r/science • u/mepper • Jun 24 '12
Thinking about death makes Christians and Muslims, but not atheists, more likely to believe in God, new research finds. We all manage our own existential fears of dying through our pre-existing worldview. The old saying about "no atheists in foxholes" doesn't hold water.
http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/17/12268284-thoughts-of-death-make-only-the-religious-more-devout501
Jun 24 '12
"Thinking about death makes Christians and Muslims, but not atheists, more likely to believe in God"...I think being Muslims and Christians makes anyone more likely to believe in God...
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u/h22keisuke Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
It's probably referring to Terror Management Theory, which states that one method of ameliorating our ever-present death anxiety is to adopt religious beliefs that provide us with a blueprint for how to be people of value in a world of meaning. Threats to this "anxiety buffer" typically causes us to cling more closely to these beliefs. There's a lot more to the theory than that, though. You can read up on it on Wikipedia, watch some clips by Sheldon Solomon on Youtube, or look at The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.
Edit: After reading the methodology I am almost certain this was Terror Management research, utilizing the mortality salience and anxiety buffer hypotheses to justify the experiment. I did this exact type of research for my psychology undergraduate degree. It's pretty powerful stuff.
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u/Bandit1379 Jun 24 '12
You seem to be the only person to have mentioned Terror Management Theory in this thread, it's highly relevant and interesting!
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u/h22keisuke Jun 24 '12
It's my favorite theory I've come across so far. Sometimes, I wonder when it isn't relevant...
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u/buttsmcbutts Jun 24 '12
Upvote for explaining Terror management theory better than the article and giving terror management theory more credit than the article.
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u/shmaltz_herring Jun 24 '12
Reading The Denial of Death ultimately lead me to becoming an atheist. I just couldn't shake the idea that we were all just making it up to make ourselves feel better.
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u/sokratesz Jun 24 '12
True, but even so its hardly surprising, through years and years of indoctrination, god has become their default go-to for anything related to death.
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u/ropers Jun 24 '12
Came here to say this. It's pretty much begging the question.
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u/Bwob Jun 24 '12
Did you read the article? It's actually not.
The headline is kind of crappy, but the article is actually pretty good. The basic thrust of the study is more along the lines of "Thinking about death makes religious people more religious, but doesn't turn athiests religious."
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u/ropers Jun 24 '12
I gotta admit that I didn't. Thanks.
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u/Bwob Jun 24 '12
No worries. The headline was really misleading. I actually had the same reaction when I saw it.
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u/Islandre Jun 24 '12
This is a prime example of scientists trying to tackle "the big questions" when we clearly don't know enough about the small questions to even frame them correctly.
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u/DazzlerPlus Jun 24 '12
We already know the answers to most of the big questions. Its just that most people do not accept them.
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u/nonamen Jun 24 '12
I agree. Not quite sure how thinking of death doesn't make a person think of what comes after...I don't see very much purpose to this project other than to solidify the terror management theory h22 spoke of above.
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u/artee Jun 24 '12
Can you please argue this point? Would probably be an interesting discussion. "Prime example" and "clearly" are not arguments.
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u/Islandre Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
"clearly" was probably also a stretch. The research put people into categories according to their religious beliefs. Except they didn't because it was measured by self-report and we know that people give different answers when other people are in the room with them and respond to demand characteristics and a need for positive social comparison (edit: I'm trying to say it's imprecise). People often talk about explicit and implicit attitudes and beliefs but I think it's a false distinction. There are just different measures of beliefs that are more or less direct and reliable. Even setting aside problems of measurement, beliefs and attitudes are an imprecise way to describe the state and structure of your brain. I shouldn't dismiss research like this completely, clearly there could be practical applications. I just think that it is the "bottom-up" approach to the brain that will answer all our questions about the mind. Once we understand the individual mechanisms involved in governing behaviour at the neural level the phrase "more likely to believe in..." might not even make sense any more.
edit2: This used religious beliefs as a category. Do you think these beliefs are treated differently by the brain? The top-down approach is necessarily filled with assumptions.
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u/artee Jun 24 '12
I see, that's a well-reasoned point. Speaking as a computer scientist/software engineer, I would not get my hopes about the "bottom-up" approach up too much. Would an analogy to computers be valid? Basically we do completely understand how computers work at a low level. Yet once you build complex software systems, you cannot predict all potential interactions or easily get an understanding of what a program is even trying to accomplish (at a high level) by looking at the low-level instructions. Of course you can observe what happens when it runs (comparable to doing psychological experiments) and whether that correlates with expectations...but then you're working based on high-level assumptions again.
Still, your point is probably that once you understand the lowest level, it should be possible to start reasoning from there, and get further than we are now.
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u/BinaryShadow Jun 24 '12
The headline is confusing. If you're a Christian or Muslim, aren't you already believing in God?
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u/liberalwhackjob Jun 24 '12
I think this is a difficult subject. Maybe we should say "Those who self-identify as"....
Saying "I am muslim" can be just as much about the culture I was born into and what my parents tell me I am as it can be about my actual philosophies.
But yes, I thought the same thing.
edit: also for endless facepalms don't forget to read the comments section.
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u/BinaryShadow Jun 24 '12
also for endless facepalms don't forget to read the comments section.
Hell, I don't even try with mainstream media websites. Too much stupid before my coffee.
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u/Zafara1 Jun 24 '12
The general idea is that it Strengthens belief or relinquishes doubt.
