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Tony Curzon Price, editor of openDemocracy, introduces our first debate of 2012, 'The world needs religion even if it doesn't need God', which took place at The Tabernacle on 24 January.
Speaking for the motion: writer and philosopher Alain de Botton, and Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry. Speaking against the motion: writer and broadcaster Anne Atkins and Benedictine monk Dom Antony Sutch.
Event blurb:
God is dead and man has no need of the myths and false consolation that religion offers. That's the battle-cry of Richard Dawkins and other tough-minded critics of religion. And yet millions cling to their faith, finding value and meaning in the concepts and rituals they adhere to. But is this dichotomy all we have to choose from -- prostration or denigration? Some would argue that there's another way, that it's possible to remain an atheist and still make use of certain ideas and practices of religion that secular society has failed to engender -- the promotion of morality and a spirit of community, for example, and the ability to cope with loss, failure and our own mortality. But is this "religion for atheists" something that would ever catch on? Without belief in the numinous and some form of authority wouldn't it all fall apart? And do atheists really need sermons and reminders to be good?
