最近看了颇多阿兰 德波顿 (Alain de Botton)的文集/作品。这本《写给无神论者》，感觉是映像深刻的一本。先说一下作者，阿兰 德波顿，看见网评的一个称号是英伦才子，生于1969年，剑桥毕业。作品在英语/西班牙世界颇受欢迎，这两年他的作品也慢慢被翻译成简体中文，以“阿兰 德波顿 文集” 集结出版。比较有名的是这些 《身份的焦虑》，《旅行的艺术》，《写给无神论者》，《哲学的慰藉》。
No offense，作者没有想要“立”或“破”任何观点。用朴实一点的语言来说，作者把‘宗教’里的思维方式，行为准则，审美理念，剥离开，用一种“世俗”(secular)的方式，引导无神论者去思考，辨析，以解决人在社会中所面对的巨大的焦虑、不安与痛苦。比如说书的第一章，聊得是community，作者阐述了宗教里的community，借以说明，一个氛围轻松的，有着既定基本主旨 – 通常是，但不一定是，互相交流内心的困惑，不安，寻求或给予宽慰 – 按期举行，人员不局限与朋友圈的一种形式，其实在世俗世界里（secular world）也是值得借鉴和非常有意义的。稍微批评一下，原文的标题是“community”，在中文里面被翻译成为了“群体”，这个翻译总是感觉有点怪怪的？所以还是强烈推荐看看原版的，作者的写作真是优美，遣词，用句中，确实能欣赏到英文之美。
“Our inner lives must be lent a structure and our best thoughts reinforced to counter the continuous pull of distraction and disintegration. Religions have been wise enough to establish elaborate calendars and schedules. How free secular society leaves us by contrast. Secular life is not, of course, unacquainted with calendars and schedules. We know them well in relation to work, and accept the virtues of reminders of lunch meetings, cash-flow projections and tax deadlines. But it expects that we will spontaneously find our way to the ideas that matter to us and gives us weekends off for consumption and recreation. It privileges discovery, presenting us with an incessant stream of new information – and therefore it prompts us to forget everything. We are enticed to go to the cinema to see a newly released film, which ends up moving us to an exquisite pitch of sensitivity, sorrow and excitement. We leave the theatre vowing to reconsider our entire existence in light of the values shown on screen, and to purge ourselves of our decadence and haste. And yet by the following evening, after a day of meetings and aggravations, our cinematic experience is well on its way towards obliteration. We honour the power of culture but rarely admit with what scandalous ease we forget its individual monuments.”
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