By Mano Singham
Cindy said:
I tend to think that lack of belief in the afterlife is more fundamental to atheism than lack of belief in a God. I think I would have become an atheist a lot sooner if it weren't for my emotional aversion to non-existence (which has really gone away after a years of thinking about it). Also, while a lot of people think it's fun to talk about arguments for an against the existence of gods regardless of their beliefs, I've seen reasonable people reduced to tears with just a few good points raised about the lack of an afterlife. It seems like theism of any kind is based on two strong emotional ideas: 1) I'll never really lose anything or anyone 2) The world is inevitably fair. And if they can't have 2, they'll still cling to 1.
I think Cindy is really on to something. Clearly people want to believe in the existence of a god and the after life, despite the lack of evidence for either. Although the two beliefs are linked, I used to think that wanting to believe in god was the primary impulse and that belief in an afterlife was something that came along with a belief in god, a fringe benefit if you like.
But Cindy's suggestion is that the reverse is true, that what people really want to believe in is the afterlife, and that belief in god is merely a mechanism that enables that belief.
That makes a lot of sense. After all, god is an abstraction. Hardly anyone, except Pat Robertson, would claim that they have any kind of real relationship with god. Imagine meeting god. You really would not have much to say and it could be quite awkward, like encountering a stranger at a party. After a little small talk ("Hi, god, nice place you got here. So, "read any good books recently?"), you start wishing you could get away to the buffet table.
But that is not the case with people whom we like who have died. It would be like meeting a close friend after many years. We can't wait to find out what they have been up to and getting them up to speed on out own lives. We can imagine ourselves talking to them for hours and days.
All of us have had people and pets whom we have loved and who have died. We have fond memories of them and the desire to continue that relationship is very strong. A recent study reported by Elizabeth Cooney in the Boston Globe of February 21, 2007 says that:
Contrary to traditional notions of grief after the death of a loved one, a new study finds that yearning is felt more powerfully than depression. "Yearning is reacting to the loss of someone or something, and once that is gone, you miss it, you pine for it, you hunger for it, you crave it. That was the primary emotional experience after bereavement, rather than depression," Holly G. Prigerson, one of the authors, said in an interview: "People never get over a loss, they just get used to it," Prigerson said. "Even years after someone dies, they get pangs of grief, they need to think about the person, and they miss them with heartache," she said.
What people find most difficult to deal with in the death of a close loved one is missing the companionship that person provided. It is natural to want to believe in something, such as the afterlife, that promises that that link may someday be renewed.
In my own case, now that I think about it following Cindy's comment, giving up believing in god was not that hard. But my father died nearly thirty years ago, before my own children were born. My greatest regret is that he would not see them growing up because I know how much he would have enjoyed knowing them and playing with them and how much they in turn would have enjoyed his company. The idea of meeting him again was much more appealing to me than the thought of seeing god. Believing that he was somewhere 'up there' looking down on my children was comforting. Even as I write these words, memories of him and the sadness associated with missing him comes flooding back. Giving up that belief was much harder than giving up belief in a god about whom I really knew nothing and with whom I had had no prior relationship or shared memories.
So it makes sense that belief in an afterlife is more important to people than belief in god and that maybe people desperately want to believe in god because it enables them to believe in an afterlife.
Why it is so hard to give up belief in the afterlife
In a lot of discussions that I have had with believers the question "what happens to you when you die?" is by far the most common of all. The observation that it was easy to give up belief in god but it was far more difficult to abandon the idea of personal existence after death is spot on. It certainly was the case for me. Also, the more virulent emotional responses come out when discussing the afterlife, not the existence or nonexistence of god.
Try it sometime in the next discussion you have with a believer, if only as a thought experiment. Assert that you don't believe in a deity but you do believe in continued personal existence after death. You will find a much more receptive audience to what you have to say; they will actually listen and discuss the issues with you. The dealbreaker, of course, is when you deny the existence of a deity AND the existence of an afterlife. The eyes glaze over, the tempers flare and all discussion is over.
Great insight Cindy!
Rich
NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX
Holy generalization, Batman!
In a discussion of the afterlife with most of the believers I know you'll get nothing like glazed over eyes, flared tempers and an end to discussion. You'll get a good-natured discussion of the subject.
The reaction you get depends on so many factors that it's impossible to predict what response you'll get and glibly lumping all believers into one easy-to-handle baggie is a no-op. Not only are the specific doctrines the believer holds true a factor, but how much the believer feels that doctrine is threatened by the application of reason.
