It’s been 150 years since Matthew Arnold wrote of the "melancholy, long withdrawing roar" of faith in God. Yet as our churches have emptied, our belief in progress, science and reason has also begun to falter, and we find ourselves in a new space in which all beliefs are challenged, and perspectives jostle in a relative world.
Finding ourselves lost, should we look once more to the spiritual realm to make sense of our limitations? Might religion, in the form of shared rituals and values, once again have a role to play? Or are religions anachronistic, often dangerous, belief systems that should be consigned to the dustbin of history?
Research associate at the Centre for Islamic Studies at SOAS Myriam François, Oxford scientist and humanist Peter Atkins and philosopher and Closure theorist Hilary Lawson debate spirituality and secularism.