"The problem, however, is that atheism can only take something away; once the old faith is gone, it offers nothing to fill the void. Yet some atheists acknowledge that human beings consistently demonstrate a need to believe in something beyond themselves, conceding that this might serve an evolutionary purpose. Whatever the cause of our curious instinct to put our hands together for gods, dictators or Gary Lineker, we can now see that a generation that doesn’t look outwards, towards God, looks inwards, to itself. The defining spirit of our time is self-obsession; neurosis, self-actualisation, the triumph of mind over matter. What I want, I must have. What I wish to be, I can become."