If the first wave of New Atheism was excessively strident, the second wave is shaping up to be unbearably sentimental. Alain De Botton, a Swiss-British television personality who has recently been selling something called “Atheism 2.0” at tech conferences, has begun planning and fundraising for the addition of what he considers a missing piece of London’s cityscape. As part of his ongoing campaign to refute the charge that atheism must necessarily be destructive, he’s rolling out a grand new project for the historic City of London: a towering “temple” for fellow atheists. Reports the Guardian:
The philosopher [sic] and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’ “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.
Rather than attack religion, De Botton said he wants to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life.
“Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good,” he said. “That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don’t believe but aren’t aggressive towards religions.”
Well, when’s the last time London needed St. Mary Woolnoth to keep the hours, anyway?
The first public rendering of the project, about which De Botton seems fairly serious, was printed in the Telegraph a few days ago. It hardly looks inviting or “positive,” though it’s quite revealing: an ominous black stalk shooting up amid a meadow of Georgian bank edifices and Christopher Wren-designed church spires.
Hilariously, while De Botton’s ziggurat has drawn the ire of Richard Dawkins:
Dawkins criticised the project on Thursday, indicating the money was being misspent and that a temple of atheism was a contradiction in terms.
“Atheists don’t need temples,” the author of The God Delusion said. “I think there are better things to spend this kind of money on. If you are going to spend money on atheism you could improve secular education and build non-religious schools which teach rational, sceptical critical thinking.”
…it does find supporters among Church of England clergy:
Another Anglican, the Rev George Pitcher, a priest at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, and a former adviser to the archbishop of Canterbury, “rejoiced” in the idea. “He is referring to a sense of human transcendence, that there is something more than our visceral existence,” Pitcher said.
February 1st, 2012 | 1:08 pm
Note that – to say the least – not all atheists support the notion:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/01/26/oh-please/
February 1st, 2012 | 3:07 pm
This just proves that the atheist cannot live without God. He continues to try and fill that God-shaped hole in his heart with imitations of genuine worship. These men ought to build true temples to the true and living God rather than debauched temples to their idols.
February 1st, 2012 | 5:50 pm
It reminds me a little bit of what the Jacobins did after the French Revolution, tossing Christianity out of churches and converting them into temples of reason (at least one, if I recall, was actually named something like the Temple to the Goddess of Reason).
Of course, a temple seems to imply something being worshiped (be it reason, “enlightenment,” friendship, brotherhood, etc.), which seems to make an argument that atheism is as much a faith system as any other religion.
Still, if atheists want to beautify city skylines with majestic buildings, then more power to them!
February 1st, 2012 | 6:41 pm
Terry Eagleton was not impressed with Alain de Botton’s new book, calling it “A banal and impudent argument for the uses of religion”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/12/religion-for-atheists-de-botton-review
February 2nd, 2012 | 10:25 am
It sounds like an architectural disaster, but I’m kind of sympathetic to the idea itself–amid the arid, Promethean bombast of so much atheism, it seems touchingly human.
As G.K. Chesterton said about Comte’s humanistic quasi-religion: “he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery … A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud … It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for them. I myself, to take a corpus vile, am very certain that I would not read the works of Comte through for any consideration whatever. But I can easily imagine myself with the greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on Darwin Day.”
February 2nd, 2012 | 5:11 pm
The idea of constructing a temple is endearing. The design itself — not so much. Celebrate the glories of atheism by building one of the skyscrapers from Blade Runner? Odd choice.
February 2nd, 2012 | 5:14 pm
Of course, a temple seems to imply something being worshiped (be it reason, “enlightenment,” friendship, brotherhood, etc.), which seems to make an argument that atheism is as much a faith system as any other religion.
From the very beginning (note the term “enlightenment”, which by the way usually gets a capital E) they have used the language of religion.
And why not? These are religious questions being debated. The only reason humanists can get away with pretending their beliefs are somehow not “religious” in nature is because they have framed “religious” as being the same as “mythological” – both of which are further defined as “untrue” or “superstitious” – and these are framed as the opposite of what they believe, which is not a “religion” because it’s 100% based on “reason”, with no assumptions, no faith, nothing like that – just pure, demonstrable, observable truth, well documented.
February 3rd, 2012 | 11:11 pm
“(note the term “enlightenment”, which by the way usually gets a capital E)”
In the English language, the names of historical eras are signified with capital letters. Some examples include the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, the Classical Era, and, yes, even the Enlightenment. The term “Enlightenment” gains its capital letter not from any pretense but from typographic convention.
“no assumptions, no faith, nothing like that – just pure, demonstrable, observable truth, well documented”
Typically, humanists claim that they are using reason to discover truth. They are—theoretically, at least—open to the possibility that what they perceive to be truth today might turn out to be false tomorrow. Christians, on the hand, typically claim that the truth has been revealed and is unchanging. It is erroneous to claim for humanism the kind of immutable certainty that Christianity professes.
By the way, in case there is any confusion, I should explain why the word “Christianity” is capitalized and “humanism” is not. Christianity receives a capital letter not out of any sense of exaggerated importance as insinuated above. It is capitalized because it includes a proper name or title (“Christ”) and because it refers to a specifiable set of beliefs. “Humanism,” however, refers to no one person, and it gathers such a variety of perspectives that it is usually accompanied by an adjective, such as Renaissance Humanist or Christian Humanist. When the term gathers such specificity, then it can be capitalized.
February 4th, 2012 | 10:44 am
“It reminds me a little bit of what the Jacobins did after the French Revolution, tossing Christianity out of churches and converting them into temples of reason (at least one, if I recall, was actually named something like the Temple to the Goddess of Reason).”
I listened to this fellow speak and I really have to wonder if he is aware of the 200-year history of people like him trying to create atheistic religious imagery and what came of these past debates and efforts. Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have ridiculed the idea.
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