Last night I saw Alain de Botton speak courtesy of the Wheeler Centre. I wrote notes as he spoke. There is nothing more to this than that. Take it as you will.
Connecting the sensory with the intellectual
He says that the modernists said that art should be ambiguous. Surely that's a simplification.
He's spoken a lot about building connections to the soul, but where does morality stem from?
Eventually the point is that we can create influence in our every day lives through the systems used by religion: architecture, art, ritual, organization etc. through a multifaceted approach we can create a difference.
He is very good at making ordinary people feel intelligent and validated.
He is, however, discouraging fundamentalism and extremism, so I suppose that's good.