This is such a fabulous book. Honest, powerful, moving. Can’t remember ever liking a book ‘in praise of atheism’ as much as this. Many atheists don’t really get religion. @Baddiel absolutely does.
@giles_fraser @Baddiel “Many atheists don’t get religion” well, duh. Doesn’t mean they don’t have spirituality though, we just don’t see the universe through a God prism.
@ClydesdaleDH @Baddiel I made no comment about spirituality. Simply that, unlike many atheists, Baddiel understands what he rejects. Nietzsche was another who did. But they are relatively few.
@giles_fraser @Baddiel I disagree. Atheists are thoughtful enquiring people and will have thought deeply before rejecting something so deeply embedded in culture, tradition, state and family. But at the end of the day integrity requires it. To thine own self be true.
@ClydesdaleDH @Baddiel However thoughtful, some atheists understand what it is like to be on the inside of religious belief and others don’t, they think the whole thing is simply baffling. Baddiel is of the former sort. Terrible advice from Polonius, of course.
@giles_fraser @ClydesdaleDH @Baddiel I think it helps to have had a religious upbringing. I know what I gave up to be an atheist. I still feel that loss of community. Some days it hurts like hell. And I envy the religious. But most days I’d never swap atheism for the critical-thinking vacuum, which is religion.
@ClydesdaleDH @MargateArt @Baddiel What makes Baddiel’s atheism so refreshing is that he can reject religion without feeling the need to abuse it.