For example, are they expecting a physical "heaven" with rolling green hills and the presence of all deceased family members which they will experience in a perfect physical body? That belief is rather susceptible to rational argument -- in fact, I don't know that it can be discussed rationally. The only answer I've ever received when I asked the inevitable questions (How old will everyone be? What family will they be reunited with--their parents or their children? Will they need to eat and drink?) was "I'm sure God has that all figured out" or words to that effect. But only a subset within the Christian community believes in this physical heaven and of those, many very likely say they believe but haven't really thought it out.
Other beliefs in an afterlife are not nearly so rigid or so linked to a deep-seated fear of losing the identity that comes with the physical body. So, a discussion with a believer in that sort of afterlife is going to be quite different.
In any event, the expectation of "eyes glazing over" or "tempers flaring", born of a gross generalization about people's beliefs ill-prepares the would-be rationalist for a real-life conversation.
Holy generalization, Batman!
The only generalization (gross or otherwise) I have ever made regarding those who believe in an afterlife is that they will have no evidence whatsoever to support their beliefs. I have not been disappointed........ever. Oh that I would have a real-life conversation with a believer. :) The sophistry is amazing, evading and not answering questions is compulsory and they are absolute masters of the ad hominem. Their position, along with the position of flat earthers and moon landing denialists would carry so much more weight if there were a shred of evidence supporting it. Great logical fallacies, no evidence - now there is preparation for discussions with believers.
Reason is a threat to believers; good point. Lack of evidence is fatal to their argument; even better point. So respond, maybe poke fun at my spelling, call me intolerant or what you will. You still need to provide evidence. Evidence trumps logic. Go back and mull that over. Demanding evidence does not make one intolerant although it does make the person being asked for it uncomfortable, hence the angry emotional retorts. But, then again, you get the same reaction from a con man when you press him. Now that is a lumping together of likes, don't you think? :)
What really throws me for a loop is all these pro-afterlife arguments that are NOT followed for pious requests for money to support the ministry.
NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX
No evidence?
What will be evidence for you? Do you have evidence that you are not imagining your whole life? Because that is really all we have to go by when all is said and done.
Solipsism and the afterlife
@ Nina
Solipsism has its merits, and its consequences, too. If extropian58 imagines all the world including this forum, then neither you (Nina) nor god exist because there is no one except extropian58, who has a pretty weird fantasy, judging by his projections. Don't cite the mother of skepticism to score a point for mysticism, it's vane...
@kaath
The afterlife... I was lately confronted with two very different religious concepts concerning the afterlife. One was presented by my favorite creationist pen-pal, a very passionate German Amish who, after a lengthy correspondence concerning earth's age, embarked on a love-crusade to save my condemned soul. Now, he was not talking about life before death - I'm not much of a sinner, except for the denial of god - no, he pictured to me in red and purple tones how I'd suffer in my afterlife, because I'd meet god in all his glory on Judgment Day and then I'd have to live without him forever, longing for him all the time. Love on first sight... What I like about my pen-pal is that he's not the tar-and-sulfur type. Now, I've witnessed a few drug and other habit-withdrawals myself, and so I answered that the symptoms wear off after a while, and if I had to spend an eternity I'd prefer the company of a bunch of rebellious, even tasteless atheists to endless huzzahing. We're still corresponding... So, the idea of an afterlife as reward and punishment is at best boring. And often it brings out the sadist side of the devout. Everybody knows that Dante's "commedia" is about hell - this part is the most commented in Italian literature. The parts on the purgatory and the paradise are almost forgotten...
The other concept I met when my mother died a few weeks ago, aged 89, and everybody felt the obligation to ensure me that she was "better off" now, "looking down" upon me from above, "re-united with her family", sitting beneath god in all his glory", etc, etc. This was meant to be comforting, politeness.
But my mother is dead and gone. I know it for sure, as I spent her last six weeks with her in that cold country of hers, sitting at her bed every night of the last four weeks, watching the loss of mobility, body control, the slow goodbye of the upper functions, her gradual loss of complicated concepts (like seasons), then the decay of articulation until she was reduced to a wordless childlike object of my helpless love. She had a lot of fun, and I did a lot of fatherly cooing and joking and unusual cooking. She used to be such a strong and lively woman - I did quite some desperate weeping.
She is dead now, I carried her urn to the family tomb and put her remains into an astonishing deep hole in the ground, which my sisters filled with white and red roses... Being an atheist does not mean one doesn't know how to do a proper burial.
So, for all practical purposes, I have to live without her. It is this loss that counts, that is so hard to bear. The concept of a somehow supernatural "other existence" after death does not serve any useful purpose. All that remains are my (and my three sisters') memories, as they say, she will not be forgotten, not as long as any of us live. That remembrance, and her part of our gen set, and the parts of her personality that we internalized in our psyches is the only continuation she'll have. Not an afterlife, but a living-on in others.
