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Comfort, joy and disagreement 抚慰，欢乐与不合 Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer s Guide to theUses of Religion. By Alain de Botton. 给无神论者的宗教：无神论者使用宗教的指南。Alain deBotton著; The Face of God: The Gifford Lectures. By RogerScruton. Continuum; 上帝的面孔：在Gifford的讲座。RogerScruton著，Continuum; Alain de Botton It is difficult to imagine Alain de Botton and Roger Scruton becoming friends if they met at aparty. All too soon the two philosophers would start talking about God. For Mr de Botton thereis something slightly demented about religious belief, whereas for Mr Scruton there issomething deeply tragic about atheism. 很难想象Alain de Botton和Roger Scruton会在聚会上遇见后成为朋友。这两位哲学家在一起很快就会讨论起上帝。对于de Botton先生来说，宗教信仰总有那么一点神神叨叨，而对于Scruton先生，无神论却带有深深的悲剧色彩。 Mr de Botton has published bestselling books on a wide range of subjects. He is anaggregator of ideas rather than an original thinker, but his skill is to write simply aboutcomplex ideas and he gives his fans the sensation of reading something profound withlittle effort. The premise of his new book, Religion for Atheists, which seeks to steer acourse between religious fundamentalists and atheist fundamentalists, is that there is toomuch of value in religion to leave it to the religious alone. It must be possible to balance arejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals, he says. Inpractice, this means emptying out such rituals of their meaning and using them for secularends, a kind of spiritual pick n mix. | 
