{"id":716,"date":"2022-11-20T13:53:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T10:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=716"},"modified":"2022-12-06T11:52:17","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T08:52:17","slug":"atheism-2-0-alain-de-botton","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=716","title":{"rendered":"Atheism 2.0 | Alain de Botton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Alain de Botton, philosopher. July 2011. (19:20)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Atheism 2.0 | Alain de Botton\" width=\"629\" height=\"354\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2Oe6HUgrRlQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\"><strong>I. Identify the topic of the talk given by Alain de Botton<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">II. For questions 1-4 choose the best answer\/-s:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-medium-gray-color\"><strong>Which of the following secularized areas of life that are not going too well are NOT mentioned by Alain de Botton in his talk?<\/strong><\/mark><br>a) education<br>b) charity<br>c) culture<br>d) art<br>e) oratory<br>f) health care<br>g) literature<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-medium-gray-color\">Alain de Botton posits that<\/mark><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">a) education makes us into better and nobler human beings<br>b) institutes of higher learning are in the business of providing information<br>c) culture is looked to for guidance, for consolation, for morality<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" start=\"3\">\n<li><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-medium-gray-color\">According to Alain de Botton<\/mark><\/strong><br>a) Art is propaganda<br>b) Art should be for art&#8217;s sake<br>c) Art shouldn&#8217;t explain itself<br>d) Art is to remind people of what there is to love, fear and hate<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-medium-gray-color\">The speaker highlights that religions<\/mark><\/strong><br>a) remind people of the important<br>b) teach them how to sound convincing<br>c) make people forget their sorrows and look on the bright side<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">III. Identify the thesis of the talk.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">IV. Give the gist\/summary of the talk.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">V. Expand on the following in pairs. Do you agree with the statements?<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The secular world is full of holes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Our minds are like sieves.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Art should be didactic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Religions are massive machines, collaborative, branded, multinational and<br>disciplined.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">VI. With the help of the script analyse how the speaker uses the following rhetorical devices:<\/mark><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">a list of three, repetition, simile, contrastive pairs, humour, emphatic constructions, rhetorical question, intonation, speech tempo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What effect does the speaker achieve?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>One of the most common ways of dividing the world is into those who<br>believe and those who don&#8217;t &#8212;into the religious and the atheists. And for the last decade or so, it&#8217;s been quite clear what being an atheist means. There have been some very vocal atheists who&#8217;ve pointed out, not just that religion is wrong, but that it&#8217;s ridiculous. These people, many of whom have lived in North Oxford, have argued &#8212; they&#8217;ve argued that believing in God is akin to believing in fairies and essentially that the whole thing is a childish game.<br>Now I think it&#8217;s too easy. I think it&#8217;s too easy to dismiss the whole of religion<br>that way. And it&#8217;s as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. And what I&#8217;d like to<br>inaugurate today is a new way of being an atheist &#8212; if you like, a new version of atheism we could call Atheism 2.0. Now what is Atheism 2.0? Well it starts from a very basic premise: of course, there&#8217;s no God. Of course, there are no deities or supernatural spirits or angels, etc. Now let&#8217;s move on; that&#8217;s not the end of the story, that&#8217;s the very, very beginning.<br>I&#8217;m interested in the kind of constituency that thinks something along these<br>lines: that thinks, &#171;I can&#8217;t believe in any of this stuff. I can&#8217;t believe in the doctrines.<br>I don&#8217;t think these doctrines are right. But,&#187; a very important but, &#171;I love Christmas carols. I really like the art of Mantegna. I really like looking at old churches. I really like turning the pages of the Old Testament.&#187; Whatever it may be, you know the kind of thing I&#8217;m talking about &#8212;people who are attracted to the ritualistic side, the moralistic, communal side of religion, but can&#8217;t bear the doctrine. Until now, these people have faced a rather unpleasant choice. It&#8217;s almost as though either you accept the doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you&#8217;re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">VII. Watch the talk again and note down how the speaker uses rhetorical devices, signposting language, humor, intonation and stress, and to what effect?<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Working in pairs support the statement you agree with:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u25cf Religion is a force for harmony in the world.<br>\u25cf Religion has been the cause of all the major world wars in history.<br>\u25cf Religion is a kind of fault line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">II. Answer the questions:<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1) What did Karen Armstrong find out in the course of her study of religious<br>traditions?<br>2) In what way did Karen Armstrong rediscover religion?<br>3) What common tenet do the major world traditions highlight? Sum it up.<br>4) How does the speaker refute the assumption that religion has been the cause<br>of all the major world wars in history?<br>5) What role does she think religion should play in the modern world?<br>6) What does Karen Armstrong call for and how should it be achieved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\"><strong>III. Paraphrase the statements:<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Golden Rule was first propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pride of place in this practice is given to compassion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Religion, too, has been affected by this violent ethos.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You could not and must not confine your compassion to your own group: your own nation, your own co-religionists, your own fellow countrymen.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>his universal outreach is getting subdued in the strident use of religion &#8212; abuse of religion &#8212; for nefarious gains.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>These traditions are so often at loggerheads now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">IV. Identify the topic and thesis of the talk.<br>V. Give the gist\/summary of the talk.<\/mark><\/strong><br><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-accent-color\">VI. First expand on the statement, then agree or disagree, give your reasons.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Any ideology that doesn&#8217;t promote a sense of global understanding andglobal appreciation of each other is failing the test of the time.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It&#8217;s time that we moved beyond the idea of toleration and move towardappreciation of the other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alain de Botton, philosopher. July 2011. (19:20) I. Identify the topic of the talk given by Alain de Botton II. For questions 1-4 choose the best answer\/-s: a) education makes us into better and nobler human beingsb) institutes of higher learning are in the business of providing informationc) culture is looked to for guidance, for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-716","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}