For thousands of years millions of people in all civilizations have found belief in God and religion satisfied a natural spirit need that human beings have. Many original and brilliant thinkers had religious belief eg. Einstein, Newton, Aristotle and many others. I don't agree with Camus therefore that it's philosophical suicide to hold such beliefs as long as you still retain an open and enquiring mind and not allow it to become dogmatic. There are different kinds of religious believers those who are dogmatic and intolerant of opposing views and those who are tolerant of differing views. In my view Camus's view is a typical intellectuals reaction against commonly held belief systems of humanity labelling them as "Philosophical suicide".

I would disagree that Freud " has been supplanted" . The fact is that he is regarded as an intellectual giant of the 20th century and has had an enormous influence not only in psychology but in literature, Philosophy, sociology and so on. Jung who has arguably become more fashionable nowadays judging from the number of videos about him on YouTube was actually heavily influenced by Freud and psychoanalysis although not as popular as CBT nowadays still is very influential in modern culture. In my opinion the weakness in ancient Greek philosophy including the Stoics is their hierarchical view of reason versus the emotions placing reason as somehow in a superior rank to the emotions. This is a big mistake. Eastern Philosophy is very different. It has much less emphasis on reason. And modern psychology bears this out , namely the equal importance of emotions and reason. In my opinion the Greek thinkers worship of reason had detrimental consequences for the history of western thought. The Church for centuries up until the 19th century used Aristotles and Plato's Philosophy to back up their dogma and their conservative repressive thinking which was only overcome when modern radical thinkers overthrew the enormous influence of Aristotle and Plato's thought in the west

I'm asking about the ancient Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius who seem to have become very popular in recent decades judging by the number of books and videos about them. They, like most Greek philosophers had too much faith in the power of human reason to direct our lives, whereas Freud showed that in fact we are driven largely by our irrational unconscious drives , not reason at all. This explains why intelligent reasonable people can behave in irrational ways sometimes.

By the way your advice looks very good. Would you like me to send a brief synopsis as you mentioned of the book.
Yes I've never written a book before only articles published in newspapers and magazines. Im tearing my hair out trying to write this book . I don't know how many times I've changed the title and the topics. I've written about 30 pages on it already but I began to have doubts about it and so decided to look for feedback on this and other places. Regards Ross

Hi thanks for your suggestions. What do you think about the following as a title. "Why Philosophy Matters. The relevance of Philosophy for ordinary Life".
Is this a fresh original approach. I think it's better I write an introductory book on general philosophy rather than a specialist field which is probably more suited to people with a PhD in the field while Ive only got a primary Degree in Philosophy.

Hi
Thanks for your helpful comments. That's very interesting. I had doubted myself if it was a good title. Do you think it would be better to write about a more specific aspect of philosophy rather than a broad book about general philosophy. I was thinking of writing a book about Ethics because it's my favourite area but because I don't have a specialist knowledge in a particular field of philosophy I thought it would be better to write a more broad based book where I don't have to go into great depth on any particular field. But some of your suggestions are interesting. I also want to write a popular work on philosophy, an introductory work for beginners. Doo you think such a work on Ethics would be a good idea. It is I gather the most popular field in philosophy and the most relevant perhaps to people's ordinary lives.
Regards Ross