u/Atheistsplaining

For those antinatalists who find comfort in “eternal oblivion” (after death), their experience of comfort while thinking about no longer existing reveals that they’re not being merely poetic when they say things like "peaceful oblivion". It shows that they really do believe death will lead to an endless experience of peace. Why else would they feel comfort when thinking about no longer existing? What else could we call this but a belief in an afterlife?

My upcoming book sets out to debunk the common idea (typically among atheists) that death will be followed by an eternal peaceful silent black void. The book is called Death and Nothingness: What Atheists Need to Know About Death. it's 100 pages. It should be available in about 3-4 weeks or sooner. here's the introduction:

Among naturalistic and materialistic atheists, the concept of “Nothingness” after death is commonplace. Many imagine it to be an endless blankness, or even an eternal silent black void. They’ll say that you don’t experience this void, yet many persist in giving it the qualities of black and silent, and many also say it’s peaceful.

Perhaps I’ve devised a strawman, and people are only being poetic when they use words and phrases like, “Nothingness”, “silent black void”, “endless emptiness”, etc.—but don’t poets use words they feel best convey their emotions? Poets don’t close their eyes and flip open a dictionary to a random page and use the first word they open their eyes to. They’re very intentional with the words they choose. We can—and perhaps should—avoid using phrases like “eternal silent black void”. I’ll return to this question—of whether I’ve devised a strawman—later in this book.

Although most of my encounters with these assertions are anecdotal, I have collected—here—a fair amount from popular culture, which should suffice to prove this idea is not uncommon.

In praise of Katie Engelhart’s The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die (2021), in which Engelhart argues that individuals should have the right to choose when their lives end, British evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, framed death as a “transition” to “peaceful oblivion”. The full text of his endorsement can be found on Engelhart’s official website: https://www.katieengelhart.com/book

Another, from the popular fiction author, H.P. Lovecraft: “Personally, I should not care for immortality in the least. Nothing better than oblivion exists, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born yet did not complain. Shall we then whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me.”

In a clip titled “Crippling fear of death” from an episode of The Atheist Experience (on YouTube) a caller expressed an “irrational fear” of an eternal “nothing”, that the caller believes will occur after death.

Matt Dillahunty, one of the show’s hosts (at the time), attempted to explain why this fear is irrational, but the caller does not get over this intense and sometimes debilitating fear by the end of the conversation. Dillahunty points out that, “you won’t be experiencing anything; there will be no you to experience”.

Isaac Asimov: “When I die, I won’t go to heaven or hell, there will just be nothingness.”

Popular YouTuber, Mr. Beast, who has 439 million subscribers, said in response to Lex Friedman’s question of whether or not he fears death: “Yes... I... It’s hard because like what if you just died then you just see nothing forever you know... it just fades to blackness and you’re just like that for trillions upon trillions to billion, squared years and it’s scary but also before you’re born you don’t remember those—what, x amount of years either? So, um that gives me a little comfort but now it’s definitely very scary something I’d rather not think about until I’m like 80.”

Writer, James Thurber: “But what is all this fear of and opposition to oblivion? What is the matter with the soft darkness, the dreamless sleep?”

Although Reddit users may not be famous themselves, Reddit is a part of modern popular culture. On the Reddit

r/unpopularopinion feed, the user “LesterGreenBeet” writes:

““Nothingness” after death I find comforting.

There is something about heaven/hell, judgment, reincarnation after you die that seems stressful and never ending.

Something about the simplicity of nothing happens after you die that is peaceful. But to each their own.”

—LesterGreenBeet believes this “nothingness” after death will be peaceful. This implies the experience of peace after death. Experience requires an experiencer… So, how can a dead person have experience?

User “Jetlightbeam” responded to this post with:

“It’s peace eternal, nothing better to complement the endless suffering that comes from living a life of desire.”

A YouTube commenter on the channel The Atheist Experience: “The scariest possible afterlife is it being the same emptiness before birth, how do I get over that fear?”

There are many more examples of this sentiment that can be found by simply searching on sites like X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, Quora, and other social media sites.

In an interview with the American comic book writer, Stan Lee, the American television host, Larry King asked: “Are you afraid of dying?”

Stan said, “No, not at all.”

Larry then asked, “Do you think you go somewhere?”

Stan replied, “Eh, no. The one thing I can’t understand – I can’t grasp my head around – I feel [sic], when you die – there’s just nothing… But I can’t imagine nothingness lasting forever. That’s the thing that I cannot get.”

Understanding this, Larry responded, “I can’t grasp… to not exist… forever…”

“Forever!”, Stan reinforced.

Larry finished with this profound question:

“When does that forever end?”

Rest In Peace:

As the earlier quotes exemplify; many believe death leads to a peaceful state, which will occur in complete darkness. Why do so many people imagine death as a peaceful, silent black void which we go into?

I don’t think we can know for sure, but I speculate it is due to our recognition of some similarities between death and sleep.

People will say, “It’s like going to sleep and never waking up”, “the eternal rest”, “the big sleep”,

etc. These phrases make sense to us because both sleep and death result in a lack of consciousness: the dead are typically laying horizontal and often appear to be in a state of peace (this illusion of peace is probably due to the lack of expression most dead people exhibit).

Most people throughout history went to sleep after dark (plus there’s the darkness behind our eyelids before we fall into unconsciousness). Most sleep in quiet and achieve a state of relaxation: an escape from the demands of daily life; to literally rest in peace, albeit temporary. So, we naturally associate going unconscious with darkness, quietness and relaxation. A break from existence. To finally rest.

I believe these associations carried over into our conception of death: “If this is what happens when we go to sleep, then death must be similar, because both result in unconsciousness, being horizontal, seeming to be in a peaceful state”.

The same may be true for birth and waking up: the sun foists light upon us, the sounds of the world interrupt, and we emerge from the darkness of night. Many are happy to wake, while others want to sleep as long as possible. Likewise: many are glad they were born, while many others are not.

Despite all the apparent similarities between sleep and death, I believe it is a mistake to think of death the way those in my introduction seem to.