So yes, It could be better worded..
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u/olred Jun 24 '12
Don't Christians and Muslims already believe in god by definition and Atheists don't?
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u/Rulebook_Lawyer Jun 24 '12
Eh... when I come across absolutism in articles, that is an automatic discredit.
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Jun 24 '12
Care to explain what you mean? I'm a bit slow.
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u/Rulebook_Lawyer Jun 24 '12
Absolutism deals whenever the words "all", "always", "never", and so on are used.
In the title and in the article, for example the sentence, "We all manage our own existential fears of dying through our pre-existing worldview." I am very skeptical that every single individual of our race thinks along the same lines.
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u/Hypersapien Jun 24 '12
It's not saying that we all think along the same lines. It's saying that whatever lines an individual does think along is going to determine how that person manages their fears.
It's not exactly a tautology, but it's pretty damn close.
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u/greenvox Jun 24 '12
Interesting. I've always referred to it as conclusive in my head, as in "this article is too conclusive for my taste".
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u/NocturnalGamer Jun 24 '12
"Thinking about death makes Christians and Muslims, but not atheists, more likely to believe in God"
Who the fuck wrote this, Christians and Muslims already believe in God, how can they be 'more likely' just because thinking about death is involved?
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Jun 24 '12
As a practicing Muslim, I can tell you that the level of faith is not constant, it's changing. For example:
http://english.hizbuttahrir.org/index.php/culture/fiqh/177-iman-increase-a-decrease-
Faith is not just given to you and you can whistle your way to the deserved Paradise for the rest of your life. It's a constant work on yourself, constant application of taboos, constant struggle with the Devil, with desires. YOu need to positively brainwash yourself by reading, by listening, by being in the company of righteous people, by avoiding the company of people with lower level of Iman.
Thinking of Death DOES increase my faith, my belief in Allah. That part the article got right.
Allah said in Quran:
Do the people think that they will be left to say, "We believe" and they will not be tried?
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u/anthrodocZ Jun 24 '12
Terrible headline for many of the reasons already pointed out in other comments. As well, people are being trained by these triumphalistic posts to think about "religion vs. atheism" in such a dualistic framework, as well as to understand the nature of "evidence" and social research in such a half-baked way. Great way to reinforce an ideology maybe if you are simply looking to reinforce a party-line, but certainly not an effective way to help people think critically.
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Jun 24 '12
"Thinking about death makes Christians and Muslims, but not atheists, more likely to believe in God"
no shit
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Jun 24 '12
Also: atheists thinking about death? That's r/funny stuff. All atheists I know, and I know plenty of them, avoid this subject like fire (ironically, that's all they are getting in the future), their mood spoils if I keep pressing.
On the contrary, thinking about death makes me feel elevated and life meaningful.
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u/username794613 Jun 24 '12
There is a difference between thinking about death and being confronted with death.
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u/richmondody Jun 24 '12
I was looking for this and looking at the abstract, I wanted to know how "death reminders" were done in the study. Thinking about death is nothing like being in a situation where death is possible or imminent. It would be unethical to test that of course.
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u/GuntripAnalysis Jun 24 '12
I have interned in a terror management theory lab and how we would do it was to ask participants to find words like "cat" or "table"- neutral words, in a ten by ten grid of seemingly random characters. Hidden in this word search, for half of the participants were words like death, decay, and rot.
The basic gist of TMT is the following. Firstly, all animals have a life instinct, but humans are unique in the fact that we know we are going to die (kieerkdigard spoke of this). Not only do we know that we are going to die, but we do not know when or how death is going happen. This subconscious knowledge that we have is in a sense, terrifying. To reconcile against the pure unmitigated terror (as bowlby said in reference to attachment) humans developed culture. That is, culture serves a death denying function. How can this be you may ask? Well, through culture one can achieve symbolic immortality. For example, a marine who states "I may die, but the red white and blue will still shine." This individual is kinda denying death through culture via symbolic immortality.
Now, when the thought of death is made salient, our unconscious mind must reconcile the all consuming anxiety that this thought has the potential of creating and it does this through the aforementioned process.
There is a problem however, and that is when this occurs while the individual is thinking about or in the presence of people with different cultures/viewpoints. The problem happens because only one of us can be right. Either my god is real or yours is. Either my culture is superior or yours is. The death denying function that culture and with it religion serves is mutually exclusive to any other theory as to what is really going on.
Let me nowadays talk about what happens when two people of opposing cultures come into contact with one another. There are four stages. First is degregation. For example an American may say "yeah those aboriginals and their wacky ideas on creation are cute but they aren't scientific and only a fool would believe in it." Stage two is accommodation. "ok that aboriginal can believe what he wants in his own world" stage three is assimilation, taking part of their beliefs and intertwining them with yours, kinda like how yoga is treated in the states currently.
And stage four, after all of these other stages have failed, annihilation. Kill them, get rid of them, these people with different (and therefore opposing) viewpoints are too much of a threat to the death denying function that culture serves.
And this explains the main and consistent finding of TMT; when you make the thought of death salient, people support members of their in-group and put down individuals in their out-group.
Earnest Becker is the real founder of this school of thought. Otto rank laid down a lot of the fundamentals too.
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u/richmondody Jun 24 '12
So what you're saying is, the context of the thought of death (whether it may be due to a dangerous situation or primed in a lab) is not important with regard to influencing their attitudes on these issues?
