating read all 10 chapters
Wisedom without doctrine
Community
Kindness
Education
Tenderness
Pessimism
Perspective
Art
Architecture
Institutions
There is a nice little interview between Alain de Botton and Graham Lawton in the God Issue of the New Scientist (17th March 2012).
The basic premise of the book is that reglion supplies lots of useful and supportive structures that atheists have rejected along with the supernatural. He writes that the origins of religion are based on the challenges of living in community and coping with the unpleasantness that life can throw at us. Religions therefore control, heal and console us. Religions provide structure to the inner life - choreographers of spiritual/psychological moments. Religions bind communities and remind people to be good and kind. Religions also state just how life is i.e. that it can be terrible and not everybody has it good.
Some aspects of religion may be accessible to non-believers and therefore invites the possibility of integrating practices, attitudes and states of mind into secular life.
And what of the atheists? Why have they left it all behind? Because they cannot scientifically appreciate God. It does not make sense.
I have yet to read the whole book. I have listened to it a number of times while driving back and forth to Brighton and Heathrow airport over the summer months. I find that my memory for things - is better if I have actually seen it. Well have been so busy with work and other things that I have onlly made it to page. But everybody knows the last line by now.
"Religions are intermittently too useful, effective and intelligent to be abandoned to the religious alone"
It is a fascinating read all 10 chapters
Wisedom without doctrine
Community
Kindness
Education
Tenderness
Pessimism
Perspective
Art
Architecture
Institutions
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