11. Death's Finality: The Poverty of Atheist Consolation

The wealth of tools available at a theist's disposal after the loss of a loved one cannot be overlooked. Grief, as heavy as it tends to be, is made a tad bit lighter when a loved one’s demise is put into the context of an everlasting life, or an infinite state of consciousness where peace prevails. Such a framework is imbued with death consolation, which could explain its ubiquity in the world and our social institutions.

It is difficult to imagine a world where belief in an afterlife is non-existent, but one can confidently guess that mourning in such a world would proceed radically differently than our current world is accustomed to. This is because without a life after death, one has to fully wrestle with the idea that death really is the ultimate finality; where every sliver of hope regarding seeing a loved one once again, getting a chance to make amends, or relishing whatever peaceful state awaits on the other side is completely removed from one’s psychological constitution. Without a belief in the afterlife and God, is there any secular school of thought, belief, or practice that could rival the consolation that a theistic framework offers to one who has just lost a loved one? How, then, do atheists comfort those who are mourning?

It will be assumed that most atheists do not believe in the afterlife simply because this belief often follows suit after the belief in a deity is defenestrated. Agnostics will be considered atheists in practice, given that most seemingly do not subscribe to a religious belief nor participate in religious practices and/or rituals. Whereas one can choose not to take a stance on whether the cosmos came into being from the hands of a creator or through an infinite regress of prior causes, it is rather difficult to be on the fence about whether the soul of your loved one lives on or not. Death kicks an agnostic off the fence they might otherwise be comfortable being on, allowing them to land on the side of the fence they find themselves leaning the most towards. If they find themselves on the atheistic side of things, they too are confronted with a poverty of language and privation in tools for comfort and healing.

Most of the beliefs and practices that help with grief that are available to the atheist are not exclusive to the atheist. Theists also enjoy the same benefits that come with familial, intimate, and social support systems during times of grief. However, they have the added advantage of being able to recommend the words and wisdom of the divine, and the significantly powerful advantage of having a community that shares the same narrative and outlook on death so that any prescription or words of comfort immediately land with the intended impact. In this way, telling someone who is mourning that it is all part of God's plan and grace, and that the loved one is in a better place, immediately resonates and is often welcome and well received by the bereaved. What can the atheist stand up and say at a funeral that would be an emotional and spiritual equivalent of this?

The natural instinct is a retreat to the Epicurean school of thought which viewed death as a sensationless destination devoid of good, evil, or the human experience. In this view, death is an end that need not be feared but appreciated because it endows life with a finitude that gives meaning to our limited experience. It is precisely because we will one day cease to exist that we are left with no choice but to appreciate the little time we have. According to Epicurus, once death is seen as nothing then the craving for immortality is eliminated, and life is more enjoyable. This view is strangely comforting, as it offers a logically coherent and intuitive explanation that is simple and easy to make sense of. This is demonstrated by its popularity amongst the secular, atheists as well as agnostics.

However, after one recovers from the beauty of its simplicity and intuitive conclusion, one soon learns that this view is optimally applied to oneself but its tentacles are not as effective when they need to be stretched to loved ones. Death anxiety where one's existence is concerned can be effectively reduced; even "cured," by adopting this worldview. However, when extended to the people we love it can do the opposite. The worst thing after hell is knowing for certain that you will never see your loved one again. This is where the religious worldview is more ingestible to people—it offers the believer the hope not only that their loved one might be in a better place and at peace, but also the hope of meeting them again in the afterlife. Granted, the possibility of going to hell is the worst outcome unrivalled by anything the atheist worldview can conjure up. It can weigh heavy on one's psyche if one fears that their loved one might be a likely candidate for eternal damnation. However, this is usually usurped by the knowledge of a loved one's good character—which offers an optimism regarding their destination in the afterlife—and the never-ending faith in God's grace. One ensconced in such a religious framework has a good reason to evade the mental anguish of a loved one going to hell.

Next to the Epicurean view of death as nothingness, we have the Stoics, who largely acknowledged the suffering that comes with death but seemed to converge on the belief in our abilities to avoid being consumed by it. Different Stoics prescribe different solutions to the problem of death but they all seem to share the fundamental view that our attitude or reaction to death is what we can control and what we should focus our attempts on to ensure that we do not lose ourselves in grief. In his letter to Polybius, Seneca recommends grieving and confronting one’s loss and the emotions that come with it, but emphasizes a self-imposed limit to the process (Seneca Polybius 18:4–6). Quite similarly, Epictetus highlights the primacy of our willpower and intentionality during difficult times. He emphasises the importance of focusing on our character and attitude during such difficult times, and our inherent ability to steer the ship of grief towards a path of self-actualization, or at least to not let it impede our character development. Both Epictetus and Seneca recognise the reality and importance of grief, but also recognise our ability to avoid being overwhelmed or overly consumed by it. Epictetus posits that we have much more responsibility and power to lessen our own grief than we do that of other people. In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius sees death as another thing intrinsic to the events of life, a thing that cannot be avoided and should be accepted as part of change.

The comfort offered by the Stoics regarding death seems to work best when applied to oneself, or when offered as words of advice to someone before they experience loss or long afterwards. It does not seem comforting to tell someone who has recently lost a loved one that they should allow themselves to grieve but to a certain limit; or that they should be careful not to allow themselves to be consumed by their grief. Today, these words would likely be received by the grieving as cold and apathetic. They are good words to live by in preparation for grief, or to let go of grief that has been plaguing one for some time. As such, when it comes to offering real-time consolation to someone who has lost a loved one, the Stoic worldview seems to fall short as well.

The weakness of the atheistic worldview in offering words of comfort regarding death seems to stem from what death is believed to be by the atheist: dissolution into total oblivion. This is anything but psychologically comforting to most humans. Oblivion and non-existence are counterintuitive concepts that we do our best to avoid at significant costs. Few things are as scary as disappearing from the world and from other people's consciousness. The possibility that one day we will be thought of for the last time and will forever cease to exist even in the thoughts of our loved ones (since they will also cease to exist) is a frightening one. The ubiquity of a belief in the importance of legacy, people trying to leave a mark, and men trying to pass on their last name to the next generation are all attempts to not be forgotten, to persist much longer.

One has to grapple with this issue when their belief in an afterlife is uprooted. So how does an atheist offer words of comfort to one who is mourning in real-time? By sweetening the language and cognitive reframing of oblivion so that it is portrayed to be less scary than it sounds? By removing the nihilistic undertones of a finite life and highlighting that the only lifeline the dead have with the living is through our memories of them and as such we should treasure those memories and cherish them? By reframing oblivion as rest and freedom from having to deal with the exigencies of life? That death is indeed the ultimate rest? Maybe oblivion is a rest in peace. Maybe that is all we can say and truly mean: "May their soul rest in peace.