Interview with Valerie Jack (author)

After reading and loving Valerie Jack’s Living with Death without God, I had so many questions I wanted to ask her. She very graciously indulged me! Valerie is a writer interested in death, dying, and mortality from the secular perspective.

Tell me a little about yourself and your project, which you eventually turned into a book: “Living with Death without God: stories and solace for non-religious mortals.”

I have always had an anxiety about death, as far back as I remember. I have never been ok with the fact I’ll die and so will everyone I love. I have also always been non-religious. Though I went to a Church of England primary school and to Sunday school, I never found the stories of religion believable. I’d previously written stage plays and poetry, often touching on death obliquely. For example, I’ve written a number of poems exploring the symbolism of eroding coastlines. Heading towards middle age, I decided it was time to face my death anxiety head on. Aware that many people who are religious find in their faith a sense of comfort, hope and meaning in the face of death, I decided to set out on a quest to learn from other non-religious people how it might be possible for us to find that comfort, hope and meaning when confronting loss and illness.

Why was it important for you to talk to other atheists? What is it about the non-believer’s experience that is unique?

Religion promises a happy ending for believers. Many religious people believe that death isn’t really the end, but instead the beginning of an eternity in which they will be reunited with their loved ones. For non-religious people, the finality of death can feel pretty brutal, I think especially so when a loved one dies too soon. Religious parents who’ve been bereaved, for example, may find comfort in imagining their child as an angel who is safe and happy on the heavenly lap of grandma. Non-religious parents can’t believe in any compensation in a world beyond for their child’s unlived life. Many of the non-religious people I met were strongly driven to ensure some lasting good could come from the life and death of their loved one. They were actively creating a legacy on behalf of the person who had died, by raising funds, raising awareness and helping others in similar situations.

Non-religious people are much less likely than religious people to believe that everything happens for a reason, in accordance with a higher plan. We’re more likely to believe that life is only as meaningful as the meanings we are able to create ourselves. This is what I myself believe and I wanted to understand more about how other non-religious people cope without any belief in the inherent meaningfulness of life. I was reassured to discover that many non-religious people find in their worldview a freedom and a lightness of being. There are studies showing that religious people are often more severely impacted by a bereavement or a diagnosis of life-limiting illness because they’re burdened by the question ‘why me?’ and try in vain to understand why God is punishing them. Non-religious people, on the other hand, may interpret events in a more neutral way, accepting more easily that there is a randomness to the biological processes of living and dying.

What features of an atheist’s confrontation with mortality do you think are universal?

When dealing with hard stuff, we humans find comfort through communing and connecting with each other. For people who are unwell or grieving, it is often helpful to connect either online or in person with others who are going through something similar.

We humans generally want to find some form of meaning to our lives and the lives of those we love, which can outlast our physical death. We want to feel that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and may find that feeling through a connection to the wider human community, the natural world, or in some spiritual sense.

Do you think it’s easier or harder (or both) to be an atheist managing existential anxiety? Managing grief?

I don’t think there can be a simple answer to this question; I think it depends very much on the individual. Some non-religious people I spoke to wished they could believe in a loving God and an afterlife in which they could be reunited with loved ones, but others were glad to be atheists and believed their worldview had helped them cope with very challenging circumstances. Many people I spoke to had had a religious faith at some point in their lives. They no longer believed in God and an afterlife. Some felt this as a loss, finding it hard to let go of the ‘wishing it were so,’ while others found it a relief to stop trying to ‘square the circle,’ to be able to let go of beliefs which no longer made sense or served them. Academic studies suggest that death anxiety is lowest among two groups: those who are certain there’s a God and those who are certain there isn’t. But most of us, including me, fall between these two extremes, and feel some degree of death anxiety, which may be linked to a degree of uncertainty about what comes after death.

What do you fear about death?

I struggle with change in general and death is the ultimate change: from a state of conscious being – all I have ever known – to unconscious non-being. It makes me feel very small, vulnerable and profoundly threatened when I try to imagine my non-existence.

Do you think all humans have a deep desire for immortality, to transcend death?

I’m not sure about all humans. I think there may be some people, perhaps more humble than I am, who have no problem with the idea of truly coming to an end. I do think most people find comfort in the idea of a kind of symbolic immortality for themselves and their loved ones. We are generally drawn to the idea of living on in hearts and minds and the thought that the ripples of our lives will continue to spread outwards, onwards. I think there is real meaning and value to be found in the feeling that our lives continue to matter beyond our physical death. From an atheist perspective though, true immortality isn’t possible. There will be a final end to human life and to our planet – these facts won’t be part of our experience though, so probably they’re not the facts that really matter most. The desire to live on in some way I think has a lot to do with wanting to be loved and valued: fortunately, for most of us, these things are possible.

In the book you said: “reading philosophy didn’t do much for the existential dread brewing in my gut.” I have often felt the same… that knowledge is insufficient, that knowing better doesn’t mean feeling better. Have you had any success transforming philosophy from a purely intellectual exercise into an emotional reality?

While researching this project, I was interested to be taken through the thought processes of secular philosophers in relation to death. These philosophers, including Stephen Cave and Martin Hägglund, have done a pretty good job of convincing me that if immortality were attainable, it would likely be boring and unfulfilling. The fact of our mortality is what gives urgency and meaning to all of our projects and relationships. Understanding this has had some emotional impact on me; it has reduced my yearning that my life and the lives of those I love should continue indefinitely.

But for me, I’d say the experiential side of the project has had more emotional impact. I’ve found a supportive solidarity in being with people with similar worldviews who’ve experienced great loss or are facing the potentially imminent end of their own lives. I guess I now feel about death something of what I felt about birth just before my son was born: if so many other people have done it already, surely I can do it too, and when the time comes I’ll have no choice about it anyway!

Without the promise of a happily ever after in any hereafter, how do atheists cope with the hard facts of mortality? Do you feel you answered that question for yourself?

I feel I’ve answered that question for myself as far as it is possible to be answered. When I embarked on this project, the child in me was looking for something that would make everything ok. The hard truth is, not everything is ok. It would be an insult to those who shared with me extremely painful experiences to pretend what they’re going through and have gone through is ok. But I’ve found some reassurance in understanding that generally, when we have to, we can cope with more than we think we can, and that there are things we can do to help ourselves and each other through the hardest times.

When you started this project, you felt like the fear of death was something you had to solve. Do you still feel that way?

No, I no longer feel such a need to solve my problem with death. I think if you push fears down and away that can make them become bigger and more problematic. The project was a kind of exposure therapy for me. I looked at my fears and I think doing so did help reduce my fear of death. I feel able to put it aside for the time being and turn my attention to other projects.

What’s your advice for other mortal atheists?

While working on this project, I came across a Peanuts cartoon strip in which Charlie Brown laments that we’ll all die one day and Snoopy points out that on all the other days we won’t. So I guess my advice to other mortal atheists would be to try to be like Snoopy. Our brains have evolved with a negativity bias. We’ve needed to be able to spot the predator heading our way without being distracted by the beautiful view. But those of us who have the privilege to live our modern lives mostly at a distance from serious threats can choose to value all these days we have, to practice awareness of and gratitude for all the goodness, beauty and luck involved in our getting to be alive here and now.

Connect with Valerie on Twitter/X (@valeriejack), Instagram (@valeriejackwrites) and Facebook (Valerie Jack Writes). Her book, Living with Death without God is available from Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Hive, and some independent bookshops.

Artwork for Living with Death without God by Julian Perry.