The book is divided into ten chapters: Wisdom without Doctrine, Community, Kindness, Education, Tenderness, Pessimism, Perspective, Art, Architecture and Institutions.

The chapter on "Pessimism" asserts 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.

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.

Religion for Atheists was published in the UK in hardback edition by Hamish Hamilton (later also by its parent Penguin), and in the US by Pantheon and Vintage International.

[3] Terry Eagleton describes the book as an attempt to "hijack other people's beliefs, empty them of content and redeploy them in the name of moral order, social consensus and aesthetic pleasure".

[5] Martha Gill, after reading Religion for Atheists, feels that "as a spiritual guide, de Botton offers as much opportunity for growth as a hard-boiled egg".

[9] Barney Zwartz says "De Botton selects areas of need – community, kindness, education, tenderness, perspective, architecture and art – and draws out detailed, practical lessons.

"[10] José Teodoro suggests the book is "subtly condescending in the way it demands that everything in our shared environment constantly remind us that we're not alone in our anxieties and disappointments".

[11] The Economist, in a comparison with Roger Scruton's The Face of God, writes that de Botton "often stretches a good idea beyond its elastic limit".

[13] Stephen Cave, writing for the Financial Times, regards a theme of Religion for Atheists to be "we are less grown-up than liberal societies assume we are and frequently in need of guidance, reassurance and tenderness".

Moore states that de Botton "has an instinctively religious grasp of the power of paradox" in that the concept of original sin is depicted in the book as "comforting".

[22] An early review by Kirkus suggests that de Botton's message is that religions take care of two important needs which secular society has not been able to – the need for community and the need for consolation in the face of life's problems.

[24] James DeRoche, writing for Library Journal, states that many of de Botton's benefits of religion may have escaped atheists' view before, although religious people might take "some of [the book] for granted".