Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standard just posted a nice summary of two psychological studies that seek to answer the persistent question of whether atheists turn to God on their deathbeds. One study tested the effects of “death reminders” on Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and Agnostics. The primary author, Kenneth E. Vail, concludes that being reminded of death motivated Christians and Muslims to self-report higher religiosity. Agnostics were similarly affected, where Atheists did not shift at all. Jacobs summarizes:
In Vail’s view, this suggests people who strongly reject religious belief find other ways of dealing with “the psychological problem of death,” such as devoting themselves to some secular cause that will endure beyond their lifetimes.
A second study attempted to test unconscious beliefs by having 71 New Zealand undergraduates rapidly categorize a series of 20 nouns as “real” or “imaginary.” During this study, Jacobs reports, non-believers wavered from their disbelief after being reminded of their morality. They were slower to label concepts like “God” and “heaven” as imaginary.
I’m not convinced that being slower to categorize heaven as “imaginary” is evidence that atheists waver in their disbelief when faced with death. As I recently argued in an essay on another psychological study of religious belief, small homogeneous samples (like 71 University of Otago students) aren’t the most sturdy hooks to hang a psychological study on. Results can be easily polluted by coincidence, error, or some unaccounted-for dynamic that is unique to that population. Furthermore, we should keep in mind that these labs weren’t testing the “foxhole” reactions of Christians and Atheists, but rather the relationship between death reminders and religiosity polls in a group of undergraduates living on an island.
The jury is still out on the Foxhole Question, but it is quite interesting that Agnostics were more likely than Atheists to waver when prompted with death cues. Perhaps it’s the Agnostics we should be studying here, since believers and non-believers alike have, for Vail, tried-and-true psychological templates for dealing with death. Are there Agnostics in foxholes? What about Moralistic Therapeutic Deists?
