If you want to understand the problem of an empty secular society, just read this column by New York Times columnist Jessica Bennett. She cannot conceive of life apart from how others perceive her. She writes,

“What is it they say about aging, that with time comes the ability to care less? About how, when you just stop trying to keep up with the latest internet feud or TikTok trend or cool new pop-punk artist, you begin to have time for the more ‘important’ things? (What are those, exactly?) How if you just stop trying so hard, you can save that brain space for … I don’t know, organizing your supplements into one of those neat carrying cases? “What is it they say about aging, that with time comes the ability to care less? About how, when you just stop trying to keep up with the latest internet feud or TikTok trend or cool new pop-punk artist, you begin to have time for the more “important” things? (What are those, exactly?) How if you just stop trying so hard, you can save that brain space for … I don’t know, organizing your supplements into one of those neat carrying cases?”

The important things Bennett cannot imagine, once one stops trying so hard to be an influencer, include facing death, the meaning of life and the purpose of the universe, and so forth.

I hope this column was tongue in cheek, but I’m not sure it was.

We desperately need more depth in secularism. Bennett must never have had any religious life and nothing filled that gap.