Anybody else catch this TED Talk called Atheism 2.0?

Thoughts, reactions?

A fascinating look at the strategies for human satisfaction that atheists can adopt from religions.  The problem that I sense right from the beginning is the “herding cats” phenomenon where people who do not believe are usually also people who do not crave the intimacy of attachment to large groups of others with similar perspectives.  I’ve been in audiences drawn to the thoughts of an atheist speaker and there’s almost an underlying embarrassment about being so cohesive.  I mean, we can laugh wonderfully together at the good religious jokes or even atheist jokes, but there isn’t really that sense of a shared comradarie in a huge gathering of atheists.

The three valuable virtues that religious organization offers people which atheists might also offer each other are: 1) guidance, 2) morality, and 3) consolation.  Alain de Botton gives some wonderful and insightful ways in which atheists can celebrate these same human accomplishments from culture rather than from religion.  I like the rallying call of great speakers, but isn’t that why we appreciate the likes of Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris already? The idea that we can get guidance, morality, and consolation from art, drama, writing, is certainly true and we should really value these fantastic human accomplishments much more highly than we do and we should encourage each other and groups to experience and to express their experiences of that aesthetic world much more aggressively.

Overall, it is a great idea . . . and I would love to see it catch on.

It’s a good try but I don’t quite buy it. Copying or duplicating religion in any way doesn’t seem to be the right way to go. I think Harris is on top of the game. The rest is what it is (art, science, culture, humanism, etc). We have to work on conservativism in politics just as well which has adopted the ways and methods of religion and is equally as effective. If Atheism and Liberalism did the same, we may gain superiority but we will have lost our way so that there are no differences and no right and wrong left to discern.

I think the Brights organization has made some progress in trying to bridge the gap for nonbelievers in response to the ‘herds of cats’ phenomenon.

Long way to go however.

Atheists, however, are free thinkers and usually free thinkers do not like organizations and brotherhood mentality, it seems.

Methinks Mr. de Botton is just a few generations (or so?) ahead of the curve on where mainstream religion is already heading (at least Western Christianity) ... if luck and the pattern holds, anyway.

I think it’s the wrong approach. The fundamental double standard of religious politics needs to be challenged in public. With vigor and consistency. Hold officials accountable for real equality and popular culture will take care of itself. The institutions of song, dance and sermon are in no danger.

Blah, blah, blah, the secular world does a lot of things wrong, blah, blah, blah, religion does a lot of things right, blah, blah, blah….....

I get it but the whole we need some kind of love and art spiritualism to evolve as human beings is tiresome and comes off as preachy whining.

Brick Bungalow - 18 January 2012 09:37 AM

I think it’s the wrong approach. The fundamental double standard of religious politics needs to be challenged in public. With vigor and consistency. Hold officials accountable for real equality and popular culture will take care of itself. The institutions of song, dance and sermon are in no danger.

Did de Botton explicitly argue the contrary?

I think he may (not quite in this video though), but I also think he’s got some very valid points, and there’s no good reason to ignore them because he apparently also doesn’t like the direct confrontation of religion.

SkepticX - 18 January 2012 11:58 AM

Brick Bungalow - 18 January 2012 09:37 AM

I think it’s the wrong approach. The fundamental double standard of religious politics needs to be challenged in public. With vigor and consistency. Hold officials accountable for real equality and popular culture will take care of itself. The institutions of song, dance and sermon are in no danger.

Did de Botton explicitly argue the contrary?

I think he may (not quite in this video though), but I also think he’s got some very valid points, and there’s no good reason to ignore them because he apparently also doesn’t like the direct confrontation of religion.

It’s not that his points are invalid. I see the significance of all the culture that he describes. I just don’t see that its in any danger. Or needing our intervention. What does cry for our immediate attention is the threat to reason and civil society posed by the political influence of religion. He seems to be chiding militant atheists for their priorities (I could be wrong) in the effort to promote some sort of tolerant compromise. My view is that this is misguided. The religious element amenable to compromise wasn’t really the problem in the first place. I’m compelled to throw my full weight against the militant and fundamentalist forces. I doubt I’ll have much time left over for composing atheist hymns. Something for future generations perhaps.

