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Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - 7/20/2013 10:21:09 AM

dcnovice

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Speaking at TED, author Alain de Botton offered some thoughts about how religious practice, even shorn of doctrine, might benefit 21st-century folk:

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 and mixing, with taking out the best sides of religion. And for me, atheism 2.0 is about both, as I say, a respectful and an impious way of 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 could 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.

Learn more at TED.com. NB: Under the lower-right corner of the video screen, there's a pull-down for reading the transcipt if you'd prefer.

As someone who often feels more drawn to the sociological aspects of religion than than the theological ones, I found this interesting and thought others might as well.

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RE: Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - 7/20/2013 10:34:57 AM

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Like this is some sort of rocket science. This is why I've been saying for decades "I don't care if Jesus existed or is the son of god or whatever." Nor do I care if the bible is the word of God or not. The shit that's written in it is either a good idea or it's not. No, I'm not going to kill Carol because she's wearing a mixed fiber blend right now. But yes, I generally think "turning the other cheek" and "love your fellow man" have a lot of wisdom in them at some very pragmatic levels.

And yes, that means that I am prepared to judge God. If God wants me to do shit that I think of as evil then I'm on the side of Satan. That's a no-brainer.

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RE: Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - 7/20/2013 11:31:07 AM

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Buuuu...buuu..bb..uuu..but.. what's the use of having an *internal* moral compass, if other people can't tell you what's right and wrong?

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RE: Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - 7/20/2013 11:33:53 AM

JeffBC

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Powergamz1
Buuuu...buuu..bb..uuu..but.. what's the use of having an *internal* moral compass, if other people can't tell you what's right and wrong?

My attitude? If god actually exists and there we are in front of the pearly gates having this conversation I'm planning on saying, "Dude, WTF? If you didn't want me to use that internal moral compass you seriously should not have given it to me. Don't be an asshat."

But the other thing I think is that if God does exist and if he's really such a pathetic asshat then we're all screwed anyway so it hardly matters.

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RE: Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0 - 7/20/2013 1:57:19 PM

WebWanderer

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Bah, just more of the same. All these labels (atheism 2.0, atheism-plus, etc) have been popping up ever since Chris Hitchens died. (He strongly opposed creating organizations where the only unifier was lack of belief in gods - after all, we don't have social groups for people who don't believe in astrology.)

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