Atheism 2.0 Alain de Botton
one of the most common ways of dividing
the world is into those who believe and
those who don’t
into the religious and the atheists and
for the last decade or so it’s been
quite clear what being an atheist means
they’ve been some very vocal atheist
you’ve pointed out not just that
religion is wrong but that it’s
ridiculous
these people many of whom have lived in
North Oxford have argued they’ve they’ve
argued that believing in God is akin to
believing in fairies and essentially
that the whole thing is a childish game
now I think it’s too easy I think it’s
too easy to dismiss the whole of
religion that way and it’s as easy as
shooting fish in a barrel and what I’d
like to inaugurate today is a new way of
being an atheist if you like a new
version of atheism we could call atheism
2.0 now what is atheism 2.0 well it
starts from a very basic premise of
course there’s no God of course there
are no deities or supernatural spirits
or angels etc now let’s move on that’s
not the end of the story that’s the very
very beginning I’m interested in a kind
of constituency that thinks something
along these lines that thinks I can’t
believe in any of this stuff I can’t
believe in the doctrines I don’t think
these doctrines are right but very
important but I love Christmas carols I
really like the art of Mantinea I really
like looking at old churches I really
like turning the pages of the Old
Testament whatever it may be you know
the kind of thing I’m talking about
people who are attracted to the
ritualistic side the moralistic communal
side of religion but can’t bear the
doctrine now until now these people have
faced rather an unpleasant choice it’s
almost as though either you accept the
doctrine and then you can have all the
nice stuff or you reject the doctrine
and you’re living in a sort of spiritual
wasteland under the guidance of CNN and
Walmart
so that’s the sort of tough choice I
don’t think we have to make that choice
I think there is an alternative I think
there are ways and I’m being both very
respectful and completely impious of
stealing from religions if you don’t
believe in a religion there’s nothing
wrong with picking a mixing with taking
out the best sides of religion and for
me 80 ISM 2.0 is about in both as I say
a respectful and an impious way going
through religions and saying what here
could we use the secular world is full
of holes
we have secularized badly I would argue
and a thorough study of religion can
give us all sorts of insights into areas
of life that are not going too well and
I’d like to run through a few of these
today I’d like to kick off by looking at
education now education is a field that
the secular world really believes in you
know when we think about how we’re going
to make the world a better place we
think education that’s what we put a lot
of money education is going to give us
not only commercial skills industrial
skills it’s also going to make us better
people you know the kind of thing of
commencement addresses and graduation
ceremonies those lyrical claims that
education the process of education
particularly higher education will make
us into nobler and better human beings
that’s a lovely idea the interesting
where it came from
you know in the early 19th century
church attendance in Western Europe
started sliding down very very sharply
and people panicked they asked
themselves the following question they
said where are people gonna find
morality where are they going to find
guidance and where are they gonna find
sources of consolation an influential
voices came up with one answer they said
culture it’s the culture that we should
look for guidance for consolation for
morality let’s look to the plays of
Shakespeare the dialogues of Plato the
novels of Jane Austen in there we’ll
find a lot of the truths that we might
previously have found in the Gospel of
st. John now I think that’s a very
beautiful idea in a very true idea they
wanted to replace Scripture with culture
and that’s a very plausible idea it’s
also an idea that we have forgotten you
know if you went to a top university
let’s say you went to Harvard or Oxford
or Cambridge and you said you know I’ve
come here because I’m in search of
morality guidance and consulate
I want to know how to live they would
show you the way to the insane asylum
this is simply not what our grandest and
best Institutes of higher learning are
in the business of why they don’t think
we need it they don’t think we are in
urgent need of assistance they see us as
adults rational adults what we need is
information we need data we don’t need
help now
religions start from a very different
place indeed all religions all major
religions at various points call us
children and like children they believe
that we are in severe need of assistance
we’re only just holding it together and
perhaps it’s just me
maybe you but anyway we’re only just
holding it together and we need help of
course we need help
and so we need guidance and really
