saints for all seasons/role models for moderns: in search of kindness - “A well-functioning secular society would think about its role models. It would not only provide us with film stars and singers. An absence of religious belief in no way invalidates a continuing need for ‘patron saints’ of qualities like Courage, Friendship, Fidelity, Patience, Confidence or Skepticism…The religious perspective on morality suggests that it is in the end a sign of immaturity to object too strenuously to being treated like a child. The libertarian obsession with freedom ignores how much of our original childhood need for constraint and guidance endures within us. It is not very kind, nor ultimately even very freeing, to be deemed so grown up that one is left alone to do entirely as one pleases.” -even the greatest atheists may benefit from role models. Sigmund Freud’s desk in London, left today as it was, is covered in Assyrian, Egyptian, Chinese and Roman figurines. Or one might prefer Virginia Woolf. -Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion, Alain de Botton, 2012.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:38:19 +0000