One might want to do that, but although I am an atheist-humanist I no longer get an intellectual a buzz from teasing Christians and in any case increasingly think of them as a critically endangered ACT species and so, like the worryingly-endangered northern corroboree frog, deserving of our concerned kindness.

But meanwhile what of us, the atheists-humanists, who now censuses show are superabundant in the ACT? Do we have a tendency to be unthinkingly smug within the bubble of our scepticism? And so to give a wake-up nudge I'm pleased to pass on to this column's overwhelmingly atheistic readership a mind-examining contemporary challenge.

It comes from Giles Fraser, a journalist, broadcaster and rector at a south London church. Here he is (we only have room for a little of him and I urge you to read his whole short but combative essay) throwing down a substantial gauntlet in his piece "Atheists have an evil problem" for the admirable online Unherd zine.

"Atheism entered the Enlightenment during the period of its conception. Reason and God were no longer compatible," Fraser scene-sets.

"But suffering and pain are still with us. [Ukraine's] Mariupol is being starved and bludgeoned into submission ... and dark talk of nuclear war has returned ... Has the age of reason really served us any better than the age of faith?

"Back when I used to teach Philosophy of Religion in Oxford, I spent many hours with undergraduates discussing the 'problem of evil'. If God is all powerful and perfectly good, then why is there great suffering in the world? Great suffering is often cast as the slam dunk of atheism. [But] now that God is supposed to be dead, and suffering remains, I wonder if humanism too could be said to have an 'evil' problem? If human beings are good and increasingly powerful, how come there is so much suffering in the world?

"Scrolling through humanist websites on Ukraine, one of the interesting things is that you can find a kind of defence of humanity in the face of human evil that is not unlike the defence that Christians sometimes use to defend the existence of God in the face of human evil. Consider this, on Ukraine, from the explicitly 'humanist' Gold Foundation website:

"Still, through the scenes of rubble and destruction, we see humanity. Humanity in the healthcare heroes dodging artillery ... Humanity in those rising to defend their homes, their country, and democracy at large. Humanity in the charitable donations and mobilisation ... around the globe.

"These," Fraser continues, probing, "are remarkable similar responses, exonerating God or humanity by pointing towards what is best in the response of these respective actors. But this much is obviously true: evil and suffering have outlived the loss of faith. Once we had God to blame. But now that God has gone ... we have no one left to blame but ourselves.

"Humanists now own the problem of evil. So why don't humanists more often experience some sort of loss of faith in humanity? Where is their existential crisis? I may be wrong, but it seems to me like it's a dog that doesn't often bark."

Thank you Giles Fraser for, through this grateful column, helping to try to nudge and prod dozing, complacent, atheistic Canberra minds into wakefulness.

The word "joy" cropped up again and again in heartfelt things said about beloved Shane Warne during Wednesday evening's mighty memorial tribute to him at the MCG. He was credited, correctly, with giving so many of us (this grateful columnist included) so much joy and somehow in ways hard to put into words, joy of an unusually Australian kind.

Coincidentally, doing a little reading before writing another column for another edition of this newspaper, I had come across the great French philosopher Rene Descartes' assertion that joy is one of the six "primary passions". His others five are wonder, love, hate, desire and sadness.

Descartes' prescription cropped up for me because I was columnising about the new and latest World Happiness Index, ranking Australia the 11th happiest of nations. I was wondering what might happen if such an index ranked nations according to some emotion/feeling other than happiness, perhaps according to one of Descartes' primary six.

So for instance while I personally am rather well attuned to feeling wonder (it explains why, rapt by the wonders of meteorology, I am a member 58,212 of the Cloud Appreciation Society) one fears prosaic Australia generally might do rather poorly on a World Wonder Index.

But when it comes to Descartes' crucial "joy" and to wondering if Australia has an aptitude for it and wondering how well Australia might go on a World Joy Index the Shane Warne phenomenon suggests we might have a chance of coming closer than 11th to the top of those emotional pops.

The joy Warne gave us helps explain the strange power of the grief his death is causing us.

In a way how like us, a cricket-mad people, to so exalt a cricketer. But then, (because thinking, feeling Australians loved and enjoyed him for so much more than his cricket) perhaps also how like us it is to be able to feel such child-like, lucky country joy in our simple Australian hearts.

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