George Rebane
There was an interesting essay in the 18/19feb12 WSJ adapted from Alain de Botton’s latest book Religion for Atheists: a Non-believers Guide to the Uses of Religion. It is really a lament about all the things that atheists are missing out on that come to people of faith who gather to worship their God. Everything from “reclaiming community” to finding commonly shared purpose in life, and all the trimmings that go in between for folks in a faith-based organization.
It seems that atheists are somehow not fulfilled in their flirtations with environmentalism, productivity seminars, yoga, moral relativism, and endless group and individual analyses by various therapists and psychological ‘rent-a-buddies’. There seems to be an emptiness underneath it all that is not only perceived by the hard-working career climbers, but is made more stark in the built-in loneliness that comes from attempting to connect with people with whom there is really no common connection.
Well, according to M. de Botton, there is a solution at hand that can bring our secular humanist friends into a chummy communion with other similarly searching souls (which really don’t exist). It turns out that atheists can join with each other just like the bible thumpers, but without all that God baggage. And the solution lies in starting an institution, or is it really a franchise, called Agape Restaurants (I’m not making this up).
The Agape Restaurants would become the locus of congregations following the Book of Agape prescribing a liturgy that is cobbled together from the essential essences of the Catholic Mass, the Jewish Seder, the Zen tea ceremony, … you get the idea. People would assemble there to go through the warm and bonding formalities that bring and hold together people of faith. They would even get to ceremoniously consume the moral?, ethical? equivalent of the Eucharist.
In his ‘Religion for Everyone’ de Botton tells us of the glorious gemütlichkeit of such venues –
Thanks to the Agape Restaurant, our fear of strangers would recede. The poor would eat with the rich, the black with the white, the orthodox with the secular, workers with managers, scientists with artists. The claustrophobic pressure to derive all of our satisfactions from our existing relationships would ease, as would our desire to climb ever higher in social status. …
The Book of Agape would direct diners to speak to one another for prescribed lengths of time on predefined topics. Like the famous questions that the youngest child at the table is assigned by the Haggadah to ask during the Passover ceremony ("Why is this night different from all other nights?" "Why do we eat unleavened bread and bitter herbs?" and so on), these talking points would be carefully crafted for a specific purpose, to coax guests away from customary expressions of pride ("What do you do?" "Where do your children go to school?") and toward a more sincere revelation of themselves ("What do you regret?" "Whom can you not forgive?" "What do you fear?").
So there you have it. You should be able to embrace it all without having to consider any of the aggravating absolutes that come with a religion that teaches transcendence as the gift of grace from a supreme intelligence who created all that IS, and through love and compassion is willing to share all with His critters. None of those things need to divert us from creaming the good parts of 'TAT TVAM ASI!' From a thorough analysis of religions, the secular humanists have finally figured out how to fill their emptiness and enjoy it all. For it’s now or never – remember, oblivion awaits.
And yet, and yet …
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