Atheistic and agnostic positions on life

In the previous chapter we examined the benefits of a religious faith in providing meaning at times of loss in later life, in the context perhaps most favourable to religion – following a major bereavement. But meaningful lives can also be constructed both in and out of difficult times without recourse to religious faith (Andrews, 1991). It has been a major deficiency in much of the literature on religion, coping and well-being to compare people of different levels of religiosity without considering other strong belief systems that they may hold. Although it may be demonstrable that persons of strong religious faith cope better than those with a weak religious faith, it does not follow that other systems of meaning do not provide equally good resources in dealing with life's difficulties. In particular the failure to study atheistic and agnostic positions on life alongside religious viewpoints has been a serious failure. This fundamental paradigmatic error has led authors to conclude much about the psychological benefits of religious or spiritual belief without reference to, or comparison with, the opposing belief – atheism. Moreover, even debates on the subject of religion and atheism have tended to focus on the rationality of the respective positions rather than their functions and capacities when stretched or tested. Advocates of an atheistic world view have arguably more often resorted to critiquing the faith and motivation of religious believers rather than laying out the cogent basis of living life well without reference to God or other supernatural entities.

In this chapter we intend to attempt to begin to remedy these gaps in the literature by reporting case studies conducted on older British Humanists. They come from a larger study examining matched cases of committed religious believers and Humanists confronting particular challenges in late life such as bereavement, frailty and facing death. Analyses suggested that both coped remarkably well with the challenges they faced (Wilkinson and Coleman, 2010). In this chapter we examine and give voice to the neglected Humanist perspective in old age, whether it is based on an atheistic or agnostic position. These people constitute a significant proportion of older populations in western societies today, and these case illustrations provide a much needed counterpoint to the claims made about the benefits of religious belief made in the North American literature in particular (Coleman, 2010).