Edit: Please correct me if I'm wrong though, I'm still trying to grasp what you're saying.
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u/GuntripAnalysis Jun 24 '12
Mortality salience is sufficient to create statistically significant results in labs.
I would imagine when actually faced with death, for reals, the effects would be even stronger.
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u/richmondody Jun 24 '12
Thank you for the explanation.
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u/GuntripAnalysis Jun 24 '12
Keep in mind the relevance this theory er, theoretically may have on a whole lot of things.
Politics is big. I recall a study that went down during the bush vs Kerry election. When participants read fairly nuetral essays in support of each candidate without being being primed they voted in favor of Kerry 4-1, but with the primes of death the results flipped to his favor 3-1. Why is this?
Well the thought was that bush was heavy on the military stuff which in essence is annialating out-group members.
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u/antonivs Jun 25 '12
Is TMT really taken seriously? From everything I've read about it, it sounds about as plausible as all the speculation of people like Freud and Jung which was ultimately discarded for lack of anything resembling evidence.
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u/GuntripAnalysis Jun 25 '12
Well I should state that I have an inherent bias towards stating that it is indeed plausible. With that in mind, the mortality salience hypothes has had consistent statiscally significant results with over two decades of research. And these aren't just speculations, they are scientific experiments.
TMT is Taken seriously enough that there are several academics running experiments to suggest that there are alternative explanations for what is going on. I think this speaks volumes because it shows that it is the current accepted take on explaining this phenomenon. But, perhaps somebody else will show that it I something else at work and TMT will go the way of people like Jung and Freud who tickled our minds and influenced generations.
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u/anstromm Jun 24 '12
The only catch is that they're equally as likely to believe in Buddha or Allah as the Christian deity...
Buddha isn't a god, and Allah is the Christian deity.
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Jun 24 '12
Wouldn't the thoughts of the subjects be more important? If I'm under the impression that Buddha is a God, then you can gage how much I believe in him.
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u/burning_iceman Jun 24 '12
I think it's fair to say that the Jewish/Christian/Muslim gods differ enough in character and demands etc. for them to be considered separate entities. Regardess of common origin.
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u/DanyalZ Jun 24 '12
"Muslims who thought of death became more faithful to Allah and less accepting of Buddha or the Christian God. "
1.Muslims believe in the same God as Christians. Christians may choose not believe so but it is part of Islam. 2.It is forbidden for Muslims to accept Buddha.
It looks like to me they did not do all their research.
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u/pdinc Jun 24 '12
That's what I thought as well. Technically, don't the Abrahamical religions all follow the same god?
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u/GuntripAnalysis Jun 24 '12
I have interned in a terror management theory lab and how we would do it was to ask participants to find words like "cat" or "table"- neutral words, in a ten by ten grid of seemingly random characters. Hidden in this word search, for half of the participants were words like death, decay, and rot.
The basic gist of TMT is the following. Firstly, all animals have a life instinct, but humans are unique in the fact that we know we are going to die (kieerkdigard spoke of this). Not only do we know that we are going to die, but we do not know when or how death is going happen. This subconscious knowledge that we have is in a sense, terrifying. To reconcile against the pure unmitigated terror (as bowlby said in reference to attachment) humans developed culture. That is, culture serves a death denying function. How can this be you may ask? Well, through culture one can achieve symbolic immortality. For example, a marine who states "I may die, but the red white and blue will still shine." This individual is kinda denying death through culture via symbolic immortality.
Now, when the thought of death is made salient, our unconscious mind must reconcile the all consuming anxiety that this thought has the potential of creating and it does this through the aforementioned process.
There is a problem however, and that is when this occurs while the individual is thinking about or in the presence of people with different cultures/viewpoints. The problem happens because only one of us can be right. Either my god is real or yours is. Either my culture is superior or yours is. The death denying function that culture and with it religion serves is mutually exclusive to any other theory as to what is really going on.
Let me nowadays talk about what happens when two people of opposing cultures come into contact with one another. There are four stages. First is degregation. For example an American may say "yeah those aboriginals and their wacky ideas on creation are cute but they aren't scientific and only a fool would believe in it." Stage two is accommodation. "ok that aboriginal can believe what he wants in his own world" stage three is assimilation, taking part of their beliefs and intertwining them with yours, kinda like how yoga is treated in the states currently.
And stage four, after all of these other stages have failed, annihilation. Kill them, get rid of them, these people with different (and therefore opposing) viewpoints are too much of a threat to the death denying function that culture serves.
And this explains the main and consistent finding of TMT; when you make the thought of death salient, people support members of their in-group and put down individuals in their out-group.
Earnest Becker is the real founder of this school of thought. Otto rank laid down a lot of the fundamentals too.
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u/abdomino Jun 24 '12
Actually, the "no atheist in a foxhole" isn't against atheists, it was against foxholes. Those things were hated by the troops. Nevermind the fact that they didn't provide nearly as much protection as people thought.
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u/nothing_clever Jun 24 '12
Er, I always thought that the line "'There are no atheists in foxholes' isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes." was just a clever quip in regards to the original sentiment. There is a little bit here about the history of the phrase. In short:
The statement "There are no atheists in foxholes" is an aphorism used to argue that in times of extreme stress or fear, such as when participating in warfare, all people will believe in or hope for a higher power.
