Table Of ContentHow To Be An Agnostic
Also by Mark Vernon
THE GOOD LIFE
THE MEANING OF FRIENDSHIP
PHILOSOPHY FOR THE CURIOUS
ETHICS FOR THE CURIOUS
PLATO’S PODCASTS: The Ancients’ Guide to Modern Living
CHAMBERS DICTIONARY OF BELIEFS AND RELIGIONS (editor-in-chief)
UNDERSTAND HUMANISM
WELLBEING (Art of Living Series)
42: DEEP THOUGHT ON LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING
WHAT NOT TO SAY: Finding The Right Words At Difficult Moments
BUSINESS: The Key Concepts
How To Be An Agnostic
Mark Vernon
© Mark Vernon 2011
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First published in paperback 2008 as After Atheism: Science, Religion, and the
Meaning of Life by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
This revised edition published 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
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ISBN 978-0-230-29321-2 ISBN 978-0-230-30144-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-30144-3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2014
For Nicholas George
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: There’s Something, Not Nothing 1
1. Socrates’ Quest: The Agnostic Spirit 20
2. Cosmic Religion: How Science Does God 48
3. How To Be Human: Science and Ethics 85
4. Socrates or Buddha? On Being Spiritual
But Not Religious 107
5. Bad Faith: Religion as Certainty 137
6. Christian Agnosticism: Learned Ignorance 167
7. Following Socrates: A Way of Life 199
8. How To Be An Agnostic: An A–Z 226
Further Reading and References 261
Index 270
vii
List of Illustrations
I.1: D urham Cathedral has stood for over 900 years,
‘half church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot’,
as Sir Walter Scott put it. 7
I.2: T .H. Huxley coined the word agnosticism, and it’s
one that has stuck for describing a mid-position
between the certainties of atheism and theism. 14
1.1: T he ruins of Delphi, high on the slopes of the
‘Shining Cliffs’. 21
1.2: S ocrates’ ugly appearance accentuated the inner
beauty of his unsettling wisdom. 42
2.1: S ir Isaac Newton – gentleman, sage, rationalist or
alchemist? 50
2.2: C osmologists have always been humbled by
the vastness of the universe they study. 60
2.3: T he ‘burnished and resplendent’ fly, as drawn by
Robert Hooke, in 1667. 76
3.1: T he Parthenon has made the wonder of technology
manifest for 2500 years. 87
3.2: A ristotle, who articulated a way of thinking about
how to live known as virtue ethics. 102
4.1: C arl Gustav Jung wrote of the spiritual crisis
of modern people. 112
4.2: B uddha as depicted at Kamakura, Japan. 124
5.1: S t Dominic, depicted by Fra Angelico, from the
period in which the practice of prayer and the
exercise of reason were indistinguishable. 148
5.2: A pophatic religion was a life-long search.
Fundamentalist religion is stick-on statement. 157
ix
List of Illustrations
6.1: T he greatest challenge to the intellect, according to
the Socratic Nicholas of Cusa, was what he called
‘learned ignorance’. 177
6.2: I t is better to think that God is a monster than
that the problem of evil can be solved – the
message of Job? 188
7.1: P lato’s Academy aimed at personal transformation
as well as careful understanding. 208
7.2: M ichel de Montaigne ‘assayed’ his life in the
privacy of the tower of the Château de Montaigne,
Périgord. 218
8.1: L eslie Stephen’s agnosticism found expression
in his love of the Alps. 247
8.2: S igmund Freud’s ‘royal road’ to the unknown
unconscious borrows from the Christian tradition
of radical uncertainty. 251
x
Acknowledgements
A book like this is the product of many conversations and
encounters, of many experiences and parts of life shared. Thank
you and I look forward to more. In terms of producing the text
in particular, I want fulsomely to thank Jeremy Carrette, Paul
Fletcher and Piers Benn who have read drafts and made sugges-
tions. Needless to say, all faults remaining are mine. Great thanks
are also due to my sometime editor Dan Bunyard. For this new
edition of the book formerly published as After Atheism – here
thoroughly revised and added to throughout, including two
chapters that are almost completely new and a third entirely
new – thanks too to my copyeditor, Sally Daniell, to Laura Conn,
Abby Coften and Melanie Blair at Palgrave Macmillan and to Pri
Gibbons also at Palgrave Macmillan for championing my cause.
xi
