Mental 03: The Anxiety Unto Death

    On 14 October, 2012, my mother returned home from running some brief errands to find my grandmother, her mother, fallen outside. She suffered severe brain trauma; she was 90 years old. My mother did everything she thought to do - called the ambulance, stayed by her side, notified family (including me) as she rode with my grandmother in the ambulance to the hospital, etc. 2.5 traumatic days later, Beatrice Weiss passed away, never having regained consciousness, surrounded by family.

    I'm not very ashamed to say it - I fear death. Most of us do. It is a final, inevitable end to our subjective experience. Many of us deal with this fear by turning to our religious beliefs - heaven, reincarnation, spirits, etc. I however can have no recourse in these beliefs - I have vowed for myself the ideal of a rationalist, evidence-based world philosophy, and so far I have been presented with no compelling evidence for any here-after. These arguments have been beaten to death, as it were, and I feel no need to get into them here. Similarly, I will not take up space justifying the nonsense question of "why do you live, then, since you don't believe in a higher power?".¹ 

    My beliefs have been a source of contention between my mother and me, and so far I am glad that we have not fought over the details in the time since my grandmother passed. But, as a humanist, interested in what the effects of something as traumatic as death has on our psyche, and always curious about the belief systems people create to contextualize themselves in the larger universe, I cannot help but speculate about the relationship between death and religion. Especially in the light of the events I mentioned, pondering humanity's relationship with death has become the next best thing to a consolation for the deaths of my loved ones and my own death.

    I am of the opinion that religion serves partly as a coping mechanism for our fears of death. I have heard it speculated that, at some point in our evolutionary history, we became sufficiently cognizant to forecast our own death. The anxiety this caused must have been great. Religion, whenever it developed, came to serve, among other functions, a way of identifying our ego, our sense of self, with something eternal, thereby relieving us our fear of death, of ourselves and of others.

    Whether or not this is true historically, something of it seems to be true today. A recent study implies that, when primed with thoughts of their own death, non-believers are unconsciously less certain of their own disbelief, even when they are consciously more adamant about it.² For religious folks however, this prompting increases both conscious and unconscious conviction of their belief.

    This, of course, is no evidence for any religious claims, much like the claim that "there are no atheists in fox-holes" fails to be rationally convincing. A good friend whose opinions I highly value once told me that he most resists adopting those beliefs which he is most emotionally inclined to agree with. Emotion is no substitute for reason in deciding what you believe is true.

    As an atheist, what greater, lasting purpose(s) do I identify with, if any? I don't actually think it is necessary that we identify ourselves with some eternal project - religion, fame, lasting benefit to mankind - in order to deal with our anxiety about death. For myself, I take some comfort in the fact that I appear to be made of the same matter, the same cosmic star-stuff, as everything around me; that I am "the Universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while,"³ looking into and reflecting on itself. When I die, I am returning to being diffused into the whole of existence.

    Contemplating death does not just make you more religious; it can also makes you more considerate of others, and more likely to engage in healthy behaviors.⁴ Far from devaluing life, death seems to make us find it more precious, and care about the lives of ourselves and others. This is why I found my grandmother's funeral service somewhat disturbing. My mother wrote the only work celebrating her life and her experiences - her compassion for others, loyalty to family, and yes her quirks and faults. This reading contrasts sharply to the sermon give by the pastor, the message of which seemed mostly to be that life only exists so that we prepare for death, and that Beatrice was an example to us for preparing her funeral before hand, just as she had prepared her immortal soul for the afterlife. I was reminded of why Nietzsche considered Christianity nihilistic.

    Preparing for death is important, of course. My mother is already making plans to walk myself and my brother through the medical and legal procedures we will need to know when she passes away. To do otherwise is to ignore reality, something which I fear my brother may prefer (he has expressed strong reservations to learning this process). However, I see this process as a wake up call to really take control of my life, to take better care of my physical and mental self, to love and cherish those around me, to move on from a recent and somewhat painful end to a relationship and just throw myself into the things I love - programming, music, art, food, etc.


    We are very brief, very small, very beautiful improbable things. Let's make the most of it together.


1: If you're interested, however, here's a start

2: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120402094322.htm
3: Eckhart Tolle
4: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419102516.htm