A good, godless life
Alom Shaha wants to give atheism some much-needed humanity.
Andrew Stephens
March 10, 2012
WHEN the so-called New Atheists started to heap particularly virulent scorn on the world's believers a few years ago, Alom Shaha - a London-based Bangladeshi-born former Muslim - was unimpressed. An atheist since adolescence, he had been contemplating a far gentler approach: the nature of love. Living a good life, he thought, simply could not be the sole province of those with faith in a supernatural deity.
Shaha found no evidence atheists commit more crime, violence or acts of ''evil'' than religious people, musings that have informed The Young Atheist's Handbook, his moving memoir of enlightenment. In it he relates his journey towards atheism after the death of his mother when he was 13, and his discovery of how love provides meaning in the world - regardless of a god.
The problem for Shaha, though, was not how to confront the dogma of god-botherers, but how to avoid aligning himself with that outspoken coterie of fervent atheists who delightedly mock religions.
Shaha is among a new breed of non-believers far more congenial than Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) or Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), among others. Rather than being combative, Shaha et al look for what religions might have to offer us. As philosopher Alain de Botton says, the wisdom and richness of world religions - their art, culture, sense of community, architecture and far-reaching organisational skills - are to be valued for what they tell us about living a good life, and the ways they illuminate our experiences and deep inner selves.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/a-good-godless-life-20120309-1up7l.html
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with a big sigh.