Alain de Botton and Religion for Atheists?

Browsing the number of atheist discussion forums that I do has lead me to believe that many atheists are misunderstanding Alain de Botton and his ideas including two sensitive words, “Atheist” and “Religion”.


I shall keep this brief and simply state that I do not believe he is showing any intention of making atheism a ‘religion’! He is saying that there are positives we can take from it that can be used to benefit atheists.

For example; We (atheists) DON'T need guidance on how to get to heaven etc. but we all need help and guidance on how to live our lives happily (or at the very least have to admit it’s helpful!).

Having scheduled time in which to meet people of similar beliefs to share in a positive life lesson once a week seems very attractive to me. We all need little reminders in our lives, religion uses schedules to promote itself and offers a sense of community which atheism largely can fall short of.

Are atheists reacting to the word "religion" the same way some religious people react to the word "atheist"- FILTH!


This apparent (and potentially hypocritical?) prejudice is misleading atheists when it comes to understanding Alain?

It is of course extremely sensible to be skeptical of his ideas! But this blog post is my personal call to atheists to try and avoid being cynical and to consider the positives in Alain’s argument.

The video below is simply the shortest one I could find but is however not very informative! For those with an interest in this area, I would advise you to visit the following link: http://vimeo.com/35701336