Posted: Jan 27, 2012 8:07 pm
dogmadogsh1t wrote:
What exactly are the important things that religions can teach us?Blending deep respect with total impiety, Alain (a non-believer himself) proposes that we should look to religions for insights into, among other concerns, how to:
- build a sense of community
- make our relationships last
- overcome feelings of envy and inadequacy
- escape the twenty-four hour media
- go travelling
- get more out of art, architecture and music
- and create new businesses designed to address our emotional needs.
So when he says that we can learn from religions, he actually means we can learn from science and logic, from politics and from travel and commerce, because religion teaches us nothing about any of the above. Well, maybe apart from building a sense of community - that has been done within religion by creating an us and them culture, which has done very little toward peaceful aims over the last few hundred years.
The guy is a barnpot - I've never met or seen any athiest ever wanting the same things this guy does, and not only that but he undermines some of our best anti-religious arguments.Anyone read his book or got any links to a critique?
Well, the scary thing is what religion does teach us about these things.
"Build a sense of community" Something like that brilliant tithing idea? Extra self-imposed taxes to build non-representative while elephants, shrines to stupidity. JUST what we need. Personally I can find plenty of communities where I am welcome without invoking religion.
"Make our relationships last": well we all know the catholic approach, ban divorce or at least make it extremely socially undesirable. Yeah, religion has a lot to offer us there.
"Overcome feelings of envy or inadequacy": WTF? Just because this guy might have these feelings (being a white middle-aged balding idiot probably achieves that for him) doesn't mean everyone else does.
I could go on. Obviously religion can help with travelling, as an atheist like me just can't get a passport.
I don't think this guy is a barnpot as you say - I think he's another L. Ron Hubbard, another Joseph Smith - his motivation here is to make himself money and acquire status. And he can fuck right off, they shouldn't give this dick the oxygen of publicity.