Few Americans, not even 5 percent, are strict atheists. But roughly a fifth of Americans subscribe to no organized religion and maintain a general skepticism toward religious faith. This is an increase over the past few decades, and it’s particularly pronounced among younger Americans. What does that mean for heaven? In advance of the Zócalo event “What Does Heaven Look Like?” in conjunction with the Getty Museum exhibition “Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well: Images of Death in the Middle Ages,” we asked several scholars for their views on contemporary attitudes to the afterlife. Has the rise of atheism made death and the afterlife irrelevant in American society?
The afterlife is still relevant–and death even more so
Most Americans are still religious, so the simple answer to the question of whether death and the afterlife have become irrelevant is no. Most Jews and almost all Christians and Muslims believe in some form of resurrection and reward in heaven and punishment in hell. Other religions, from Hinduism to Scientology, have different ways of denying the reality of death, by insisting that the soul, atman, or some other essence survives death and gets reborn or merged with some underlying reality. Even some atheists believe in reincarnation or ghosts–another means of denying death’s reality.
Still, without some transcendent and eternal reality such as God or karma driving the system, the most logical position for the atheist to take is that there is no afterlife. So for many contemporary American atheists, the afterlife is irrelevant.
Whether that makes death irrelevant is another question. Some atheists have suggested that death has lost its sting. “Why should I fear death?” asked Epicurus. “If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?” Isaac Asimov sounded a similar note. “I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism,” he said. But I suspect most atheists (and most theists) are not so dispassionate. As for me, I fear dying (since it may hurt), but I do not fear death. Death’s relevance for me lies in the significance it gives to my finite time alive.
Herb Berg is professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
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We’re scared as ever of death–we’re just dealing with it differently
The share of Americans who are no longer affiliated with an organized religion is 16 percent. Many Americans under the age of 30 are no longer sure of the existence of God. Certainly, the idea of hell as a burning inferno to punish sinners has lost its fearsomeness for many believers, having become a place of existential angst for the alienated and errant. Most atheists have no belief and no fear concerning punishment or reward after death.
But death has not lost its grip on the sensibility of contemporary Americans, despite the rise of secularism and a naturalistic outlook. We may not fear eternal punishment for transgressions, but we dread the loss of consciousness itself.
The issue of immortality has shifted from the belief in a permanent soul to a hope that science will provide a continuation for our bodies or, at the least, our minds. We anticipate that science will find perpetuation for our physical selves with new technologies, such as life-extending drugs, genetics, or biological engineering.
Many of us count on scientific research to provide imperishability for the human brain, with its accompanying all-important consciousness. Some contemporary thinkers and researchers believe that individual consciousness may eventually be uploaded to a computer. So far, physical immortality remains a sanguine desire, far from realization.
The issue of death and immortality is as relevant as ever in contemporary American society. The difference is that we now turn to science rather than religion to provide us with what we hope is some form of eternal life.
Mary C. Taylor is the author and researcher for AtheistScholar.org.
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With or without God, we still get religious about death
In a word, no. Death and the afterlife are by no means irrelevant to American life. In fact, I would say that the rise of atheism has made death and the afterlife even more relevant to contemporary society. Whether we are talking about the new atheists militantly opposed to religion, or the rise of the “nones,” who are a curious mix of those who declare no affiliation to a religious tradition, or soft atheists who are members of the Unitarian church or practice yoga–religious behavior and beliefs do not necessarily disappear if you take God out of the picture.
Historically, in America, Christianity, especially white Protestantism, set the public terms for what was possible after death. But now anything is possible. Forget heaven and hell. Immortality can be achieved through athletic performance, scientific discovery, or another celebrity overdose. The resurrection may or may not come, but medical knowhow is transforming the boundaries of life and death and profoundly altering what it means to be human, to be a life. An eternal soul is a nice thought, but the disintegration of the body and the reintegration of those elements into a larger evolutionary process has its own charms and appeal for many.
The rise of atheism is a sign that the deep-rooted Protestant religious culture is diminishing in influence, but it does not mean that death will cease to pose religious questions about the meaning of life. Death and the afterlife, even when unhinged from God in our diverse, multivalent society, will remain as points of fixation in American culture–for atheists and non-atheists alike.
Gary M. Laderman is professor of American Religious History and Cultures at Emory University. He is the author of Sacred Matters: Celebrity Worship, Sexual Ecstasies, the Living Dead, and Other Signs of Religious Life in the United States (The New Press, 2009).
*Photo courtesy of Gord McKenna.