Atheist Insight and Religion for Atheists, by Alain de Botton

I found a cheap copy of Religion for Atheists not terrible long after I began my post-Mormon journey. I’ll detail for you here what about the book I found valuable so you don’t have to read the book.

Summary

As he explains in his TED Talk, “Atheism 2.0,” Alain de Botton believes that we (I assume that “we” here is largely referring to Western Europe) have secularized badly. He believes in reclaiming the good that religion has coopted as part of itself over the centuries so that we can live fuller lives.

Religion for Atheists covers ten areas de Botton has identified as places where the secular world can reclaim traditions of value.

These categories are:

• Wisdom without Doctrine
• Community
• Kindness
• Education
• Tenderness
• Pessimism
• Perspective
• Art
• Architecture
• Institutions

I am on board with de Botton’s central thesis, that religion has co-opted some elements of being human that secular society needs to reclaim.

I do find the book useful as a way to start thinking about how I want to relate to each of his categories and how I can meet those needs for myself. But a lot of the ways he suggests we secularize better are stupid, harmful, or just bananas. Let’s take a look.

Wisdom without Doctrine

This chapter is a sort of introduction and tells about how the core challenge for atheists is to separate valuable aspects of being human and in community with “the bad odours of religion” (Nietzsche). De Botton refers to this process as reversing religious colonization, or separating ideas and rituals from the religious institutions that have claimed them but that don’t in reality own them (page 15).

So far, I’m with de Botton. But that doesn’t last long.

Community

Next, de Botton talks about community, with arguments divided into several categories.

Meeting Strangers

Religion, at least in theory, allows people to meet and bond with strangers of varying backgrounds, with labels of class and race becoming less important than our humanity. Specifically, de Botton is drawing on the Catholic mass for this section.

I’m not convinced that that’s how any religion actually works most of the time, but I do think that that’s an ideal to strive for. His idea for a restaurant where people eat with and get to know strangers from their communities is intriguing, though I’m not sure how you’re going to get people to go and be deeply vulnerable with strangers or whether that’s advisable. You have to develop trust before you can ask deep, personal questions of people. Boundaries are good.

Apologies

The second point in the Community section is about apologies and details how the Day of Atonement works in Judaism. De Botton proposes a secular day of reconciliation once a quarter. Striving for a secular Day of Reconciliation once a quarter is, I think, a great thing for individuals to do, but any government-declared day does not sound like a great plan to me.

Especially for the United States, Christian teachings on forgiveness are often weaponized against the oppressed. Judaism’s teachings on forgiveness have a lot more clarity and nuance and less room for weaponization by the powerful (or maybe I just haven’t had them weaponized against me). I’m not sure that Jewish ideals of reconciliation would be effectively utilized by a society, secular or not, rooted in Christianity. There would be a lot of cultural appropriation and likely degradation of Judaism’s holiest day involved.

Rituals

Rituals definitely help people through life and can help us process transitions and even trauma. I do think humans need rituals.

I am appalled, however, at de Botton’s suggestion for this. He is very interested in the sexual aspects of the Feast of Fools, a day once a year where, among other things that seem to have been more important historically than the sex de Botton emphasizes, people just have sex with “anyone who will have them.” To be clear, if you want to have an open relationship or be polyamorous, then I’m not against that. People who are ethically non-monogamous are great, and I am on team Just Be Consenting Adults. But what de Botton is describing is too random and without accountability to possibly be ethical on a large scale.

If everyone is encouraged to “copulate randomly and joyfully with strangers” on a specific day with no strings attached, then many people (read: a lot of men) will not care to ensure consent and protection first. And even if they did, de Botton’s glorification of people hooking up with anyone who will have them would end in a day where it’s more acceptable to harass women or pressure your partner who wants to be exclusive for a hall pass. That’s what the result of his “innovation” would be. That and STDs.

And that is just too D&C 132 for me.

It is also worth mentioning here that in Come As You Are, Emily Nagoski quotes de Botton talking about bodily reactions like hardness and wetness as indicating consent, so maybe de Botton is just a creep. In any case, he is not a guy to take sex advice from.

Kindness

Kindness is good. De Botton wants an external, non-religious source to remind him of virtues like kindness and forgiveness. That’s fine, but when you have a group of people that regularly meet to talk about morality . . . we’re getting into religion territory.

I’m not saying that has to be bad. I’m a Unitarian Universalist (and an atheist) now. A lot of liberal religions don’t care what you believe or even have lots of congregants who don’t literally believe. Secular Jews and atheist Hindus exist, and outside of Christianity, religion is often more about culture than belief. But liberal religion is still religion. I’m not sure de Botton realizes that atheism and religion are not mutually exclusive.

