How To Be An Agnostic
ideals of material security, general welfare and humaneness,’
Jung concluded. Only while security, welfare and humaneness
are great goods, they are not enough.
This is a crucial part of the agnostic predicament. I recognise
it in myself. And I’ve also become increasingly aware of what’s
lost. When it comes to asking how to be an agnostic, there’s
more to attend to here.
The secular predicament
For most of human history, a claim to be spiritual but not reli-
gious would not have made any sense. ‘Spirituality’ was just
the more existential side of religion, and ‘religion’ the practi-
cal side of spirituality – the confessional element demonstrated
in a way of life that was owned by the community to which
Illus. 4.1: Carl Gustav Jung wrote of the spiritual crisis of modern people.