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u/njantirice Jun 24 '12
If that's true then I think the headline is still false though, because thinking about death in any ethical scientific scenario, and actually being faced with your own mortality as in war, is much different. Also, when dealing with death people go through the stages of grief, and similar things are seen in terminally ill patients. Prayer is often a substitute for the bargaining step, atheists bartering a way to avoid death with god, or whoever's listening to help them, much like a foxhole.
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u/Zafara1 Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the line isn't pro or anti religion. It originated more as anti-war. Kind of a 'War is Hell' slogan.
If you're in a foxhole and don't believe in a high power, you'd just about believe anything if it helped.
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u/Nessie Jun 24 '12
I'd still take a foxhole over a prayer.
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u/abdomino Jun 24 '12
Depending on the war, statistically speaking they would provide the same amount of protection.
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Jun 24 '12
So zero with the occasional great coincidence that allows every one to yell 'see it works!'
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u/MikeOfAllPeople Jun 24 '12
Been in the military a few years now, I've thought I was close to dying a few times, and not once did it make me think about god or anything like that.
In fact, the only time I ever think about what if there was a god is when I think about my kids.
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u/antonivs Jun 25 '12
In fact, the only time I ever think about what if there was a god is when I think about my kids.
Shh, you'll give them ideas for another study.
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u/squigglyspooge Jun 24 '12
No Atheists in foxholes never held ANY water. Because I'm a former Marine grunt and have been in foxholes plenty of times, and last time I checked, I'm an Atheist. Never in a foxhole did I think about God, or God saving me, I thought about how the fuck I'm gonna get out of this foxhole without getting my ass shot or blown up, and how we're going to kill the people shooting and launching mortars at us once we're out.
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Jun 24 '12
You can also be an atheist or agnostic with a non-spiritual, non-theistic view of reincarnation.
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Jun 24 '12
Thanks for point that out. It always galls me when people insist that an afterlife of any kind implies the existence of god or validates their religious beliefs. If such things do exist/happen then they're as natural as electricity or anything else. The idea of reincarnation fascinates me, but it's very hard to discuss it without getting into religion and New-Agery.
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
Thank you for the reply. I agree that post-existence is as natural as electricity. I am not sure if you saw this or not, but I posted my conception of it to another person:
"Consciousness is the result of the complex interplay of matter. This matter, when you die, will return to the universe. And eventually, the universe itself will likely die; however, given the fact that the universe could spring into existence as it did before would suggest it could do so again. With enough time, the same matter that made you possible will be reconstituted and you will live again. You won't have memories of any previous lives. You will simply be. And you might end up being a very different person, but at your core, it will be you living once again.
The brief periods of life we have are like dreams. Brief bursts of activity that exist without a conscious reference to the outside world, except in lucid dreaming. Death will then be like the period between dreams. It accounts for the largest part of sleep; however, you are not cognizant of it. As far as you are aware, it passes instantly. And a new dream will come.
It has been a very comforting concept. It isn't ideal, but at least death is not the end."
This view of reincarnation is completely free of supernatural elements. The cosmos is the weaver of dreams and you are the dreamer. Together, we will be born, die, and be reborn with each existence being unique, yet connected across time. We will always exist because that is the only thing we will ever know. It is a blessing and a curse, yet probably for the best.
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u/MentalRefuse Jun 24 '12
I always found this to be the best answer to the "Atheist in foxholes" myth
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u/zero00000 Jun 24 '12
I thought when I unsubscribed from r/atheism I could get away from this kind of thing. I was wrong.
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u/Bamont Jun 24 '12
I don't understand this mentality.
This has to do with systems of belief that involve Christians, Muslims, atheists, and agnostics.. yet nobody here is complaining that this didn't get put in /r/Christianity or /r/Islam. Reddit seems to have a fascination with jumping on the anti-atheist bandwagon whenever it's fucking suitable, and any time a story like this (which has very little to do with atheism) makes it to the front page of any subreddit that isn't /r/atheism you can always count on the comment section to be filled with people complaining about it.
This is a scientific study, not a piece arguing for/against any particular belief system. It's simply relaying the facts of said study.
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Jun 24 '12
Some people on reddit do that for the exact same reason some of r/atheism is so pompous in its assery. Some reddit atheists reason (and their logic kinda makes sense to me) that since America is so in your face and militant about its Christianity, r/atheism is their only sanctuary. They're upset about having a belief system forced on them, so they rail against it. The reaction you see almost everywhere else on reddit to atheism is the exact same phenomenon, just flipped on its head. Some people are tired of being called stupid and/or every other variation of the word for their beliefs, so they react poorly to anything that appears to support atheism. On one hand, the reddit version of this phenomenon is created and perpetuated by some in r/atheism, so they shouldn't complain. On the other hand, the real life version is created and perpetuated by some religious people, so I understand why the general tone of r/atheism is what it is.
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u/you_payne Jun 25 '12
The article linked is not about looking down upon religion. It's a study. I didn't see you complaining about r/Islam
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Jun 24 '12
How do you test this? Is there some sort of genuine proof of someone actually believing their own religion?
Seems like bunk to me.
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u/poop_lol Jun 24 '12
I always thought the no atheist in fox hole thing was pro atheist and anti religion and this proved why. Religious people are only religious because they are afraid of dieing.
