Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton Read Free Book Online

our childishness. There is so much that we would like to do but never end up doing and so many ways of behaving that we subscribe to in our hearts but ignore in our day-to-day lives. However, in a world obsessed withfreedom, there are few voices left that ever dare to exhort us to act well.
    Even the most theoretically libertarian of parents tend to acknowledge the point of star charts when dealing with four-year-olds. ( illustration credit 3.2 )
    The exhortations we would need are typically not very complex: forgive others, be slow to anger, dare to imagine things from another’s point of view, set your dramas in perspective … We are holding to an unhelpfully sophisticated view of ourselves if we think that we are always above hearing well-placed, blunt and simply structured reminders about kindness. There is greater wisdom in accepting that we are in most situations rather simple entities in want of much the same kind, firm, basic guidance as is naturally offered to children and domestic animals.
    The true risks to our chances of flourishing are different from those conceived of by libertarians. A lack of freedom is no longer, in most developed societies, the problem. Our downfall lies in our inability to make the most of the freedom that our ancestors painfully secured for us over three centuries. We have grown sick from being left to do as we please without sufficient wisdom to exploit our liberty. It is not primarily the case that we find ourselves at the mercy of paternalistic authorities whose claims we resent and want to be free of. The danger runs in an opposite direction: we face temptations which we revile in those interludes when we can attain a sufficient distance from them, but which we lack any encouragement to resist, much to our eventual self-disgust and disappointment. The mature sides of us watch in despair as the infantile aspects of us trample upon our more elevated principles and ignore what we most fervently revere. Our deepest wish may be that someone would come along and save us from ourselves.
    An occasional paternalistic reminder to behave well does not have to constitute an infringement of our ‘liberty’ as this term should properly be understood. Real freedom does not meanbeing left wholly to one’s own devices; it should be compatible with being harnessed and guided.
    Modernmarriages are a test case of the problems created by an absence of a moral atmosphere. We start off with the best of intentions and a maximal degree of communal support. All eyes are upon us: family, friends and employees of the state appear to be fully invested in our mutual happiness and good behaviour. But soon enough we find ourselves alone with our wedding gifts and our conflicted natures, and because we are weak-willed creatures, the compact we so lately but so sincerely entered into begins to erode. Heady romantic longings are fragile materials with which to construct a relationship. We grow thoughtless and mendacious towards each other. We surprise ourselves with our rudeness. We become deceitful and vindictive.
    We may try to persuade the friends who visit us on the weekend to stay a little longer because their regard and their affection remind us of the high expectations the world once had of us. But in our souls, we know we are suffering because there is no one there to nudge us to reform our ways and make an effort. Religions understand this: they know that to sustain goodness, it helps to have an audience. The faiths hence provide us with a gallery of witnesses at the ceremonial beginnings of our marriages and thereafter they entrust a vigilant role to their deities. However sinister the idea of such surveillance may at first seem, it can in truth be reassuring to live as though someone else were continually watching and hoping for the best from us. It is gratifying to feel that our conduct is not simply our own business; it makes the momentous effort of acting nicely seem a little