If we want to keep atheism as the refuge of the thinkers, then we don’t need Atheism 2.0
However, if we wish to spread atheism and thinking rationally amongst the general population, then we need to consider something along those pathways.

People who are not “firm atheists” nor “firm believers” tend to retain their religion for social reasons, not because of belief in any deity. If we can offer the social structure together with a rational basis for morality (ie we live in groups) and the same sense of ‘belonging’ that a church offers (ie we are kin to all life, and even have a connection to the stars that formed our atoms) ... then we have a far more powerful and compelling message than any religion can hope to offer.

Brick Bungalow - 18 January 2012 01:30 PM

SkepticX - 18 January 2012 11:58 AM

Brick Bungalow - 18 January 2012 09:37 AM

I think it’s the wrong approach. The fundamental double standard of religious politics needs to be challenged in public. With vigor and consistency. Hold officials accountable for real equality and popular culture will take care of itself. The institutions of song, dance and sermon are in no danger.

Did de Botton explicitly argue the contrary?

I think he may (not quite in this video though), but I also think he’s got some very valid points, and there’s no good reason to ignore them because he apparently also doesn’t like the direct confrontation of religion.

It’s not that his points are invalid. I see the significance of all the culture that he describes. I just don’t see that its in any danger. Or needing our intervention. What does cry for our immediate attention is the threat to reason and civil society posed by the political influence of religion. He seems to be chiding militant atheists for their priorities (I could be wrong) in the effort to promote some sort of tolerant compromise. My view is that this is misguided. The religious element amenable to compromise wasn’t really the problem in the first place. I’m compelled to throw my full weight against the militant and fundamentalist forces. I doubt I’ll have much time left over for composing atheist hymns. Something for future generations perhaps.

JohnTaylor=PlayTOE - 18 January 2012 05:47 PM

If we want to keep atheism as the refuge of the thinkers, then we don’t need Atheism 2.0
However, if we wish to spread atheism and thinking rationally amongst the general population, then we need to consider something along those pathways.

People who are not “firm atheists” nor “firm believers” tend to retain their religion for social reasons, not because of belief in any deity. If we can offer the social structure together with a rational basis for morality (ie we live in groups) and the same sense of ‘belonging’ that a church offers (ie we are kin to all life, and even have a connection to the stars that formed our atoms) ... then we have a far more powerful and compelling message than any religion can hope to offer.

I agree. Maybe I didn’t fully understand what he was getting at. Science and Global Humanism would seem to cover it all. There’s nothing “religious” about it so why compare and incorporate, it should be transcended. All that is of human value will remain and be enhanced.

the guy has some interesting ideas, and it might work for some people out there who knows. personally i don’t really care much one way or the other as long as it leads to non-violent solutions.

but he totally lost me when he said atheism should become more like religion, or become a religion, he said something like that in there.

“no thanks” is my reaction to that.

Destination Immortality - 21 January 2012 06:57 AM

the guy has some interesting ideas, and it might work for some people out there who knows. personally i don’t really care much one way or the other as long as it leads to non-violent solutions.

but he totally lost me when he said atheism should become more like religion, or become a religion, he said something like that in there.

“no thanks” is my reaction to that.

We see many many religions teaching people to believe in one immoral bit of nonsense after another. They teach bigotry, intolerance and anti-science. Worst, they demand that people shut down rational thinking.

That is what people have to put up with for social acceptance.

Why is offering an alternative so wrong? I think that the lack of an alternative is a problem. We should see at least one religion where it is OK to think. One that would promote scientific literacy. One that would be reality based, not fiction and mythological. These are also concepts that can promote social groupings and a sense of social acceptance.  We have made a start with secular humanism, but it is time to reach a wider audience.

It is a very simple issue that gets overly complicated by semantics and preconceived notions.

If you are asking if atheism should be a religion, then that is a none question. It has already been pointed out in debates with theocrats that not believing in something is not an ideology or a philosophy. It is merely the absence of being convinced of a given claim.

