So what's really great about this book are the interviews. Starting on page 60, he transcribes a bunch of them on the topic of death. Tina's a 39-year-old chemical engineer living in Stockholm. What happens after we die? "Absolutely nothing!! I think we are gone. I really think that's it." Mads, Danish, 52 years old, works in a slaughterhouse: "My body will dissolve and be part of the natural cycle of nature." Tommy, 38 years old, lives in Sweden, when asked if he's afraid to die: "No, not really. Not ever. No. If it happens it happens." Jonas, 25, lives in Denmark, says that he thinks 90% of all sane people don't worry about what happens when they die. Anna, 50 years old, Danish, says she doesn't worry about death at all. "We live we die and that's the same thing for all creatures...whether you're an ant or a microbe or a human being or a zebra [laughter]." These have all been atheists. Jarl, a 41 year old submarine officer lives in Stockholm. He's a theist. Asked about what happens after we die. "I think that's it [laughter]." Leif, 75, Jewish, atheist. What happens after we die? "Nothing." You're not worried or scared? "No, I'm not. I'm not very well in health anyway, but I'm not worried."--The thing is, these are typical responses, including people who were sick and dying. This was the majority view. Sigrid, 53, battling cancer, what about death and what happens after? "I think we will be earth, you know. I don't think anything will happen."
Zuckerman asks, is anxiety about death a human universal? Is it possible to find a culture where most people don't worry that much about death? The answer is obviously that such a society exists and that an oppressive fear of death is not a universal. He thinks that scholars of religion who claim that this is a human universal are making a mistake. They are "assuming that [their] own fears and worries about death are universal, when clearly they aren't."
Zuckerman thinks there are three sociological implications of his surveys and interviews. First, although we might think that an atheistic stance would make people over-all more depressed about life (or, the prospect of no afterlife), the opposite is true in Scandinavia. For the most part, they are happy and satisfied. Second, although anxiety about death may be somewhat innate to our psyche, it seems that culture has more of an influence. And, strangely, religion may be something that aggravates this anxiety, as opposed to alleviating it. His third point is an implication about religion. If one of the main sources of the persistence of religion is fear of death, and if this turns out to not be so universal as it was once assumed, then how confident can we be that religion will (needs to) always be around as a necessary social balm for the fear of death? (I've modified Zuckerman's third implication, pgs. 67-8)
This gives me hope. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeletethis line of thinking mirrors my own path.
ReplyDeleteI find this timely in that I am studying the book of Hebrews and the author says that Jesus sacrifice freed "those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" It does not surprise me that many people religious or irreligious do not fear death. If God is who the Bible says He is, than at at the point of Jesus death and resurrection the spiritual fear was removed from man kind. Religion of course promotes fear simply because of the belief in hell. It is not so fearful to just go to dust--sad but not as fearful.
ReplyDeleteI would like to insert that in all of my ministry working with teens and young adults and senior citizens the religious and the irreligious, the controled and the out of control, those who have faith and those who do not have faith--I can honestly say that the only ones I have found that had no fear of death were the ones who had a strong experiential faith in God. So my findings(those not scientific) oppose the authors. The possible difference in our findings may be his is a survey and mine is relational and his survey spanned a variety of cultures where as the majority of mine relationships were in Indiana. (Although I have also spent time in Columbia SA, Uruguay, Mexico, Dominican republic).
martilou,
ReplyDeleteI guess I have to take the author’s word for it, as far as most Scandinavians saying they are atheists and genuinely don’t fear death. All I can confidently talk about is my experience, and I would have to say that I was more (and more often) afraid of death when I thought there was a possibility of going to hell. Now, although I did go through an existential funk during my “deconversion”, I hardly ever think about death. And I don’t fear it.