So, polite thanks for the polite condolences, but, please, don't spoil my mourning and my loss with unsubstantial guessing about what nobody can know. What we know is hard enough to bear.
No evidence?
Here would be some evidence: if people who say they believed in an afterlife actually acted as if they did. How's that? A study published in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that those who turn to their faith for comfort during their illness are significantly more likely to use intensive lifesaving measures, such as mechanical ventilation.
"In a large study of terminally ill cancer patients, we found that patients that rely more heavily on religion to cope are about three times as likely to get aggressive medical care in the last week of life," said study author Dr. Andrea C. Phelps, a senior medical resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
The results of that study cry out for an explanation no matter what side of the fence one stands on. I've always contended that religious people don't believe the nonsense they say they do their protestations notwithstanding. Now there is evidence to show that to be the case.
So again, to answer your question, the first piece of evidence I would accept would be that those who profess belief in the afterlife actualy behave as if they believe it is true.
Rich
NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX
Holy generalization, Batman!
@kaath
"glibly lumping all believers into one easy-to-handle baggie is a no-op."
"the expectation of "eyes glazing over" or "tempers flaring", born of a gross generalization about people's beliefs ill-prepares the would-be rationalist for a real-life conversation."
I'm a glib, ill-prepared would-be rationalist now. :) So how come YOUR experience with believers and the discussions YOU have had entitles you to call me glib, ill-prepared and a would-be rationalist? Maybe I am glib, ill-prepared and a would-be rationalist, who knows. But, I do know that if you proceed in a discussion with a believer and tell them you believe in an after life but not god, you can have an intelligent discussion with them. If you claim no god belief as well as no afterlife belief, tempers get hot. It is simply an observation about human behavior from experience, that's all. But you can extract specific character judgements about the observer from a report of human behavior? Does that mean that someone who observes racism in operation has character flaws too? I wish I had your acumen.
Rich
NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX
Supernatural other existence?
@mycroftH: The concept of a somehow supernatural "other existence" after death does not serve any useful purpose.
That's an interesting concept: a "supernatural other existence." That's not the sort of afterlife (for lack of a better word) that I believe in. It is perfectly natural and is not "other." A child in the womb might make the same comment about the supernatural other existence outside the mother's womb. "I can't imagine it; I don't see the purpose of it." It would not be until he reached that unimaginable outside world that the baby would understand that purpose and grok what the arms and legs (annoying and useless in the womb) were for.
Life is a continuum, a moving from one state to another of growth. The afterlife isn't about kicking back on your laurels; according to the scriptures that deal with it in any depth there is progress and movement; continued growth and evolution.
I lost my father suddenly when I was 15. My last memories of him were as a vital man in the prime of his life. I lost my mother to cancer some years later in a scenario much as you describe. My mom had had cancer since I was 7. By the time she was 64, she had all her affairs in order and had determined where all of her earthly goods were going. I had the opportunity to go to her, to tell her what a wonderful mother she was and how grateful I was to be her daughter. In her last months, she was radiantly acquiescent, asked for no great measures to be taken to resuscitate her. I thought at the time that if I could face death half as gracefully as she did, I'd be happy. (She had been a Christian most of her life, by the way, but had become a Baha'i in her 50s.)
She felt that her work was done. Her kids were grown and had families of their own, her beloved husband had already gone—she wanted to be with him, whatever that meant. She saw death as progress toward God.
When we look at how people respond to death there are a lot of factors involved. A Hindu prayer notes this when it says: "O God, may my song not be cut while I sing." People try to stay alive because they feel they have work to do; they have children or spouses or loved ones that they don't want to leave in grief; and regardless of how much one believes in a continued existence after the body is gone, human beings still fear the unknown. Even a presumably pleasant unknown. Ah, but what if one has committed secret sins that they fear they will have to account for? Well, there might be a very strong impulse to stay alive to try again or try harder or simply avoid that moment of enlightenment.
People who have had near death experiences often return with a conviction that life is sacred, that they have much to learn and have been lazy about learning it; that there is much to do and they have been slow to do it. A young woman of my acquaintance who was dead for 45 minutes and had a very detailed NDE said she now understood the importance of life here. She became a suicide prevention advocate and went to work for a suicide hotline--something her unique perspective on death certainly suited her for.
I think it does everyone a disservice when we boil such complexities down to statistics without studying the factors behind the statistics. I believe in an afterlife, but if I were to be stricken with a life-threatening disease now (I recently had a cancer scare), I would fight to live. Why? Because I have a 16 year old and a 7 year old. I remember vividly what it meant to lose my dad at 15 and to hear at the age of 7 that my mom had cancer. I would fight not for myself, but for them.