Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion - Couverture souple

De Botton, Alain

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0141046317 ISBN 13 : 9780141046310

Editeur : Penguin, 2013

Synopsis

Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" looks at the God debate with fresh eyes "All of us", whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton both rejects the supernatural claims of religion and points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live. And he suggests that non-believers can learn and steal from them. Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions to get practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death, Alain de Botton shows us a range of fascinating ideas on a range of topics, including relationships, work, culture, love and death - and that could be of use to all of us, irrespective of whether we do or don't believe. In the "Sunday Times" top-ten bestseller "Religion for Atheists", Alain de Botton takes us one step further than Dawkins and Hitchens have ventured and into a world of ideas beyond the God debate..."A serious and optimistic set of practical ideas that could improve and alter the way we live". (Jeanette Winterson, "The Times"). "A beautiful, inspiring book ...offering a glimpse of a more enlightened path". ("Sunday Telegraph"). "Packed with tantalizing goads to thought and playful prompts to action". ("Independent"). "Smart, stimulating, sensitive. A timely and perceptive appreciation of how much wisdom is embodied in religious traditions and how we godless moderns might learn from it". ("Financial Times"). "There isn't a page in this book that doesn't contain a striking idea or a stimulating parallel". ("Mail on Sunday"). "Packed with tantalizing goads to thought and playful prompts to action". ("Independent"). Alain de Botton was born in 1969 and is the author of non-fiction essays on themes ranging from love and travel to architecture and philosophy. His bestselling books include "How Proust Can Change Your Life", "The Art of Travel", "The C

A propos du livre

Extrait :

from Part One: Wisdom without Doctrine
 
1.
The most boring and unproductive question one can ask of any religion is whether or not it is true – in terms of being handed down from heaven to the sound of trumpets and supernaturally governed by prophets and celestial beings.
 
To save time, and at the risk of losing readers painfully early on in this project, let us bluntly state that of course no religions are true in any God-given sense. This is a book for people who are unable to believe in miracles, spirits or tales of burning shrubbery, and have no deep interest in the exploits of unusual men and women like the thirteenth-century saint Agnes of Montepulciano, who was said to be able to levitate two feet off the ground while praying and to bring children back from the dead – and who, at the end of her life (supposedly), ascended to heaven from southern Tuscany on the back of an angel.
 
2.
Attempting to prove the non-existence of God can be an entertaining activity for atheists. Tough-minded critics of religion have found much pleasure in laying bare the idiocy of believers in remorseless detail, finishing only when they felt they had shown up their enemies as thorough-going simpletons or maniacs.
 
Though this exercise has its satisfactions, the real issue is not whether God exists or not, but where to take the argument once one decides that he evidently doesn’t. The premise of this book is that it must be possible to remain a committed atheist and nevertheless find religions sporadically useful, interesting and consoling – and be curious as to the possibilities of importing certain of their ideas and practices into the secular realm.
 
One can be left cold by the doctrines of the Christian Trinity and the Buddhist Eightfold Path and yet at the same time be interested in the ways in which religions deliver sermons, promote morality, engender a spirit of community, make use of art and architecture, inspire travels, train minds and encourage gratitude at the beauty of spring. In a world beset by fundamentalists of both believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts.
 
It is when we stop believing that religions have been handed down from above or else that they are entirely daft that matters become more interesting. We can then recognize that we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not been able to solve with any particular skill: 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. God may be dead, but the urgent issues which impelled us to make him up still stir and demand resolutions which do not go away when we have been nudged to perceive some scientific inaccuracies in the tale of the seven loaves and fishes.
 
The error of modern atheism has been to overlook how many aspects of the faiths remain relevant even after their central tenets have been dismissed. Once we cease to feel that we must either prostrate ourselves before them or denigrate them, we are free to discover religions as repositories of a myriad ingenious concepts with which we can try to assuage a few of the most persistent and unattended ills of secular life.

Revue de presse :

"This is a wonderfully provocative book.... De Botton excels at exposing the emptiness of contemporary self-congratulation. He has a fine eye for the senselessness of hypermodern urban life." Globe and Mail

"[De Botton's] thoughtfulness encourages atheists and believers alike to ponder the accrued knowledge and insight that all religions can offer to a troubled world." Vancouver Sun

"A compelling, thought-provoking work." Edmonton Journal

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0141046317
• ISBN 13: 9780141046310
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 336