page_title: Religion for Atheists
section_title: Content
hierarchical_section_title: Religion for Atheists / Content
caption_attribution_description: English: Alain de Botton
context_page_description: Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion is a book by Alain de Botton published in 2012. It argues that while supernatural claims made by religion are false, some aspects of religion are still useful and can be applied in secular life and society. Religion for Atheists was published in the UK in hardback edition by Hamish Hamilton, and in the US by Pantheon. Religion for Atheists was a New York Times non-fiction bestseller, and has been widely reviewed, with mixed results.
context_section_description: Religion for Atheists has a general format in which de Botton describes a problem in society, discusses how religions (particularly Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism) have attempted to solve this problem, and proposes secular alternatives.  Religion for Atheists draws on the work of the 19th century philosophers Auguste Comte, Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill.  Religion for Atheists particularly pays attention to the way religions draw people's minds to ideas through annual ceremonies and rituals such as Christmas or the Day of Atonement.  Religion for Atheists asserts that religions know that people are fundamentally children, in need of comforting and repeated guidance on how to live.  The book is divided into ten chapters: Wisdom without Doctrine, Community, Kindness, Education, Tenderness, Pessimism, Perspective, Art, Architecture and Institutions.  In an interview with New Scientist, de Botton stated his aim for atheists reading the book:  "I want to make sure atheists are deriving some of the benefits of religion."
  The chapter on "Kindness" discusses the tensions between libertarianism and paternalism. It argues that freedom has become vital in Western political thinking, and discusses suspicion of the idea that the state should talk about how we should behave to each other. De Botton contrasts this with religions, which he describes as having ambitious ideals about how people should treat each other.  He suggests that religious ethics grew out of pragmatic needs, and that because they were key to our survival that it became important to protect them by pretending that they were divinely inspired. He sums up by saying that people simply have to be reminded that "the most mature and reasonable parts of us" (p. 80) want us to live this way. De Botton suggests the example of the Scrovegni Chapel, which has paintings of the "cardinal virtues" and their corresponding vices. People sitting in the church would think about their own relationships to these virtues and vices while they sat under a painting of God. De Botton suggests that advertising for values should be displayed in public spaces.
  The chapter on "Pessimism" describes that modern society, with its continual message of progress and improvement, seems to promise permanent happiness, but that we are still vulnerable to heartbreak and despair, even as our ancestors were.  De Botton argues that religious pessimism allows religious people to be grateful for small successes, whereas "the secular world is not well versed in the art of gratitude" (p. 188).
  In the "Institutions" chapter, De Botton describes organised religions as being efficient at spreading their message, having financial clout and enacting social change, and compares them to corporations.
caption: Alain de Botton, c. 2012
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