If you however ask if there should be a religion of science/skepticism/humanism. A “religion” that combines all of those underlying concepts that generally lead to atheism then that is a different question and one I happen to think the answer to should be yes. Once again things get complicated here because atheists who themselves don’t feel the need for such a philosophy will say it is a bad idea just based on the fact that they don’t want to be in it. But that is kind of missing the point, it would be more accurate to ask if it would do good and if it would cause harm and I can’t see how it could have anything but positive effects. The other complication comes from the fact that the word religion kind of carries a lot of baggage. It does so because today we draw a distinction between factual based science and faith based religion but the word religion traditionally has made no such distinction. The term has pretty much stood for a framework for understanding the world and how to best interact with others in it, it only happened that back in the day all of the ways of understanding the world were based on faith.

So if we for a moment could just ignore the word religion or accept that it does not mean anything metaphysical but it can be a life philosophy that takes nothing on faith, and if we can accept that maybe all of us are not interested in being a part of it ourselves, but it will do only good for mankind so therefore it is worthy of support then you could go ahead and ask what such a religion would be.

I find it hard to not imagine how one could design a scientific “religion” that would without a doubt further human society incredibly. Imagine that is completely scientific and takes on the shape of something like Buddhism while combining the methods of critical thinking and skepticism and the ideas from science on how to make sense of the world, with all the things we have learned from neuroscience and positive psychology about happiness and well being.

Basically a religion in which you go on a life long journey of self improvement, both intellectually and emotionally. You strive to learn to understand and control your emotions to reduce how anger and fear and jealousy etc influences our ability to come to rational decisions, you strive to learn how we are mislead and how we jump to premature conclusions (aka the ways of incorrect thinking that leads people to join conspiracy theories or misjudge the value of evidence for new age medicines etc), you learn from positive psychology about how happiness actually works and which things in life we wrongly think make us happy and what things actually do have a huge impact on our well being. A constantly ongoing journey of understanding your own mind and how it works and become objective and more reasonable, combined with a strife to help others and be happier and all of it with the highest goal of constantly gaining more knowledge about the natural world and how things work.

You could even have a “bible” of easily quotable soundbites from well known thinkers that sum up the principles of the life philosophy. But instead of having

leviticus 25:45 - You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.

it would have
Sagan 12:18 - For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Would it be something for everyone? Probably not. Would it be better than every single religion that ever existed? Without a doubt, would people who follow this religion be better off even compared to the people who believe in no religion and are not skeptics or rationalists like us but the every day Joe who does not stop to think about these issues at all? Probably.
A religion like that would insulate everyone who follows it from being taken in by sects, cults, new ages bullshit and pseudoscience because it equips people with the tools to not get taken in by false information. It would be more successful most likely than our current methods of trying to increase the number of rationalists in the world because it has many more weapons with which to expand. A tax exempted rationalist temple in every city with pretty colors and a symbol above the front door where people see others go in would without a doubt draw in people that we currently don’t reach.

As I said, it might not be for everyone, and people could surely make philosophical arguments for why this is not ideal, but I can’t see how it could not be of pretty much only good, and if we want to survive another 100 years on this planet it seems like we need the majority of people on earth to subscribe to a much more enlightened philosophy than they currently are.

The problem as I see it is that just like religion, this kind of incorporation is devisive, it doesn’t include the whole human species as one and would seem to perpetuate the separation between believers, non-believers and different believers with a form of replacement dogma. Spiritualism is personal and non-deistic, it isn’t an experience, it is experience. In my view, the only universal “ritual” that could benefit from replacement is meditation over prayer ... and the realization that the thing bigger than ourselves that we can “believe” in is us with everything else in the universe, particularly other human beings. Other rituals that re-enforce and invigorate our life experience, that celebrate life, follow from that and need not be God-centered nor imitative, for instance, gathering to eat with family and friends to share happiness, or to mourn the loss of loved ones and share sadness, etc. “This is it. You are it.” And time’s either a wastin’ or being fully and richly experienced with the “meaning” we give it. Our destinies are in our own hands to the greatest degree than any other conscious living thing we know of, while at the same time, we’re at the “mercy” of Nature itself.

[Addendum] Ymir, I think what you and the speaker describe in relation to secular education involves its purity. If so much effort weren’t necessary to fend off religious influence, infiltration and contradiction, perhaps these “messages” would be more internalized. But this has to be accomplished by the individual facility of ones reasoning capacity and intellect, not packaged and propagandized like religion, that’s the difference between them. That a greater emphasis on science and how it is taught is of paramount concern, but the untarnished and unbiased facts are there for the individual to decide.