Enjoying the chance to read whilst on sabbatical and find myself enjoying Alain de Botton's latest book, Religion for Atheists. Starts from the viewpoint, "there's obviously no God", but then spends the rest of the time asking how can we be atheist and still have some of the great things that religion provides? It's a very interesting book, he has some interesting insights as well as some frankly odd ideas. Loved this quote from the book:
“...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.”
Religion for Atheists, page 77. Alain de Botton
Which is interesting.
Asked by a friend what this means. I think it's pretty much what Paul writes in Romans 7:
"21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being... I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
I am sure to be levering this into a sermon sometime soon after my return in the summer.
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