Atheist Ireland Forum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/ja ... le-atheism

will this only feed into the "atheism is a religion " BS that xtians spew out ?

That's an interesting concept. I think calling it a temple to atheism (I don't know if that's the designers term or the newspapers) is asking for trouble. If it was described as a work of art celebrating life on the planet without resort to a supernatural deity (a bit long winded but you get the point) it mightn't attract the same sort of controversy.

Personally, I considered not having to go to church as one of the quirks of atheism, so I'm probably not going to undestand those who feel the need to introduce that aspect of religion into their rationalism/skepticism/humanism or whatever it is they're into (atheism only describes something they're not into).

But if people think they need something like this, I see no reason to speak out against it other than to say it wouldn't interest me. My temples are the various natural history museums around the world and the wealth of science information available to me online and elsewhere.

I'm not sure why de Botton is saying that he is looking for an antidote to "aggressive" and "destructive" atheists like Dawkins. I suspect he has never read, listened to or engaged with anything he has said on the subject. He should try reading Dawkins' "Unweaving the Rainbow", which would surely clear up any illusions he may have about this being a destructive philosophy.

And I completely disagree with building anything in the vein of a temple to atheism - this would definitely be a gift to religionists who like to counterclaim, falsely, that atheism is just another form of religion.

What a shocking waste of money...who will go to it? Will they be expected to turn up at certain times? What happens if they don't turn up (in the absence of a vengeful deity keeping tabs)? When will the temple for people who don't believe in the Easter Bunny (I know, crazy stuff, but there's a few of them out there) be opening? As pointed out in the article the money would be much better spent on education.

I have to admit I've always found de Botton one to extrapolate a good, smallish idea into something far too big for its own good. I've struggled through a few of his books and left all of them with the impression that they would have made a great magazine article, but ended up a bit stretched when he tried to get a whole book out of them.

I agree with bipedalhumanoid. Surely one of the perks of Atheism is not having to get your arse out of bed on a Sunday morning.

I tend to think of 'Temples to Atheism' to be a contradiction in terms. I think anything that you 'revere' for want of a better word as a sort of temple to something that is secular. So it could be anything. Going to see a great movie that speaks to you or seeing a great concert.