The new new atheism

In considerable detail, he explicates his own immersion in the kind of “oceanic feeling” that a perplexed Freud discussed at the beginning of “Civilization and Its Discontents.”

It occurred during a nighttime walk with friends in a familiar forest, the starry night and surrounding trees suddenly erasing all cares, fears and boundaries, suddenly transporting him into a state of timelessness and bliss, a plenitude of reality rendering both life and death inconsequential.

It is fascinating how closely this resembles experiences that many believers have described as their gateway to religious faith. Yet for Mr. Comte-Sponville it removed all need of dogma, hope, eternity, salvation, “even the longing for God.”