Death and life after death: scientific and religious beliefs
Death and life after death: scientific and religious beliefs
A recent Australian survey reveals that most people believe in an afterlife. Even for some atheists, agnostics and those affiliated with no Church, paradise remains a hope.
Since distancing himself from Christianity, atheist blogger Martin Hughes doesn’t miss God or the Devil but overlooks paradise. “I wish it existed,” he wrote on his blog, adding that his position was probably not “correct from an atheist point of view“. In his version of paradise, Martin Hughes “would understand everything “. There would be “a lot of happiness like when Mom made her sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving“.
Martin Hughes is undoubtedly not alone in his desire to continue to believe in a more secular version of heaven. According to a recent data analysis from 1973 to 2014, published in the journal Sage Open, the general trend over the past decades is moving away from religion. However, the indicator that is reversing the trend is the belief in the afterlife, for which a slight increase has been recorded in recent years. A 2013 study by the conservative Austin Christian Institute for the Study of Family and Culture found that 32% of the group, including atheists, agnostics, and people with no religious affiliation, claimed to believe in life after death. Isn’t that contradictory?
The United States is one of many places this kind of phenomenon has been documented. The British newspaper, the Daily Mail, asked several prominent thinkers how they explain the increase in atheists alongside the rise in the number of people who believe in life after death. There are several explanations for this phenomenon:
- Selfishness.
- Disbelief in the finality of death.
- The desire to think in multiple possibilities.
- Hope for those in material poverty.
But is someone who believes in life after death still an atheist? According to Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry magazine and the New Encyclopedia of unbelief, the answer depends on how atheism is defined. “Strictly, an ‘atheist’ does not believe in the traditional divinity imagined by Western religions. Such an atheist could therefore believe in a supernatural afterlife that a God would not rule. Some Buddhist conceptions of karma and reincarnation are atheistic in this sense. Tom Flynn added that a broader definition would say that an atheist has no belief in supernatural phenomena, excluding belief in an afterlife.
Yet the connection between belief in life after death and religious dogma can be fragile and not widely accepted. A new study from Australia brings together the results of in-depth work with a group of people from various ethnic and religious backgrounds. Andrew Singleton, a sociologist of religion at Deakin University in Melbourne, interviewed 52 Australians between the ages of 18 and 85. And the findings, published in the quarterly journal Mortality, suggest that “beliefs about the afterlife are varied, individualistic, and with little or no reference to traditional religious teaching .”
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Unlike mass polls that tend to ask the question, “do you believe in life after death?” with the option of answering only ‘yes‘ or ‘no ‘, Andrew Singleton sought to explore the content and specificity of people’s beliefs. He discovered that people had formed their beliefs without being faithful to traditional religions; on the other hand, they were generally influenced by society. Four categories of beliefs emerged:
“Life goes on in Heaven.”
“Only a few very committed evangelicals and Pentecostals have claimed to believe in hell .” Life goes on in paradise “is the most popular view; 20 respondents agreed with this view. On the other hand, these people are divided between those who have a theocentric point of view (eternal solitude in the company of God alone) and anthropocentric (reunited with friends and family), according to the work of researchers Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang. All the Christians who participated in the study – 16 people – expressed a theocentric vision of paradise. Andrew Singleton noticed that older participants were more expansive but not more secure in their beliefs or theologically precise. Moreover, for people of all ages, paradise was the primary goal. “
For Martin Hughes, who was raised in the fundamentalist Christian tradition, this traditional view of hell contributed to his leaving Christianity. In an interview, he said it was because of this: “I wasn’t comfortable with a God who thought some people deserved hell .” But did he believe in this vision of things? “I tried, but I couldn’t; I couldn’t find any proof“.
Four other non-Christians also believed in an anthropocentric version of heaven, not unlike Martin Hughes’ version. Religious themes are little or not present: “God is present, but not at the centre“. Andrew Singleton credits the popularization of this view to spiritualism – a religious movement that originated in the United States in the 19th century and whose members believe that living people can communicate with the spirits of the dead. Only versions of heaven of people with a theocentric and anthropocentric point of view were formed from religion. All the other participants constructed their beliefs outside of this framework.
“It goes on….”
Five participants had beliefs defined by “it goes on…”. These people are not religious and were not raised in a spiritual environment. They don’t think their current consciousness will live on after death. Still, they believe “some aspect of their being will live on .” For example, one participant confessed to having a somewhat confusing belief system about the afterlife: “I, as an individual, am not consciously involved in the post-mortem state, but my existence is. Is. Existence ensures that we never disappear, that we are part of a greater whole and whether we are aware of it or not, it does not matter“.
Reincarnation
Nine participants believe in reincarnation, sometimes in another human and another species. Some were influenced by Buddhist or Hindu teachings without being part of this kind of religious group. These people usually consider themselves spiritual.
While Andrew Singleton has noticed diverse views on the afterlife, no one is certain. Many participants had never really discussed any of this. Mostly, they were “hazy and equivocal” about their religious views. Andrew Singleton did not meet people with a typically spiritual model of heaven.
But if it’s not religious teaching, where do people’s perceptions come from? Some were brought up in Christian families. The latter was also convinced of seeing ghosts or communicating with spirits through mediums. According to Andrew Singleton, this is due to the modern culture, which allows one or another aspect of religions and philosophies to be chosen: “I found that it was essential for people to be able to formulate their own opinions, a behaviour typical of the religious individualism that characterizes the contemporary Western society.
Death is the end
Of course, not everyone believes in life after death. The other 16 people interviewed (two participants did not wish to speak fully from their point of view) were convinced that death was the end. Andrew Singleton remarked that these people felt utterly “comfortable” with their beliefs and did not particularly want to speculate on what might be an afterlife. He asked one participant if he “secretly hoped “there was an afterlife, but unlike Martin Hughes, he replied “no “.
When the first survey participants were interviewed in 1973, the United States was a religiously homogenous country. At that time, beliefs about the afterlife were synonymous with the Christian conception of heaven and hell. In today’s much more diverse society, asking people whether they believe in the afterlife is no longer enough.
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Death and life after death: scientific and religious beliefs