didactic learning you know in the 18th
century in the UK the greatest preacher
greatest religious preacher was a man
called John Wesley who went up and down
this country delivering sermons advising
people how they could live he delivered
sermons on the duties of parents of
their children and children to their
parents the duties of the rich the poor
and the poor to the rich he was trying
to tell people how they should live
through the medium of sermons the
classic medium of delivery of religions
now we’ve given up with the idea of
sermons if you said to a modern liberal
individualist
hey how about a sermon they go no no I
don’t need one of those I’m an
independent individual person what’s the
difference between a sermon and our
modern secular mode of delivery the
lecture well a sermon wants to change
your life and a lecture wants to give
you a bit of information and I think we
need to get back to that sermon
tradition the tradition of sermonizing
is hugely valuable because we are in
need of guidance morality and
consolation and religions know that
another point about education we tend to
believe in the modern secular world but
if you tell someone something once
they’ll remember it sit them in a
classroom tell them about Plato at the
age of 20 send them out into a career in
management consultancy for 40 years and
that lessons will stick with them
religions go nonsense you need to keep
repeating the lessons 10 times a day so
get on your knees and repeat it that’s
what all religions tell us get on your
knees and repeat at 10 or 20 or 15 times
a day otherwise our minds are like
serious so religions are cultures of
repetition they circle the great true
again and again and again we associate
repetition with boredom giveness the new
were always saying that new is better
than the old if I said to you okay we’re
not going to have new Ted we’re just
going to go run through all the old ones
and watch them five times because
they’re so true we’re gonna watch
Elizabeth Gilbert five times because
what she says it’s so clever
you’d feel cheated not so if you’re
adopting a religious mindset the other
thing that religions do is to arrange
time all the major religions give us
calendars what is a calendar a calendar
is a way of making sure that across the
year you will bump into certain very
important ideas in the Catholic a
chronology Catholic calendar you know at
the end of March you will think about
st. Jerome and his qualities of humility
and goodness and his generosity to the
poor you won’t do that by accident you
will do that because you are guided to
do that now we don’t think that way in
the secular world we think if an idea is
important I’ll bump into it I’ll just
come across it nonsense says the
religious worldview rigid her view says
we need calendars we need to structure
time we need to synchronize encounters
this comes across also in the way in
which religions set up rituals around
important feelings take the moon it’s
really important to look at the moon you
know when you look at the moon you think
I’m really small what are my problems
sets things in perspective
etc etc we should all look at the moon a
bit more often we don’t why don’t we
well there’s nothing to tell us look at
the moon but if you’re a Zen Buddhist in
the middle of September
you will be ordered out of your home
made to stand on a canonical platform
and made to celebrate the festival of
tsukimi where you will be given poems to
read in honor of the moon in the passage
of time and the frailty of life that it
should remind us of you’ll be handed
rice cakes and the moon and the
reflection on the moon will have a
secure place in your heart that’s very
good the other thing that religions are
really aware of is speak well not doing
a very good job of this here but oratory
oratory is absolutely key to religions
you know in the secular world you can
come through the university system and
be a lousy speaker and still of a great
career but the religious world doesn’t
think that way what you’re saying needs
to be backed up by a really convincing
way of saying it so if you go to an
african-american Pentecostal church in
the American South and you listen to how
they talk my goodness they talk well you
know after every convincing point people
will go oh man nah man nah men
at the end of a really rousing paragraph
they’ll all stand up and they’ll go
thank you Jesus thank you Christ thank
you Savior you know if we were doing it
like they do it let’s not do it but if
we were today you know I would tell you
something like culture should replace
Scripture and you would go our men our
men are men and at the end of my talk
you would all stand up and you go thank
you Plato thank you Shakespeare thank
you Jane Austen the other thing that
religions know is we’re not just brains
we are also bodies and when they teach
us a lesson they do it via the body so
for example take the Jewish idea of
forgiveness Jews are very interested in
