Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion

Alain de Botton

Jan 2012 · Penguin UK

About this ebook

SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER

NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

From one of our greatest voices in modern philosophy, author of The Course of Love, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The School of Life

'A serious and optimistic set of practical ideas that could improve and alter the way we live' Jeanette Winterson, The Times

'A beautiful, inspiring book... offering a glimpse of a more enlightened path' Sunday Telegraph

'Smart, stimulating, sensitive. A timely and perceptive appreciation of how much wisdom is embodied in religious traditions and how we godless moderns might learn from it' Financial Times

'There isn't a page in this book that doesn't contain a striking idea or a stimulating parallel' Mail on Sunday

Alain de Botton takes us one step further than Dawkins or Hitchens ventured - into a world of ideas beyond the God debate...

All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton both rejects the supernatural claims of the major religions and points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live.

And he suggests that non-believers can learn and steal from them.

Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions, Alain de Botton presents a range of fascinating ideas and practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death. He shows how they can be of use to us all, irrespective of whether we do or don't believe.

Ratings and reviews

Alain de Botton defends his atheism with profound respect for the religions he rejects. While accepting all that is good about established faiths he proposes an alternative social structure which adopts their benefits in an amusing and coherent form.

Finally a book of the atheist , by an atheist and for an atheist. This book is not an attempt at prosylitization, it is an attempt to raise us atheist from the alter of reason to the heavens of awe and wonder.

This book is really inspiring, giving me a new view about "Deities" in this modern Era.

About the author

Alain de Botton is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including The School of Life: An Emotional Education, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy, The Art of Travel and The Course of Love. He is the founder of The School of Life (theschooloflife.com).