Disbelief and “wellbeing” - Atheism is not an easy answer
Written by Robin Marie in News, Opinion at November 3, 2010
This new Gallup poll finds that religious Americans enjoy higher wellbeing than the moderately religious and nonbelievers. Why is an atheist bringing attention to this, you might ask?
Well, let me firstly say that the study naturally contains ambiguities; whether or not one agrees with how Gallup defines “wellbeing,” for example, is probably debatable and, what exactly the relationship is between religion and this subjectively defined “wellbeing” is another open question.
But even acknowledging this, I point out this study because to me, it actually points out a virtue of atheism that often goes unmentioned – it isn’t easy. This argument is often avoided by both atheists and believers - for while the former are often unenthusiastic to give credence to the (false) idea that atheism is the province of the cynical and the bitter, the latter often chalk atheism up to nothing more than the delights of feeling smarter and superior to the majority of the American population.
While many atheists actually experience a liberation from the anxieties and falsehoods that religion burdens us with, and many more find a materialistic view of the universe to be every bit as transcendental as a supernatural one, atheism nonetheless does present, for some of us, many existential problems that would be much easier to cope with were we to take advantage of a religious worldview. I, for example, am not one bit looking forward to dying. I am quite upset, and I think I always will be, that I will one day Cease To Be, in a complete and absolute manner which is profoundly unpleasant to contemplate. However, that this is, it seems to me, the inescapable truth does enough, in my mind, to make up for the trauma of knowing it – because while I might not rate as high on a test that measures my “wellbeing,” I would like to believe that other elements of my humanity – particularly my capacity and willingness to do good in the world – have been greatly expanded by the contemplation of my mortality.