forgiveness and how we should start anew
and start afresh
they don’t just deliver us sermons on
this they don’t just give us books or
words about they they tell us to have a
bath so in Orthodox Jewish communities
every Friday you go to a mikvah you
immerse yourself in the water and a
physical action backs up a philosophical
idea we don’t tend to do that our ideas
are in one area and our behavior with
our bodies or another religions are
fascinating in the way they try and
combine the two let’s look at art now
now art is something that in the secular
world we think very highly off we think
art is really really important a lot of
our surplus wealth goes towards museums
etc we sometimes hear it said that
museums are our new cathedrals or our
new churches you’ve heard that saying
now I think that the potential is there
but we’ve completely let ourselves down
and the reason we’ve let ourselves down
is that we’re not properly studying how
religions handle art you know the two
really bad ideas that are hovering in
the modern world that inhibit our
capacity to draw strength from art the
first idea is that art should be for
art’s sake a ridiculous idea an idea
that art should live in a hermetic
bubble and should not try and do
anything with this troubled world I
couldn’t disagree more the other thing
that we believe is that art shouldn’t
explain itself that artists shouldn’t
say what they’re up to because if they
said it they might destroy the spell and
we might be you know we might find it
too easy that’s why a very common
feeling when you’re in a museum let’s
admit it is I don’t know what this is
about but if we’re serious people we
don’t admit to that but that feeling of
puzzlement is struck
sheral to contemporary art now religions
have a much saner attitude to art they
have no trouble telling us what art is
about art is about two things in all the
major faiths firstly it’s trying to
remind you of what there is to love and
secondly it’s trying to remind you of
what there is to fear and to hate and
that’s what art is art is a visceral
encounter with the most important ideas
of your faith so as you walk around a
church what your or a mosque or a
cathedral what you’re trying to imbibe
what you’re imbibing is through your
eyes through your senses truths that
have otherwise come to you through your
minds essentially it’s propaganda
Rembrandt is a propagandist in the in
the Christian view now the word
propaganda sets off alarm bells we think
of Hitler we think of Stalin don’t
necessarily propaganda is a manner of
being didactic in honor of something and
if that thing is good there’s no problem
with it at all my view is that museums
should take a leaf out of a book of
religions and they should make sure that
when you walk into a museum if I was a
museum curator I would make a room for
love a room for generosity a room you
know all works of art are talking to us
about things and if we were able to
arrange spaces where we could come
across works where we’ll be told
use these works of art to cement these
ideas in your mind we would get a lot
more out of art art would pick up the
duty that it used to have and that we’ve
neglected because of certain Mis founded
ideas art should be one of the tools by
which we improve our society art should
be didactic let’s think of something
else the people in the modern world in a
secular world who are interested in
matters of the Spirit in matters of the
mind in higher soul like concerns tend
to be isolated individuals their poets
their philosophers their photographers
their filmmakers and they tend to be on
their own they are cottage industries
they are vulnerable single people and
they get depressed and they get sad on
their own and they don’t really change
much now think about religions think
about organized religions what to
organize religions do they group
together they form institutions and that
has all sorts of advantages
first of all scale might the Catholic
Church pulled in ninety seven billion
dollars last year according to The Wall
Street Journal these are massive
machines they’re collaborative they’re
branded they’re multinational
and they’re highly disciplined these are
all very good qualities we recognize
them in relation to corporations and
corporations are very like religions in
many ways except they’re right down at
the bottom of the pyramid of leads
they’re selling as shoes and cars
whereas the people who are selling us
the higher stuff the therapists the
poets are on their own and they have no
power they have no mind
so religions are the foremost example of
an institution that is fighting for the
things of the mind now we may not agree
with what religions are trying to teach
us but we can admire the institutional
way in which they’re doing it books
alone
books written by lone individuals are
not going to change anything we need to
group together if you want to change the
world you have to group together you
have to be collaborative and that’s what
religions do they are multinational as I