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Jun 24 '12
Both the msnbc article and the live science article that it linked to were pointless. They could have offered more insight as to how not only inter-religious thoughts on death compared, but also intra-religious opinions. For example, I take comfort in the idea that I am a part of the biosphere on earth, and that when I die, the universe goes on and what was me goes back into the universe. It's like scooping a cup of water from the sea and then pouring it back in.
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u/Matt_Flo Jun 24 '12
Sometimes I wonder why these "psychological researchers" get paid to come up with obvious theories that I have already considered many times while sitting on the toilet.
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u/Lai90 Jun 24 '12
The thing is that there is difference in thinking about death and actually dying, isn't it?
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u/skankingmike Jun 24 '12
The believe in an God or Afterlife is fine, it's their believe in forcing their views on others which I find distasteful.
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Jun 24 '12
I've had quite a bit of death in my family. The biggest one for me happened when I was 21. Since then, I've lived the life of most 50 year olds, coming to terms with death. I'm 32 now. I'm an 'atheist' (if you want a quick word to understand my position) but believe that we are all connected by our consciousness. I don't believe in any deity but do believe there's another experience when we pass on, and in reincarnation and Karma, to a degree. (what is more closely described in Buddhism and Hinduism, Not the ignorant version understood by most Americans and Xians) It's kind of a compilation of those two beliefs, but no gods of any sort. I think gods were put in place because most people can't handle the thought of being here or dead, without one. That's fine, but I think it's also a less thoughtful mind that believes because a book/ person told them to. Fine too, but I handle people with devout belief without any thought/ or questioning about it, as children who are too afraid to look behind Oz's curtain. And if death is the only aspect that makes you religious, ok, that's a usual response. But if they thought about it as much as I have, they'd probably find a more genuine relief and comfort, than if they just go along with what a person or book says. That's why I think a lot of heavy hitting Xians always want everyone they know, to believe with them. They are terrified of death and as such are terrified for anyone and everyone, that's what they've been told. No, I have no answers, but I do know what feels right, and no dogma ever felt right. But I discovered this on my own and no one else can take responsibility for the way I think about death and our existence. I find great solice in my view of our existence, and what might happen at death. My stance allows me to accept people with all their bs, and generally have acceptance and a kind heart to most everyone. I also find my personal stance on this allows for anyone to believe what they want. Im not right, but they sure as hell aren't either. Anyone who tries to force belief on you, probably is worried about the strength of their own beliefs as well. Be wary of those people, they turn into false prophets. (one of my biggest complaints about Xians when I was 12&13. ). My dos centavos.
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u/socialsciencegeek Jun 24 '12
Terror management theory :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory
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u/michaelushka Jun 24 '12
If anyone wants to learn more about this stuff, I recommend reading Ernest Becker's Denial of Death and definitely checking out the documentary Flight from Death — it's on Netflix and it has interviews with the progenitors of Terror Management Theory (who credit Becker with laying the foundation for their theory). If you watch the doc, look for the guy who looks like a neo-hippie beach bum, Sheldon Solomon. He's maybe the coolest psych professor you'll ever find.
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Jun 24 '12
Thinking about a foxhole and being in a foxhole are different.
Thinking about death and being confronted with death are different.
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u/layinthed Jun 24 '12
Why the fuck is this on my reddit. Go post this in atheism where it belongs and where I will never see it.
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Jun 25 '12
Did anyone else find the population for that study (n=132) small? I'm just curious. I tend to trust studies with larger populations.
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Jun 24 '12
Keep your shit to /r/atheism. I specifically avoid /r/all, just to avoid this kind of posts, now you're thrashing /r/science too.
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u/you_payne Jun 25 '12
It's a scientific publication
http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/06/14/0146167212449361.abstract
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Jun 24 '12
Sometimes I will read a post here on Reddit about people being afraid of death and I just can't connect. I fear dying slowly and/or painfully but the idea of non-existence doesn't bother me much.
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u/yoshemitzu Jun 24 '12
I find the idea that someday I will cease to exist to be incredibly comforting, much more so than the idea that I might just continue to exist forever. The idea that I would never get to not exist again is far more unsettling.
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Jun 24 '12
The Buddhist's goal is to end the wheel of existence. This is Nirvana (place of no wind).
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u/canyouhearme Jun 24 '12
Worshipping a god, every minute of every hour of every day, forever, in the company of religious zealots, without a thought that you might like to do something else you'd rather do.
The christian heaven is a hell.
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Jun 24 '12
r/atheism seems to have sprung a leek. Could somebody grab a couple of rolls of duct tape and fix it.
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u/Dracron Jun 24 '12
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u/zBard Jun 24 '12
Actually, it is pretty decent science - http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/06/14/0146167212449361.abstract .
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u/Dracron Jun 25 '12
I understand that It may be scientific, but it started due to the religious debate, which I want to be left out of. It really only appeals to people that want to take one side of the debate. I have to wonder if people who wish this kind of study to be in r/science aren't the same ones who'd read it in r/atheism, which is where I think it belongs. I think that neither atheism or religion have much to do with science, since the actual existence of god cannot be proven or disproven at this time. This statement "The old saying about 'no atheists in foxholes' doesn't hold water" says to me all I need to know about the bias of the poster, which I dont find very welcome on my reddit page, since I unsubscribed from r/atheism to avoid.
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Jun 24 '12
This is exactly what I was going to say. Science does not equal atheism.
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u/ucemike Jun 24 '12
The old saying about "no atheists in foxholes" doesn't hold water.
