I don’t claim that you will hear it first on SocraticMama. Scooping the latest story is not my forte, so you have most likely already heard about the proposed “Temple to Atheism” that Alain de Botton is proposing.
And, I don’t usually express strong opinions on anything other than the evils of spanking. But I just don’t like it.
Seems wrong. Sticks in my craw.
See, I’m your average atheist-housewife and until last week I’d never heard of this guy. No disrespect intended. My ignorance I’m sure, but suddenly he’s everywhere. Case in point, in the Guardian’s piece on the “Temple to Nothingism” it is Alain de Bolton’s photo, not the architect’s renderings that grace the prose. The article doesn’t even mention if de Bolton is working as part of a group or flying solo.
I would love it, to be sure, if our local Humanist group didn’t have to meet in the dingiest community center in the city. Find some nice digs. However, the Temple doesn’t even appear to have meeting rooms or any practical use areas. It is more an spiritual experience:
[...] De Botton revealed details of a temple to evoke more than 300m years of life on earth. Each centimetre of the tapering tower’s interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.
And why London? Aren’t there enough cool things to do and see already? How about Oklahoma? They could use a tourist attraction.
Sounds like a vanity project and a waste of money. Can I get an amen?
Aren’t the outdoors enough of an atheistic temple?
Amen!
Regular listeners to BBC Radio 4′s “A Point of View” series will be familiar with de Botton and some of his ideas. An interesting listen – sometimes. I find some of his views a bit “slippery” and evasive. I could never quite put my finger on what I found fault with, but I suspected that he wouldn’t last long in the company of the dear departed Mr Hitchens.
This idea seems particulary well suited to the sole purpose of securing some airtime for it’s architect, and not much else.
Well, on one hand, it would be nice to have something to counter the argument that religion inspires great art, music, and architecture. (Or perhaps that it did, if one examines Christianity’s influence on rock music.
) It also might help those who have trouble letting go of some of the spiritual/worship aspects of religion while still letting go of god. OTOH, I can think of a whole bunch of things to spend the money required to build such a thing on that could better the lives of many more people than that temple would.
What! – I read the Guardian piece so quickly that I almost overlooked the last line:
“This is a more constructive atheism than Dawkins, who is about the destruction of ideas rather than contributing new ones.”
That’s possibly the most wilful misunderstanding of Dawkins I’ve seen in a LONG time.
Can I get an “Amen” too?
Amen!
Professor Dawkins can’t help that he is the smartest guy in the room. What is constructive atheism?
Nothing more than a glorified expensive community centre. While churches and cathedrals in Britain, vast and incredibly designed as they were, existed in their size because they were built by people with purpose for a purpose. Unless Britain is changing I can’t think of anywhere that has to deal with the monstrosities called mega churches over here that are wholly intolerable. Have to agree, silly, wasteful idea where money could be put to far better use.
That’s my problem with it. It doesn’t even sound like a community center! I would at least like to play basketball in the damned thing!
as an antidote to de Botton – why not try a bit of du Sautoy?
Marcus du Sautoy’s inspirational series of short programmes about some of the greatest thinkers in mathematics. Available for free “indefinitely” courtesy of our wonderful BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/maths
Fingers crossed that you can access this content in the US. Let me know if not – I’m sure we can work something out…
Amen! That castle is perfect for Mr Bottom
P.S. that image you’ve used was originally called Laputa: Castle in the Sky by Disney, but they dropped the first word because of the, ahem, rudeness in Spanish
Swift’s Laputa [the airborne island in the weak, cobbled together third part of Gullivers Travels] was, in part, an allegory of the Irish revolt against Great Britain & in the story the absurd inventions of the Laputans was Swift’s coded mockery of the Royal Society. Swift held that there are realms of knowledge where people are simply NOT supposed to venture & he considered that living harmoniously in a wise and steady way was far more important than the intellectual acquisitions that spring from scientific thought & experiment.
A nice thought if you’re a wealthy cleric/poet, but not so much if it’s your lot to slave in the fields as a serf & die at 25. It is rather ironic that the year before Swift was born, London had to live through The Great Plague & The Great Fire. A touch of science & rational investigation might have been useful there, but I guess the dear old chap may have been insulated from the aftermath at the distance of Dublin & a generation. He was good to his fellow Irish & their cause in a distant & patriarchal way & I’ve often wondered if he really considered himself Irish or English or Irish/English or English/Irish.
‘scuse the massive digression!
It doesn’t sound functional at all. A tower for people to stare at or up through and say “wow”.
The guardian has another article that covers this pretty well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jan/26/alain-de-botton-temple-atheists?intcmp=239
If you want to build a monument to science, to knowledge, to the great thinkers of our time, to the accomplishments of humankind, that’s awesome, just don’t call them temples for atheism. You can’t have monuments to not believing in something. I’d like to see a monument to denying the existence of leprechauns. Or a temple for the quiet contemplation of how unicorns don’t exist. De Botton is just trying to take the athiest marketing trend and use it to sell his book and get his pet projects built.
Loved this article. Thank you, Justin!
Having seen de Botton a few times including his performance on TED i realised that is why tv’s have OFF switches.
Someone described him as ‘slippery’, my view would be ‘arrogant and supercilious’, and he is starting to get everywhere – most annoying.
Atheists have “Temples” all over the place, I think they’re also known as Public Libraries.