I've just listened to the NPR interview with Alain De Botton and it struck me how important Alain and his brand of atheism might be for Xns.
More popular atheists like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris tend to have grown up in explicitly Xn environments. Whether that be home, school or community. They have had Xy foisted upon them and unsurprisingly they have aggressively rejected it.
De Botton is different. Raised in an athiest household he grew up outside of any Xn influences (much like many under 30s are doing today) and, approaches Xy with sense of curiosity rather than any sense of certainty and conviction. He has no interest in debating Xns but would rather just pick and choose the bits he likes from Xy. The way he treats Xy is much like the way most of us treat political parties or indigenous spiritualities. We rarely agree with the whole package a political presents to us, we pick the bits we like from each and then, because we have to, we vote on one. Similarly we might have a great quote from an American Indian cheif on our wall or a beautiful Aboriginal dot painting but, we have no interest in signing up for all their respective religous practices.
I predict this is exactly how the vast majority of Australians will treat Xy (if they are not quietly doing this already). They might like our weddings and funerals, or like our stance on looking after the homeless, or like the schools we run and it will rarely cross their mind that someone should completely commit to the faith or be completely against the faith. They could believe in a God or not (like De Botton) but that will have little bearing how much of the Xn faith and it's practices that they pick and choose from.
This will be a great challenge to Xns. We generally think in terms of people who either sign up for everything or reject everything. How will we respond to people who are happy just to pick and choose? (Trying to convince them they can't pick and choose will be like trying to convince someone they can't vote for a particular political part without becoming a signed up member) And, how do we coherently show the interconnectedness of all the various aspects our faith?
This will be a far tougher and more important challenge than how could we "beat" someone who's just read "The God Delusion" in a debate will ever be.
2 comments:
Perceptive post - maybe this is the future. I didn't even know de Botton was an atheist until his most recent book - his treatment of Christianity is respectful, although cherrypicking, as you say.
New Atheism as a phase during the last vestiges of state religion? But maybe not, as religiosity is not declining outside the west and the New Atheists will have just as much to be angry about in fifty years.
Thanks Nathan,
I think while ever there a Xns like Jim Wallace (Australian Christian Lobby) there will be atheists like Richard Dawkins. Xy is not declining outside the west but I'm wondering what sort of Xy it will be eventually. I get the sense that it might be very evangelical or fundamentalist but then people like Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero came out of these places. And a lot of the issues they seem to be more fundamentalist about (role of women / homosexuality) are in line the culture that they have been raised in. So I have perhaps more hope that in the future the atheists will be yelling at no one while wear all sharing a decent coffee with the likes of Alain de Botton.
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