Why do even atheists still believe in life after death?
From Mailonline:
It’s a curious contradiction: the number of atheists in Britain is rising, yet so, too, is the number of people who say they believe in life after death. On this Easter weekend, we asked leading philosophers, authors and religious thinkers to explain what the results of this new study tell us about the modern world… and what they believe about the afterlife.
A. N. Wilson: Author and biographer of Jesus
We should not be surprised that while the number of religious believers seems to have fallen, the number of believers in the afterlife has actually risen.
Selfishness is at the core of ‘modern’ culture. We are encouraged to believe that our own feelings should be paramount, that we should nurse grievances, feel sorry for ourselves, pick at old childhood wounds, blame our parents, our schools, our financial circumstances for our misfortunes, but never blame ourselves.
Since all the great religions teach the opposite — that wisdom only comes about through a conquest of selfishness — it is not surprising that our modern culture, fed by psycho-babble, should wish to take leave of religion.
Yet belief in an afterlife is consoling to those narcissists who cannot imagine a future which does not contain them —preferably for all eternity.
Once this is appreciated, you will understand why the ‘me culture’ would wish to discard all the difficult bits of religion but hold onto the prize at the end. We do not wish to deny our carnal appetites, or to curb our selfishness, but that is not going to stand in the way of our insisting that we will live for ever.
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