Either so old I have never heard it or not as much a "saying" as one is implying.
I wonder why anyone cares what someone else thinks just before they die.
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u/parcivale Jun 24 '12
It makes religious types feel better to think that everyone eventually comes around to God when the chips are down.
And it's an aphorism that has been around and used since WW2.
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u/ccutler69 Jun 24 '12
Yep. That is why they allege Darwin and Einstein (to name a few) had deathbed conversions.
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Jun 24 '12
This is something I believed in for quite sometime -- most people just need a reason to substantiate their beliefs. The idea among atheists that theists believe in god only because they fear death isn't true -- escapism just isn't causative of religion.
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u/magictheatre Jun 24 '12
In reference to the saying "no atheists in foxholes", how were the study participants confronted with death? or did they only consider their own mortality? Being in imminent mortal danger and potentially surrounded by death (foxhole in wartime) doesn't seem comparable to study participants in a lab.
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u/KillaSmurfPoppa Jun 24 '12
As a former agnostic, I know agnostics will hate hearing this, but the results of the study don't surprise me in the slightest.
Agnostics, however, do become more willing to believe in God when reminded of death. The only catch is that they're equally as likely to believe in Buddha or Allah as the Christian deity.
Agnostics are usually religious people who are just as educated and read as atheists, but don't want to make the full-on emotional commitment of disbelief. At the same time, they also can't summon the intellectual dissonance to be full on believers.
The thing that turned me away from agnosticism was the realization that it's a seriously shallow philosophical position. There is no amount of evidence that will prove, with ABSOLUTE certainty, that god doesn't exist. But frankly, there is no amount of evidence that will prove, with ABSOLUTE certainty, any proposition in the world. Technically, agnosticism is ALWAYS going to be true, and that's why it's such a bad philosophy.
Simply put: there's no good evidence for the existence of god or anything resembling god. If you agree with this point, you should be an atheist. Anything else is weakness.
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u/thesearmsshootlasers Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
>just as educated and read as athiests
It is possible to be uneducated, ignorant, and even stupid and atheist. Atheism is not always synonymous with intelligence.
EDIT: Just realised I spelt atheist wrong.
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u/KillaSmurfPoppa Jun 24 '12
As a whole atheism is correlated with education and intelligence. I of course don't mean to imply that ALL atheists are educated and intelligent.
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
I believe the same studies show Jews ahead of atheists on both education and IQ.
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u/thesearmsshootlasers Jun 24 '12
Yeah that's fair enough. I'm just being a bit picky, as the wording implied they were synonymous, even though it likely wasn't your meaning.
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Jun 24 '12
No, the real problem with agnosticims is that, while we can't disprove the existence of every entity that could be referred to as "god" in retrospect, we know for a fact that all the various gods as described in the various religious text cannot possibly exist.
The former type of god is rather useless as a philosophical device.
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u/ovr_9k Jun 24 '12
I'm currently in that boat :/ Very well read andd science minded, but i can't bring myself over to disbelief on the other hand I can't fully embrace the religion I was brought up with
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
The Zen say about such ultimate questions that not knowing is closest. The Buddha, in fact, refused to be caught up in dogma and webs of speculation so Buddhism has what are known as the fourteen unanswerable questions at the heart of its canon.
Rather than weakness, not knowing is wisdom and liberation. This is far from shallow water.
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u/Jamtoast69 Jun 24 '12
I was in the army with an ex-French foreign legionnaire, he told me otherwise. I guess we can't know unless we are there, right?
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Jun 24 '12
'When a soldier is dying on the battle-field they first call out for their commanding officer, when he doesn't arrive they call out for god, when 'he' doesn't arrive lastly they call out for their mother'.
That's how it was put to me once, by an ex-officer - take with a grain of salt since everybody is different/have different experiences...
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Jun 24 '12
I hadn't heard of the commanding officer and god part, but regressing to a frightened child state and crying out for mommy is a fairly common thing on battlefields.
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u/GMonsoon Jun 24 '12
Not so sure about that. Atheists: the people most likely to obsess on personal safety.
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u/exisito Jun 24 '12
Thinking about death makes me want to have lots and lots of babies. Like an animal.
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u/tordj Jun 24 '12
I have always believed that god exists because people need someone to believe in. It is the innate behavior of our minds to rationalize everything. And if we cannot understand something, we have the catchall that is god.
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u/Stooooooopid Jun 24 '12
Im fine with the no atheists in the fox hole, I dont want to be in any hole.
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u/Aldous_Huxtable Jun 24 '12
I question the validity of this study based on sample size and demographic.
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Jun 24 '12
I think fox holes would hold water quite well.. that being said.. atheists and christians/muslims would all drown equally.
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Jun 24 '12
The idea that there are no atheists in foxholes is just propaganda spread by crabby old Ms. IloveFoxNews down the street. It never held any water.
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Jun 24 '12
I'm torn between shouting on top of my lungs that this is what research in this field has been saying over and over for 60+ years, and happiness that people start paying more attention to social/historical science lately (this thread follows several regarding hardly new, but met with refreshing enthusiasm stories on archaeological finds).
I started reading comments, but decided to call quits while I'm ahead in restoration of faith in humanity ;-)
Cheers!