He also thinks that religion is at its most beguiling when it’s infantilizing everyone, and as a secular Mormon feminist, I hardcore don’t relate.

Education

I agree that education is good and should not be left just to religious organizations. (This is less relevant, I think, in the United States than Europe, though as charter schools spread, it’s becoming more relevant.)

I don’t think universities need to be revamped to have things like a “Department of Relationships.” People do study relationships; those students are future therapists. That’s already a thing. Honestly, I think a lot of what he wants could be solved by adding GE requirements for philosophy and psychology/relationship skills.

Tenderness

One of the odder categories in the book (for me) is “tenderness,” encapsulated in the experience of doing a vigil at the feet of the Virgin Mary and feeling that a mothering figure is watching over you without judgment. Which is fine. If people want to, we could make temples of tenderness that recreate the comforting, churchy feeling of being in a candle-lit Marian shrine but have secular art focusing on parental themes, as de Botton suggests. That would be a useful public space.

I will say, de Botton’s explanations of the need for such a secular space makes me think that he could do with studying vulnerability and healthy masculinity.

But whatever, such a space would not be bad. Maybe I’m weird for not feeling a need for that.

Pessimism

Part of why I doubt de Botton’s suggestion of secular temples in the Tenderness section is about sensitivity to the non-religious is that the pessimism section is out of sync with how a lot of people experience religion.

This is a common issue with the book: de Botton idealizes the religious experience in a way that must be a reflection of his outside opinion based on interacting with believers in secularized Europe, not with high-demand religion in the United States.

He cites the Christian belief in original sin as a thing that anchors people so that their egos don’t get too out of control. And that’s just bananas to me. In my experience, people who have out-of-control egos aren’t much restrained by that doctrine, but it does instill shame and self-loathing in everyone.

Perspective

I do agree with de Botton that humans sometimes need perspective, a reminder that we aren’t the center of the universe. I’m less sure than he seems to be that religion offers that to us in a healthy way, but I agree that a great way to gain that perspective is through star-gazing.

I’m not convinced we need to project Hubble telescope images on huge screens in London, but I’m not against it. Developing habits and ultimately a culture in which we spend time in and appreciate the night sky and the feelings of transcendence gained in nature seems to me a better way to do that.

Art

I agree that art can be a gateway to reflection and spirituality. I do not like de Botton’s idea of organizing art museums by emotion, eg, gallery of fear, gallery of hope, etc. Art museums are categorized by period, artist, etc., so that you can see the overlap and development of themes, techniques, and so forth. Categorizing art by emotion, as though a work of art has only one, is ridiculously limiting. One museum organized like that could be cool. Museums regularly organized like that would be bananas.

It sounds like we just need better art education in public schools so that people are better at evaluating and understanding art for themselves. And greater access to art museums.

Architecture

Like with art, architecture can instill wonder and perspective. De Botton suggests several specific buildings, such as temples to perspective and reflection. Again, I’m not opposed to this idea. But I also think public spaces where one can gain perspective and reflect already exist.

For me, the focus shouldn’t be on the government commissioning buildings meant to evoke specific emotions so much as on increasing access to the spaces that already exist, expanding art education to include architecture, supporting public art more broadly, and building a world economically secure enough that we can afford to care about the artistic merit of our buildings and not just their ability to provide shelter.

Institutions

With the Institutions section, I felt the de Botton once again went off the rails. While I am into reforming institutions we need, like schools and courts, I also recognize their importance to the continuation of society. So I’m not just down on institutions.

But he wants to empower existing institutions so that they have the concentrated power over people’s lives that high-demand churches do. I do not, for instance, agree that it is a “failing of historic proportions” that BMW has not founded a school or a political party. I do not want companies to imitate churches in their historic ability to monetize spirituality.

It’s like he’s never heard of the East India Company, that episode of Community where Subway tries to buy a community college, or the United States.

Conclusion

The thing I gained most from the book was insight into the mind of someone who didn’t grow up with the structure of high-demand religion and now apparently feels he needs more structure in his life.

He doesn’t say that, of course, but it’s pretty clear from his suggestions. De Botton seems to want the structure and demands of a religion without the dogma, which he can’t believe.

I find this insight helpful. As the parent of a kid being raised without indoctrination into supernatural beliefs, I want to identify the positive things I gained from religion and might take for granted and thus not replicate for my kid.

However, I can’t really take this book seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that de Botton just brainstormed ideas and stuck them in a book to make money. I am more confused at how and why his terrible ideas were actually published. (No I’m not; it was done to make money.)

This is a book with a decent outline but details so unhelpful that I would not recommend bothering to read it. And now that I’ve written this breakdown, maybe you don’t feel you need to.