A cynic’s guide to unbelief

Navigating post-­faith scepticism

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  • Published 20241105
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-01-2
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook, PDF

THE TITLE OF this article is misleading – because I don’t know anything. This is important to note in case you are here thinking you might learn something. You might – but it certainly won’t be because of me.

Earlier this year, I spoke with the writer Charlotte Wood, whose latest novel, Stone Yard Devotional, is about a woman who unsubscribes from her life (and her emails) and runs away to live in a small religious community on the Monaro plains. It sounds like housewife fantasy-­fiction, but it’s more like a meditation. Charlotte said that she was raised Catholic but was not a believer anymore. I asked her what she considered her new church to be, and she replied art. She went on to say that even though she was an atheist, Catholicism had left her with a ritualistic void in her life. The Mass. Rites, liturgy, communion. It’s structural. Something to hang your mystical and spiritual moments on. When you leave your faith and its rituals behind, a hole appears.

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