If you have a fondness for epigrams, you should follow Alain de Botton on Twitter. The man is a bon mot machine. One morsel: “What disappears from memory is how much of any moment is spent worrying about the future.”
He’s a sort of Philosopher 2.0, contending with the problems that confront us in the modern world, and rather than simply ranting like most of us, he offers subtle analysis and thoughtful alternatives. I’m a fan. The book that first propelled him to prominence was How Proust Can Change Your Life. Most recently, he’s just completed Religion for Atheists. Tag line: “Religions are too interesting to be left simply to those who actually believe in them.”
Here’s nice quick essay on it over at The Atlantic: What the Secular World Can Learn From Religion – Maria Popova. And since everything has a TED talk, here is his. Interestingly, he takes rather direct aim at the Dawkins camp of what he calls fundamentalist atheism: “They argue not just that religion is wrong, but that religion is ridiculous… I think it’s too easy to dismiss religion that way.”
There’s a lot of religious ferment going on these days. If you’re intrigued, you might also want to look into David Eagleman’s notion of Possibilianism.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 