Liveblogging TLBoAS - Part One Pages 1-15

Posted by Siamang on: 01.15.2008 /

By Siamang.

I’ve been quite impressed with André Comte-Sponville’s “The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality”. So this is the first in a series of follow along blogging as I read this (short, 200 pages, 3 chapters!) book. I encourage others, atheists and Christians alike, to pick up this simple, engaging and positive book. I’m especially interested in what Christians think about Comte-Sponville’s unique tone.

André Comte-Sponville’s book is an English translation of his bestseller L’Esprit de l’athéisme, which seems to me a more apt title. “The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality” sounds like it’s going to be a pocket guide of familiar quotations. And the use of the word “spirituality” conjors up images of Shirley MacLaine in the lotus position. Upon picking it up, I read the bookjacket and was intrigued:

Can we do without religion? Can we have ethics without God? Is there such thing as “atheist spirituality”? In this powerful book, the internationally bestselling author André Comte-Sponville presents a philosophical exploration of atheism—and comes to some startling conclusions. According to Comte-Sponville, we have allowed the concept of spirituality to become intertwined with religion, and thus have lost touch with the nature of a true spiritual existence. In order to change this, however, we need not reject the ancient traditions and values that are part of our heritage; rather, we must rethink our relationship to these values and ask ourselves whether their significance comes from the existence of a higher power or simply the human need to connect to one another and the universe. Comte-Sponville offers rigorous, reasoned arguments that take both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions into account, and through his clear, concise, and often humorous prose, he offers a convincing treatise on a new form of spiritual life.

Comte-Sponville begins, interestingly enough, not by talking about God, but by talking about religion. He wants to know what roles it plays in our lives, and whether we can do without it. For now, he tables the questions about the nature of God, and sees religions as human affairs, and thus accessible to human understanding.

Can we do without religion?

First, he asks the question as an individual. Well, certainly he can live without religion, as he does. But he remarks that this is not the case for everyone. He is happy without religion, but he cannot say that other people aren’t just as happy or happier within a religious belief.

“For me, this world is enough; I’m an atheist and happy to be one. Other people, most likely the majority, are equally happy to be believers. It may be that they need a God to console and reassure themselves, to escape from absurdity or despair (such is the meaning of Kant’s “postulates of practical reason”), or simply to give their lives some sort of coherence; it may be that religion is what they see as the highest part of their lives, either affectively or spiritually — their sensitivity, their education, their history, their thought, their joy, their love. . . . All these reasons are worthy of respect. “Our need for consolation is impossible to satisfy,” as Swedish novelist Stig Dagerman once put it. So is our need for love and protection; we all have to deal with these needs as best we can. Mercy upon us.”

Apologies for that long passage, but I wanted to give a sense of Comte-Sponville’s tone here. Especially “All these reasons are worthy of respect.” Quite a different tone from Richard Dawkins:

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. It is all of a piece with the infantilism of those who, the moment they twist their ankle, look around for someone to sue. Somebody else must be responsible for my well-being, and somebody else must be to blame if I am hurt. Is it a similar infantilism that really lies behind the ‘need’ for a God?”

-Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion” p.360

Comte-Sponville has a wonderful discussion next about the need for ritual, especially funerary, and how atheist funerals really feel like a pale imitation. He says we should give it time– religious rituals have had hundreds or thousands of years to build up a culture of emotion and imagery. But he says more than that, funerals are about the contemplation of our own powerlessness.

My wife and I had an interesting discussion springing off of that, about the fact that there isn’t a non-theistic space to have a funeral in. It’s always a chapel, or graveside. Anyway, I wanted to end for now with more Comte-Sponville:

“There is no reason to take faith away from those who need it — or even those who simply live better because they have it. Some believers are admirable (and the fact that there are more saintly people among believers than among atheists, while it proves nothing as to the existence of God, should make us refrain from scorning religion); most are worthy of respect. Their faith in no way offends me. Why should I combat it? My intention is not to convert people to atheism. It is merely to explain my position and the arguments in its favor, motivated more by the love of philosophy than by the hatred for religion. There are free spirits on both sides, and it is to them that my words are addressed. The others, whether believers or atheists, can be left to their certainties.”