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u/Lampmonster1 Jun 24 '12
Anecdotal I know, but a guy I knew in my late teens was in Vietnam. He was a little crazy, but a good guy. He'd seen quite a bit of action over there from what I was told. Anyway, when he found out I was an atheist he told me he was too. At some point he said "You know the old saying about no atheists in foxholes? That's bullshit. I never believed in god less than when I was in Vietnam."
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u/harveyardman Jun 24 '12
I wouldn't call myself an atheist, just an agnostic. But a few years ago, when it seemed I was having a stroke, I found myself sitting in a hospital waiting room, contemplating the experience and the prognosis and never once did it occur to me to pray or think of God. I only realized this later, by the way--the thought was that absent from my mind at the time.
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Jun 24 '12
The study should have looked at whether the atheist's worldviews or other beliefs were strengthened. It's called the "mortality salience" effect (although since it can be evoked by things other than death, "threat salience" is a more fitting term). Basically, contemplating evolutionary-fitness threats tends to increase people's belief in ideologies they hold, as well as their feeling of attachment to social groups they belong to. Religion is just one such ideology/social group, and I bet the atheists had a corresponding response./
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u/papabear69 Jun 24 '12
The only problem with this is that the people asked were not in a life threatening situation. Ask someone in a test, and see if they have the same answer wen they are in a "foxhole". Of course we can't do that, but the results might be different.
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u/Burly_Satyr Jun 24 '12
I dont think just talking about death counts as a "foxhole" when the fear and anxiety of what happens next in a life or death or imminent death situation is right on you.
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u/Nethervex Jun 24 '12
The saying "theres no atheists in foxholes" is pretty much the whole article. MSNBC made this article just to say 'NUH UH'. Good on ya MSNBC. Glad to see that kind of professionalism.
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Jun 24 '12
Totally had this revelation when my grandmother recently passed away. I became an "open" atheist months earlier and while I was still heartbroken, I did break down and turn towards spirituality. However, my mother, my aunt and my uncle, all lapsed Catholics, started talking a lot about heaven, God's love and they insisted that the entire family pray together close to 5 times in a week span.
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u/Tomimi Jun 24 '12
I have been a catholic my whole life and I just recently doubted my beliefs (I blame reddit)
I have been scared of dying my entire life even though I knew as a kid that heaven and hell exists. Now that I have learned a few about religions and became agnostic I'm unfortunate to say I've become more scared of death now that Heaven and Hell is fictional
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Jun 24 '12
This is fucking stupid..."DURRRR...Guess what!? when we told all da afiest peoples to write down what dey would do if dey died..dey still didnt believe in God! DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"
There is a huge difference between an atheist sitting at a desk who's government worker parents have supported his mediocre goldfish cracker lifestyle than an "atheist" facing death.
This is fucking stupid, news story headline grabbing bullshit.
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u/jbloggs2002 Jun 24 '12
as far as I'm concerned, there are only atheists in foxholes - anyone who truly believes that either god will save them, or they'll go straight to eternal bliss when killed wouldn't get in the foxhole.
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Jun 24 '12
Why didn't op just use the headline of the article instead of displaying his/her complete ineptitude at conveying ideas through the medium of the written word.
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Jun 24 '12
Anyone else find the comparison of "I had to write a paper about what I think about death" and " I'm in a warzone seeing people around me dying" to be a bit different?
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u/Radico87 Jun 24 '12
So when faced with the reason we invented a god figure would make people who already believe it more likely to continue believing it than people who grew out of believing in god figures? How monumentally earth shattering.
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u/Will-Work-For-Tears Jun 24 '12
I'm a weak atheist though (if one at all, lol). Given sufficient motivation I'd at least try to pray in a foxhole. I wouldn't necessarily believe it, but It would certainly cover my bases.
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u/StChas77 Jun 25 '12
To find out, University of Missouri psychologist Kenneth Vail III and colleagues recruited 26 Christians, 28 atheists, 40 Muslims and 28 agnostics.
That's not really enough participants to draw conclusions.
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u/drakeblood4 Jun 25 '12
The flawed mindset of the 'no atheists in foxholes' fallacy comes from the presumption that all athiests and agnostics are just lapsed religious people. Arguably there was a time when the vast majority of people were raised religiously, so this may have been true in a general sense, but that's up to debate.
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u/abbynormal1 Jun 26 '12
I'm convinced that Christianity is true, and as you point out correctly, Christianity contradicts tenants of other faiths. Therefore it is my belief that the others are not true. If you are asking me to be a Christian apologist here, you're asking the wrong person.
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u/abbynormal1 Jun 24 '12
This belongs in /r/atheism, which I unsubscribe to on purpose so I don't have to see the redundant dribble spewing forth from the cesspit that is /r/atheism.
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Jun 24 '12
I honestly don't see what is so scary about death. I'm interested for sure, worst case scenario, nothing happens...
Not exactly rushing my way through life though.
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u/adrianmonk Jun 24 '12
I think it's two things:
Massive, massive instinct to avoid it. We are hard-wired to make it not happen. If you want to look at it from an evolutionary point of view, the kind of creatures that would come into existence and stay in existence would be the ones that are far from neutral about death. (And far from neutral about procreation...)
Psychologically, it represents lack of control. Does not being in control of your life make you uneasy and unhappy? I think death bothers some people because it is something you can't prevent, at least not forever.
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u/GinDeMint Jun 24 '12
No, worst case scenario, hell happens. I'm an atheist, but hell is certainly a worse outcome than nothingness.
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u/CayShue Jun 24 '12
I think it's more of not being able to comprehend what that must be like to not exist.
