A Sense of Continuity in Mortality? Exploring Science-Oriented Finns’ Views on Afterdeath

Haimila, Roosa; Muraja, Elisa

doi:10.1177/00302228211038820

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The third factor we might call the environmental caring responses (or care for earth and acceptance of nature). These responses focus on humans as a natural part of nature and hence nothing “special” (Haimila & Muraja, 2021; Zuckerman, 2020) and also indicate an interconnectedness, as discussed in the existential culture of agnosticism (Lee, 2015), thus combining cosmology/ontology with praxeology.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do nonreligious nonbelievers believe in? Secular worldviews around the world.

Mulukom¹,

Turpin²,

Haimila³

et al. 2023

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

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The global increase in nonreligious individuals begs for a better understanding of what nonreligious beliefs and worldviews actually entail. Rather than assuming an absence of belief or imposing a predetermined set of beliefs, this research uses an open-ended approach to investigate which secular beliefs and worldviews nonreligious nontheistic individuals in 10 countries around the world might endorse. Approximately, one thousand participants were recruited (N = 996; approximately 100 participants per country) and completed the online survey. A data-driven coding scheme of the open-ended question about the participants’ beliefs and worldviews was created and includes 51 categories in 11 supercategories (agency and control, collaboration and peace, equality and kindness, morality, natural laws and the here and now, nonreligiosity, reflection and acceptance, science and critical thinking, spirituality, truth, and other). The 10 most frequently mentioned categories were science, humanism, critical skepticism, natural laws, equality, kindness and caring, care for the earth, left-wing political causes, atheism, and individualism and freedom. Patterns of beliefs were explored, demonstrating three worldview belief sets: scientific worldviews, humanist worldviews, and caring nature-focused worldviews. This project is a timely data-driven exploration of the content and range of global secular worldviews around the world and matches previous theoretical work. Future research may utilize these data and findings to construct more comprehensive surveys to be completed in additional countries.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do nonreligious nonbelievers believe in? Secular worldviews around the world.

Mulukom¹,

Turpin²,

Haimila³

et al. 2023

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Our ethnographic research and that of others (Engelke 2015b;Manning 2018) suggests this, as well. We call this attitude "mortal finitude," though others have called it "annihilation" or "secular death" (Haimila and Muraja 2021). We included a question on the SCS that asked specifically about death: "Which of the following statements best describes your views about what happens after death?"…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Beliefs of Nonbelievers: Exclusive Empiricism and Mortal Finitude Among Atheists and Agnostics

Blankholm,

Cragun,

Hawley Suárez

et al. 2024

Sociology of Religion

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This essay argues that “atheist” and “agnostic” are not merely negative labels that indicate a person lacks belief in God or is not religious. Relying on a new survey of very secular Americans and the General Social Survey, we demonstrate a statistically significant and substantively meaningful relationship, in both predictive directions, between identifying as atheist or agnostic and holding certain beliefs about how best to know the world and what happens when we die. We can reliably predict that most people in the United States who trust science, reason, and evidence and do not trust religious sources will identify as atheist or agnostic—and vice-versa. We find the same bi-directional relationship with belief in mortal finitude, i.e., that death is the final end. Our findings suggest that exclusive empiricism and mortal finitude are positive tenets of belief systems that those who identify as atheist or agnostic are likely to hold.

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“…Despite its popularity, TMT also ignores the fact that nonreligious people develop ways of understanding, coping with, and accepting death. Several researchers attend to afterlife beliefs and practices among nonreligious people (Cave 2015;Engelke 2015;Copeman and Quack 2015;MacMurray and Fazzino 2017;Haimila and Muraja 2021). Some studies specifically measure the level of death anxiety among the nonreligious (Sawyer et al 2021;Vail et al 2020) and generally find that this population does not have greater death anxiety than religious believers.…”

Section: Nonreligious Afterlivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonreligious Afterlife: Emerging Understandings of Death and Dying

Miller,

Beaman

2024

Religions

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Death Cafés are informal events that bring people together for conversations about death and related issues. These events connect strangers from across a range of backgrounds, including healthcare workers, hospice volunteers, and funeral directors, among others. Based on an analysis of focus groups and interviews with Death Café attendees, this paper explores how participants construct and express conceptions of the process of dying and what happens after we die. Ideas about the afterlife have historically been shaped by a religious outlooks and identities. However, nonreligious lifestances have shifted how people understand death and dying. We suggest that notions of continuity of life are not the purview of religious people. Rather, participants in Death Cafés draw simultaneously on many ideas, and reveal ways of conceptualizing life after death—in various forms—without the guidance of religion. Based on conversations with attendees about their outlooks on death (and what may happen after death), our data reveals four main typologies of afterlife imaginaries, which we label cessation, unknown, energy, and transition. Among the diverse perspectives shared, we argue for the emergence of an immanent afterlife outlook.

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A Sense of Continuity in Mortality? Exploring Science-Oriented Finns’ Views on Afterdeath

Cited by 7 publications

References 53 publications

What do nonreligious nonbelievers believe in? Secular worldviews around the world.

What do nonreligious nonbelievers believe in? Secular worldviews around the world.

The Beliefs of Nonbelievers: Exclusive Empiricism and Mortal Finitude Among Atheists and Agnostics

Nonreligious Afterlife: Emerging Understandings of Death and Dying

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