Coming to the UK soon: Atheist temples

On January 25, outspoken British atheist Alain de Botton announced plans to build a series of “atheist temples” around the United Kingdom, beginning with a 150-foot-tall black tower in London.

“As religions have always known, a beautiful building is an indispensable part of getting your message across,” de Botton said. “Books alone won’t do it. Why should religious people have the most beautiful buildings in the land. It’s time atheists had their own versions of the great churches and cathedrals.”

De Botton says atheists like Richard Dawkins are unsuccessful at convincing people that atheism is an attractive philosophy because they don’t provide them with the kinds of buildings, rituals and works of art that religions use.

“Even the most convinced atheists tend to speak nicely about religious buildings. They may even feel sad that nothing like them gets built nowadays. But there’s no need to feel nostalgic. Why not just learn from religions and build similarly beautiful and interesting things right now?,” de Botton said.

The first “temple” will be dedicated to the idea of perspective, with each centimeter of the tower’s stature intended to represent 1 million years, so that the 46 meters “honor Earth’s age of 4.6 billion years.” At the tower’s base will be a tiny band of gold 1 millimeter thick representing mankind’s time on Earth. The idea is to provide perspective about how insignificant mankind’s time on the planet has been.