Holy Alliance

The premise of the recently-published Religion for Atheists is surprising but simple. Author Alain de Botton, who is a non-believer, argues that although the supernatural claims of religion are completely false, it still has some very important things to teach most secular people.

He suggests that ratherthan mocking religion, agnostics and atheists should, instead, steal from it - because the world's religions are packed with good ideason how we might live and arrange our societies.

De Botton isn't the first person who's said something like this. French philosopher Voltaire rejected the God of Christianity but was anxious not to infect his servants with his own scepticism.

He felt atheism was fine for the elite, but could breed dissent among the masses. Historian Edward Gibbon, also a notorious sceptic, held that the religious doctrines that he despised could well be socially useful.

It makes sense. After all, religion has been around for longer than almost any other organised human activity - including agriculture, artor science - and certainly doesn't seem like it's aboutto go away in a hurry.

Even if we discard thedivine and the miraculous, we're still left with huge bodies of narrative that have been fashioned by human beings to serve as a communal way of living. How could everything in them be wrong?

They can't, and, thus, de Botton's message is clear: instead of atheists and believers ripping each other's jugulars out all the time (with agnostics conveniently ducking the issue), this could be a more constructive alternative.