Some of us, atheists and rationalists, have scoffed at this superstitious silliness (for we are sure there is no afterlife and no Heaven so that Hughes can't possibly be up there following mortals' sports). But social researcher and industrious author Hugh Mackay won't scoff with us.

"In the book," he said of his about-to be-published Beyond Belief: How we find meaning with or without religion, "I set out not to scoff.

"There's already far too much scoffing."

Instead, he says that cricketers who gaze Heavenwards towards an imagined Hughes are Australian 'SBNRs', and they think of themselves as spiritual but not religious. The SBNRs are a major focus of his book because, he argues, so many of us who no longer go to church (61 per cent of Australians believe in some form of God but only eight per cent of us ever go to church) still have spiritual feelings and yearnings. SBNRs may have some fondness for mystery, myth and magic (40 per cent of Australians are quite fond of astrology) but struggle now with ye olde religions' emphasis on implausible wonders. SBNRs baulk at the Virgin Birth, at Our Redeemer's 35 reported New Testament miracles and Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Mackay says that, increasingly, people identify themselves as SBNRs. If the census allowed us to tick an SBNR option the numbers would reveal a startling sign of the way we now live. He points to a 2010 survey that suggested 72 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 29 identify as SBNR.

Mackay, as gentlemanly in conversation as he is in the manner of his books (this is his 11th book dealing with questions of social analysis and ethics) wants us to treat SBNRs and almost everything they believe in with understanding. Ours was a conversation between a mild-mannered agnostic (Mackay) and a humourless and cranky atheist (this reporter). Mackay, 78 and wise, emerged as easily the more grown-up of the two.

It's not that he believes many of the miscellaneous things SBNRs may believe in. But he insists a need to believe in "spiritual" things is part of our species' nature. It will never go away. No wonder the book's first two chapters are called 'Born to believe' and 'Why religions will survive and prosper'.

And thus: "Even if none of them [the cricketers looking Heavenwards] literally believed that Hughes' spirit may be up there somewhere their gestures … were examples of how religious rituals … offer us a structure for articulating and dealing with our most intense emotions, especially those involving shock and grief."

Mackay is convinced that our belief in "something" bigger than ourselves makes what might otherwise be our meaningless life in this vale of tears, meaningful after all. He's also sure that being spiritual/religious makes us better, gentler people than we would otherwise be.

One thing committed atheists will dislike about the book is the wetness of what Mackay is prepared to accept as being in some way "spiritual". He quotes a dissenting voice, Robert Dessaix in his book What Days Are For, complaining that the word "spiritual" and its meaning are devalued today when applied to "bushwalking or a bit of homeopathy". But Mackay politely bustles past the Dessaixs of this world and goes on to be accepting of a host of people who have got what they imagine is a truly spiritual buzz out of bushwalking, nudism, Anzac Day, ouija boards, yoga and whatever gives them what Mackay calls their "magic moments".

"But rational people too have their irrationalities," Mackay answered back when I asked him why we can't, with a scoff, dismiss some beliefs as just superstitious and silly. He challenged me to say that my sensible atheistic didn't harbour some irrationalities of its own. And of course (like so many Sagittarians I have a quasi-religious irrational loyalty to a footy team) no atheist is that pure of mind.

"But Hugh," I seethed, "surely not all belief is admirable. Aren't religious hypocrites the worst hypocrites of all?"

And here at last the mildness of Mackay's manner lapsed a little. He was gently fierce about strongly 'Christian' Ministers for Immigration whose hardness of heart towards asylum seekers means they have nothing in common with the man, Jesus, these hypocrites pretend to adore and to imitate.

What "committed Christians" will dislike about the book, is Mackay politely takes apart and dismisses all the Big Things habitual, primitive Christians believe. God as a white-bearded Heavenly Father is put away on a shelf to gather dust. But Mackay does these dismissals amiably, in the avuncular way in which a loving uncle might confirm a child's mounting doubts about the existence of Santa Claus.

He hopes his book will help persuade people not to throw out the important babies of Christian thought when they toss out the bathwater of Christian dogmas and superstitions. He hopes in our growing SBNRness we will keep and practice Christianity's best teaching, that we will "approach life with a compassionate mind, with the spirit of loving kindness".

Hugh Mackay's Beyond Belief is published in May by Macmillan Australia.

Hugh Mackay will be speaking as part of the ANU/Canberra Times Meet the Author series on Friday, May 13, 6-7pm at Manning Clark Centre, ANU. Bookings: 6125 8415 or events@anu.edu.au.