Literary marvel and founder of the School of life Alain de Botton has created Religion for Atheists, A non-believers guide to the uses of religion.

Instead of falling into the category of believer or non-believer, the beautifully bound hardback book suggests that rather than mocking religions, agnostics and atheists should instead steal from them because they’re packed with good ideas on how we might live and arrange our societies. It proposes looking to religion for insights into philosophy and architecture - notions that are sometimes lost or forgotten in our modern lives.

And to put this theory into practice Alain has recently announced plans for a series of temples throughout London, which if approved will be built by award winning architects Tom Greenall and Jordan Hodgson. The temples aim to challenge the super natural claims of religion whilst highlighting Alain's need to restore a sense of community in a fractured society. By building a temple for positive reasons such as love and friendship a sense of community can be created.

The boring debate between fundamentalist believers and non-believers is finally moved on with this interesting and truly helpful alternative. It will be interesting to see how this philosophy could change architecture, or the purpose of architecture, in the city. We look forward to seeing if these temples are approved.