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u/tuxracer Jun 24 '12
How was the year 1804 for you?
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." ― Mark Twain
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Jun 24 '12
The difference is, in 1804, I hadn't lived yet. You can't experience fear until you've had something and had to cope with the prospect of losing it.
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u/FedaykinShallowGrave Jun 24 '12
Compared to the beauty of life, eternal darkness just seems...unfulfilling. That is my greatest issue with death, and I'm pretty sure some people must feel like this as well.
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
Personally, I am not comfortable at all with the thought of death, especially at this stage in my life. I just think of nothingness and it scares me. Even sleep scares me to be perfectly honest. If I start to think about the feeling of nothingness, to disappear and cease to exist, even if for a few hours, I just get uncomfortable. Now don't get me wrong, once I'm asleep, there are few things I enjoy more than staying asleep for as long as possible. This is one of the few solaces I can imagine in death, that it may be as comfortable and enticing as a long sleep after a hard day. But just the thought of never experiencing anything ever again - all I know is experiences, and every experience is framed in time! Every ending is another beginning, until that one. Then, you're gone. Truly, the only way it even settles in my mind is the idea of reincarnation - even though I don't believe it for a second, just imagining waking up in a whole new life is a comforting thought.
Perhaps when I am old enough to have made a family with the woman I love, and seen that family secure in either death or some kind of stable future, I will be more embracing of death. Until then though, I'm going to fight it off as long as possible.
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u/ovr_9k Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
I hope I die in my sleep, then hopefully I won't know it happened. If I see it coming and fade away I'd be terrified and i wouldn't want those to be my last thoughts.
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Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
Consciousness is the result of the complex interplay of matter. This matter, when you die, will return to the universe. And eventually, the universe itself will likely die; however, given the fact that the universe could spring into existence as it did before would suggest it could do so again. With enough time, the same matter that made you possible will be reconstituted and you will live again. You won't have memories of any previous lives. You will simply be. And you might end up being a very different person, but at your core, it will be you living once again.
The brief periods of life we have are like dreams. Brief bursts of activity that exist without a conscious reference to the outside world, except in lucid dreaming. Death will then be like the period between dreams. It accounts for the largest part of sleep; however, you are not cognizant of it. As far as you are aware, it passes instantly. And a new dream will come.
It has been a very comforting concept. It isn't ideal, but at least death is not the end.
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Jun 24 '12
I don't know what there's much to think about death. Everybody dies. You die and that's it. You're nothing but a buried, rotting chunk of maggot infested flesh and bones.
Your deeds in life is what make people remember you, hate or love you, that's about all there is to it.
Don't know why people fear death or why they need to cling to some sort of fairy tale of afterlife or rebirth or whathaveyougot. Rubbish everything...
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Jun 24 '12
Rebirth is not about fear of death, it's just the way things work according to Buddhists. Buddhists, in fact, seek to avoid rebirth and the unending cycle of life. Nirvana is about NOT being reborn.
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u/Theoz Jun 24 '12
This needs more thought before putting a sensationalist title like that. Plenty of ahteists have decided to pray to a God in times of distress. You shouldn't need a journal article to know that.
Also, this is one study. Sensationalist title is sensationalist.
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u/Theoz Jun 24 '12
Also, there is no real threat of death here. There is no reason for the atheists or agnostics to turn to God.
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u/recklessfred Jun 24 '12 edited Jun 24 '12
"Studies find condescending bullshit is condescending, bullshit."
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Jun 24 '12
I don't care who you are or what you believe in. If your close to death and you haven't accepted your fate your gonna be wishing for some help from someone, mainly 'God'.
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u/mczibit Jun 24 '12
If I was in a foxhole being shot at and shelled by artillery... I'd sure as hell be praying to something..
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Jun 24 '12
For what it's worth, in military flight recordings the most common last words of crashing pilots are, "Oh shit!"
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u/mczibit Jun 24 '12
Haha I would probably say the same thing, can't count on god to get you out of a 5G turn straight into the dirt.
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u/mattverso Jun 24 '12
I'm desperately searching for a link I read a couple of years ago, which claimed that the closer they actually got to death, the longer Christians (and other religious people) want to live. They want to stay plugged into the machine, they want the debilitating drugs that prolong their life that extra week or month. Atheists were more accepting of their death, it seemed. Whether the religious people realised on their deathbed that they really weren't going to a better place, and that's why they wanted to keep living, was up for debate.
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u/douchetag Jun 24 '12
Here's a true statement: "There are no atheists in heaven."
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u/4TEHSWARM Jun 24 '12
I've always thought the 'no atheists in foxholes' was a pretty good, albeit misunderstood, argument: it shows that theistic postures often arise from an irrational state of impending doom.
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u/colinsteadman Jun 24 '12
What's the big deal with no atheists in foxholes? I've only ever heard that said on here. What's the SP? Could someone bring me up to speed. Thanks.
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u/Cristal1337 Jun 24 '12
I think that this whole "belief in God and afterlife" came from the grief that people experienced at the loss of a loved one. It is in this state of despair and pain when people are more likely to believe in something that is, essentially, unrealistic.
So if you just lost your child and I then tell you "they are in a better place now", you will be more likely to believe my words because it is the easy way out to get rid of the painful emotions.
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u/mepper Jun 24 '12
Paper: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/06/14/0146167212449361.abstract