Atheism: No-Afterlife Anxiety

photo by Bruno Passos at Burst

The other day, I took my youngest two children to visit my grandparents' graves. All four of them are interred within metres of each other, bringing into focus what a leveller being dead is. My mother's parents were pretty well-off and lived on the posh side of town, whereas my father's parents were austere, church-going folk who had no time (or money) for unnecessary luxuries. Yet there they all are, lying deep in the ground in close proximity, with just a few words above them to remind the living who they were.

The three of us stood and stared at the headstones; I, as usual, became quite choked up and chatted awkwardly to my grandparents (all of us knowing how silly that was) and cleared away a few cobwebs and overgrown plants. I told my children a bit about them, stared a bit more and then we left. As we were walking away, my daughter started talking about the afterlife and whether I thought there could possibly be one. Really, she knew what my answer would be; she knows that I believe that when you die, that's it, there's nothing else. But, as a near-teenager, she's starting to find that thought unbearable. Most children, at about that age, become aware of their mortality and many struggle to deal with it.

Since then, the subject has arisen several times. She wants there to be more than nothing for herself and other people when they die, she doesn't want it to end as a void of non-consciousness for eternity – the thought is terrifying. It reminded me of my own 'dawning of realisation'.

I remember, quite clearly, the moment I became an atheist. It was like an epiphany, a negative version of the born-again believer’s story of suddenly ‘seeing the light’. I was about twenty-six, lying in bed, doing battle with my recently acquired insomnia, waiting for sleep, my mind working at a hundred miles an hour. And suddenly, the thought just bubbled to the surface.

You’re going to die.

I really didn’t want to be thinking that.

You will die. And when you’re dead, there will be nothing.

It was horrible. I could feel the panic rising in me – like a heat working up though my body.

You’ll be dead. Everyone else will carry on, but you will have no consciousness at all. You will just NOT BE.

There was a pain in my guts and my heart was racing. I wasn’t breathing right.

I didn't know it, but I was having a panic attack. Despite trying not to disturb my sleeping husband, I couldn't suffer in isolation any longer and woke him, saying, 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die!' The poor guy must have been horrified and totally baffled as to how to deal with a hysterical wife in the middle of the night, freaking out because there was no afterlife. I can't remember any more about that night, but that feeling of terror has never really left me and it still keeps me awake at night sometimes. So, if I haven't found any solace, how can I possibly offer any to my daughter?

This, I think, is the number-one reason why people are religious. It is easier, nicer, to believe that we will continue to exist in some way after we die and that our deceased loved ones are somewhere in the ether, looking down on us. It's comforting. There are no such reassurances for the atheist.

The afterlife, to me, is that on death, everything that comprises a body (whether human or other animal) is given back to the earth, the sky, the rivers and seas, from where they came in the first place. All living things are up-cycled bits and bobs from our planet and the universe, culminated into one body for a few years and then given back at the end. They then go on, eventually, to make other things, and that, in my view, is the extent of reincarnation.

There is an aspect of 'living on' after death, in that every living thing leaves their mark after they die. Your great-aunt's special recipe, your dad teaching you how to map-read, your pet dog, whose funny antics and unconditional loyalty contributed to your happy childhood. No matter how short or long a life is, it will always leave ripples which continue to influence and affect the living after death. And, of course, if you have children, and they have children, there will always be 'a part of you', carried by the wonders of DNA, long into the future.

This is all very circle-of-life – lovely and poetic, but it still doesn't offer any real comfort. It's not what we really want to hear. When you hear eminent atheists speak (Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Fry), they will wax lyrical about the wonders of life and the universe, of the miracle (scientific, of course) of our existence, and that because of that, and the fact that there is no 'after', we should value life highly and squeeze every last drop of joy from it. But, uplifting as this is, there is nothing of real assurance here that I can offer my daughter.

I encourage her not to change her beliefs just to make her feel better (perhaps I shouldn't do that?) and advise her to try as hard as she can to reject fearful thoughts as soon as they pop into her head and replace them with more positive ones. 

It's not much, but it seems to be the best you can do if you want to stand by your convictions.