- ISBN13: 9780143114437
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
The perfect antidote to the fiery rhetoric that dominates our current national debate over religion, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality is the ideal companion to such bestsellers as The God Delusion and God Is Not Great. I n this inspiring book, bestselling author and philosopher André Comte-Sponville offers a new perspective on the question of God’s existence, acknowledging the good that has come of religion while advocating tolerance from both believers an… More >>
The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality
Tags: antidote, Atheist, bestselling author, Book, Brand New, Condition, God, god delusion, ISBN, Little, Mark, national debate, new perspective, NEWNotes, philosopher, Publisher, question of god, Religion, Remainder, remainder mark, rhetoric, Spirituality
#1 by Maori on June 6, 2010 - 7:24 am
This book did not deliver anything new to me. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn’t. It was so boring I fell asleep a couple times. The author drones on and on and doesn’t say anything new and what he does say is usually a quote by someone else. He didn’t seem to have many original thoughts about anything. Name dropping gets boring after a while. I think he’s still trying to figure out if he’s an atheist or not. I can’t recommend this book when there are so many better ones out there.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by R. Adkisson on June 6, 2010 - 8:20 am
I purchased this work as a challenge to my own faith. I have never believed that faith stands as the opposite of intellect, and therefore believe that genuine faith must stand up to, be enhanced by, and challenged by inquiry. Holding a Ph.D. in biblical studies, I was looking for any significant challenge to my personal understanding of faith whether scientific, philosophical, or theological. This work, instead, was a strong recommendation to faith. Indeed the first chapters detail the philosophical and practical tragedy of a ‘faithless’ life. The arguments for an atheistic morality were void and unconvincing. One may find it hard to believe in God, or specifically in Christianity, but this book illuminates for me the unsurpassed difficulty of not believing.
Rating: 4 / 5
#3 by pardy on June 6, 2010 - 10:34 am
This book was really disappointing. The *thesis* that atheists can have a spiritual life is not one I was ever inclined to doubt. Nor did I need to be argued out of a belief that without God values are dead. I was hoping for a convincing, clear-headed evocation of the richly spiritual possibilities of an atheist’s life.
Of course, this is primarily a work of philosophy, not autobiography, but even as philosophy it is sadly lacking. The early ponderous elucidations of “religion” based around alternative etymologies really did nothing to illuminate actual “flesh and blood” religion we are confronted with. His frequent recitation of the expression “nobody knows” is irksome. He describes a friend who is “certain there is no God” and finds this conviction completely consistent with acknowledging that “nobody knows”. (This is a self defeating utterance, like saying “it is raining outside, but I don’t know whether it is raining outside.”)
The “humorous” and more serious anecdotes were awkwardly told. Are we really supposed to be shocked and moved by the fact that an ordained priest agreed with the Atheist on important matters?
As I forced myself onwards through dull page after page I realized that the book is not about atheism and religion per se, but a lengthy self-justification under the guise of Philosophy. The author bends over backwards to characterize himself as “almost Christian”. It is as if he were an adolescent explaining to his religious parents why they should not be affronted by what is after all a “mere” difference of belief, without practical consequences.
IMHO, a far better way to learn about atheist spirituality would be to read the works written by the acknowledged teachers of established atheistic religions. If you want an analytical critique of the pretenses of God centered religious doctrine and practice then you should read Dawkins instead.
I cannot recommend this wooly, navel-gazing drivel too little.
Rating: 1 / 5
#4 by Buzurg ibn Shariyar on June 6, 2010 - 10:43 am
I wanted to like this book as much as Comte-Sponville wants God to exist but, as with him, there just wasn’t enough of an argument to convince me. Perhaps that’s why this whole books sounds like the author trying to put together an atheist “religion” using off-the-shelf components, especially the last third of the book which is as convoluted an argument for atheist spirituality as any old-time religious philosopher wrestling with complex theological (and thus totally imaginary) problem. This last section reminds me of the last section of Sam Harris’s The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason in that’s its basically Eastern religion in disguise (and not a very good one). Comte-Sponville and Harris are worshippers in search of a religion and think they have found one in the mysterious East. Unfortunately this not only negates their atheism, it smacks of Orientalism in the way Edward Said used the word in his book of the same name. Too bad; we atheists could have really used something the title of this book promises.
Rating: 2 / 5
#5 by bookjunky on June 6, 2010 - 1:05 pm
I was really disappointed in this book. Perhaps I didn’t read the description carefully enough but I’m mystified as to who the author was writing FOR.
The first section was on the topic, “Do we need religion?” I could be wrong but I think pretty well all us atheists have determined that we don’t need religion. I didn’t get far in this section as it was boring and covered old ground. I’m familiar with the old argument that people would behave worse without religion and I don’t buy it. It did seem that the author misses his Catholic rituals and architecture, and I can’t say I blame him.
The second section was on the topic, “Does God exist?” and again, as a “strong” atheist I am pretty certain there’s no evidence for any gods (though I look forward to reading Karen Armstrong’s new book which I think claims there is). I skipped around in this section but it covers largely the same ground as other atheist writers. I think the author added a couple of new twists. One, as I recall, was that the mediocrity of humanity suggests no omnipotent benevolent Designer.
Finally, about 75% of the way through this already small book we get to the subject of spirituality. And to my dismay, this consists of 1) the author’s own spiritual (or oceanic) experiences and 2) an extremely labored dissection of those experiences.
I also have these oceanic experiences and they are quite delightful. But I think an atheist spirituality could consist of more than these random experiences. Moreover, the author apparently thinks these experiences are simply a matter of luck and makes no effort to explore whether they might also be induced by meditation, chemicals or other inputs. Even stranger is the lack of any reporting of other atheists’ oceanic experiences or spirituality. Surely there must be research on this topic, or if there is not then he might have conducted his own survey to at least gather anecdotal experiences.
In addition to the thin content of this book the worst part may have been the author’s habit of larding the text with quotations from other philosophers, as though this somehow proves something beyond his lack of confidence in making his own case or his familiarity with philosophy.
I do not recommend this book unless you are looking for a discussion of whether god exists as that section was probably the most useful out of the book. But if you want that, then you might as well buy Dawkins’ book.
Rating: 2 / 5