say they are branded they have a clear
identity so they don’t get lost
in a busy world that’s something we can
learn from I want to conclude really
what I want to say is for many of you
who are operating in a range of
different fields there is something to
learn from the example of religion even
if you don’t believe any of it
if you’re involved in anything that’s
communal that involves lots of people
getting together there are things for
you in religion if you’re involved say
in the travel industry in any way look
at pilgrimage look very closely at
pilgrimage we haven’t begun to scratch
the surface of what travel could be
because we haven’t looked at what
religions do with travel if you’re in
the art world look at the example of
what religions are doing with art and if
you’re an educator in any way again look
at how religions are spreading ideas you
may not agree with the ideas but my
goodness they’re highly effective
mechanisms for doing so so really my
concluding point is you may not agree
with religion but at the end of the day
religions are so subtle so complicated
so intelligent in many ways that they’re
not fit to be abandoned to the religious
alone therefore all of us thank you very
much
let’s get through the Kuwaitis talk
because you’re kind of setting up
yourself in some ways to be really cured
in some quarters you can get shot by
both sides you can get shot by the
hard-headed atheists and you can get
shot by those who fully believe incoming
missiles from North Oxford at any moment
I’m sure this but you left out one
aspect of religion that a lot of people
might say your agenda could borrow from
which is this the sense that’s actually
probably the most important thing to any
of his religious of spiritual experience
of some kind of connection with
something that’s bigger than you are
is there any room for that experience
and atheism 2.0 absolutely you know I
like many of you meet people who say
things like but isn’t there something
bigger than us something something else
and I say of course and they say so
aren’t you sort of religious and I go no
why does that sense of mystery that
sense of the dizzying scale of the
universe need to be accompanied by a
mystical feeling science and just
observation gives us that feeling
without it so I don’t feel the need you
know at the universe is large and we are
tiny without the need for a further
religious superstructure so I I mean one
can have so-called spiritual moments
without belief in the spirit actually
let me just ask the question how many
people here would say that religion is
important to them is there an equivalent
process by which there’s a sort of
bridge between what you’re talking about
and what you would you would say to them
I would say that there are many many
gaps in secular life and these can be
plugged that it’s not as though as I try
to suggest it’s not as though either you
have religion and then you have to
accept all sorts of things or you don’t
have religion and then you’re cut off
from all these very good things you know
it’s so sad that we constantly say I
don’t believe so I can’t have community
so I’m cut off from morality so I can’t
do on a pilgrimage one wants to say
nonsense why not and that’s really the
spirit of my talk there’s so much we can
absorb atheism shouldn’t cut itself off
from the rich sources of religion I mean
it seems to me that there’s plenty of
people in the tech community who are
atheists but probably most people in the
community certainly don’t think that
religion is going away anytime soon
and want to find the language to have a
constructive dialogue and to feel like
we can actually talk to each other and
at least share some things in common
we foolish to be optimistic about the
possibility of a world where instead of
religion being the great rallying cry of
divide and war that that there could be
bridging no we need to be polite about
differences a politeness is a much
overlooked virtue it’s seen as hypocrisy
but we need to get to a stage when you
were an atheist and someone says well
you know I did pray the other day you
politely ignore it you move on not
because you’ve agreed on 90% of things
because you have a shared view on so
many things and you politely differ and
I think that’s what the religious wars
of late have ignored they’ve ignored the
possibility of harmonious disagreement
and finally does this new thing that
you’re proposing that’s not a religion
but something else does it need a leader
and are you volunteering to be the Pope
well one one thing one thing that we’re
all very suspicious of is individual
leaders it doesn’t need it what I try to
lay out as a framework and I’m hoping
that people can just fill it in fill in
I’ve sketched a sort of broad framework
but wherever you guys are say if you’re
in the travel industry do that travel
bit if you’re in the communal industry
look at religion and do the communal bit
so it’s a it’s a wiki project hello
thank you for sparking