Probably the first thing to stress about this question is that not all secular humanists (or other freethinkers) would agree on the right or best answer. I’ve had atheists assure me they are not at all afraid of dying—that they’ve had good, full lives and fear nothing about being dead. But my own answers to these kinds of questions are complicated and in response to several different underlying questions along with the stated one(s):
· Fear of the unknown is natural for humans and other animals, and I admit that being dead is an unknown for me—so, yes, I am a bit afraid of dying.
· I have no great fear of what happens after death (based on a reasonable confidence that the answer is simply decomposition, entropy, etc., with no consciousness or awareness left on my part about any of it), but I do fear much about the act or process of dying, including fears about pain, about loneliness, about despair, about being physically alive but without any meaningful mental life, and about in the end perhaps not handling it the way I want to be able to. As Richard Rayner wrote, in a 1997 novel called Murder Book, “People make the mistake of being frivolous about death; they think it happens to everybody, it’s natural, it’s no big deal, they’ll be fine. That’s a fine theory, until you’re dying” (p. 334).
· I have huge reluctance—I wouldn’t really call it fear—to give up living, simply because life is so grand, so rich, so enjoyable. My wife and son and many other humans are surely the main reason for this, along with, so far at least, enjoying pretty good health. If I were in constant, agonizing pain with no serious hope of getting beyond it, I suppose that could all change, though I haven’t been there or done that, so I admit I just don’t know. And I have tremendous fears about those I love dying—about having to do without them.
Probably the main point is that, however much one is afraid of something, and no matter how much one is justified in that fear, simply wishing for a different outcome changes nothing (except maybe one’s own attitude).
The central Christian claim is of course that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, death is conquered for believers. For this to be of any use in coping with fear, it must be credible—and it’s not, at least not for me. Humans have, over thousands of generations, evolved religions primarily to try to explain the unknown and to deal with the fear of death. The fact that so many religions have evolved and have so much power over humans only proves that the fear is real and not easily dealt with—and not at all that death has in fact been defeated. If I could somehow manage to live forever, on terms I dictated, I might choose to do so (it would surely not be in a heaven where all I got to do was “love” a god, with no body, no physical sensations, no unsolved questions to ponder, and with nothing to look forward to except more of the same).
But if wishing were all it took to get something done, I’d certainly have won a big multi-state lottery by now.
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CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
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