Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
Facebook.
I think we’ve been here before… Call me selfish if you must but I don’t find the idea of life moving forward without me and those I care about to be all that comforting.
Some of the facts of life are simply ugly and death is one of them. If science ever succeeds in conquering death we’ll be more than happy to see it go.
And how do we know death is necessary for change? For the world to “move forward”. Maybe immortal humans could come up with better ways to make progress possible than by killing off everyone who’s ever lived a generation at a time.
I have to agree, I don’t think there is anything comforting in an atheists view of death. However, I don’t think that most theistic views of death that I have heard of have anything better to offer and, in fact, nothing after death is much preferable to many of the after-lives I have heard of.
And again, I say: If you don’t find this particular view of death comforting, that’s fine. Some people do. I do. And I think it’s important to let believers — especially believers who are considering atheism or who are on the fence about it — know that atheism doesn’t have to be a bleak and depressing way to live.
No, the nonexistence of God or an afterlife does not entail that life must be bleak or depressing.
But death is still an unpleasant reality—one can, of course, find life wonderful and still acknowledge that there are facts about life that truly suck.
Saying that death is “an inherent part of life” doesn’t change that. Why should anyone who’s actually thought the proposition through carefully find it comforting that death is an inherent part of life? The only way I see to do so is to be tacitly embracing some sort of vaguely Taoist or pantheistic woo.
Whether its legitimately seen as comforting or not, though, you’re also making a rather dubious claim: that death is “necessary in order for life and change to move forward”.
Says who? I don’t know anyone who’s observed a society of immortals as a basis for comparison.
The problem for me is that this meme smacks of reverence for nature. Or perhaps I should say Nature.
But nature is not a thing to feel reverence for. Awe and wonder and a sense of the sublime? Sure. But, as beautiful as it can be, nature is also a blind, mindless, pitiless thing. Its order is not to be revered. Its to be improved upon.
Maybe it’s just how I am. but I first went to a funeral at age 4. I remember thinking that many of my relatives were acting very strangely, as if they wanted to take away the attention I thought was being focused on my dear departed grandfather.
I have never felt that someone dying was sad in and of itself, provided that the deceased had a chance to live life as much as possible and that the cause was something outside of human control. I do care a great deal if someone lost that life involuntarily, and feel very sad when that happens. Murdered children especially tear me up.
I hope that shows I’m not completely without emotion regarding death even as I accept that it is a part of life.