Category: Facing Misery: Confronting Illness, Even Death, without a Prayer

In its October/November 2007 issue, Free Inquiry published a special section titled “Dealing with Dying.” Nineteen articles, most of them personal accounts by FI subscribers, explored various aspects of death and dying from the viewpoints of loved ones, sufferers, and a few who had cheated death. Response to the feature was overwhelming; in a departure …

Almost all of us want to continue living, and we will endure much suffering, if necessary, to stay alive. But some are confronted with circ umstances that they consider insufferable. Each day, hundreds in the United States and other Western countries hasten their own deaths, accelerating the day they otherwise would have died due to …

Like most secular people, I used to believe that everyone has a right to choose death. As an atheist, I had no patience for the religious argument that God created your life, and only he should end it. The legal argument against suicide seemed bizarre: you cannot steal from yourself, so it shouldn’t be a …

Cartwheels, backbends, headstands, and piggyback rides were as much a part of my growing up as playing Barbie and fighting with my sibs. My personal favorite was cartwheels, but over time they went the way of Barbie—shelved and eventually forgotten. The Bicentennial, puberty, and college graduation passed between my last spins and their reemergence. In …

I was a boy of fifteen, escaping my suburban neighborhood on foot and braving a highway to reach a neglected steel bridge that stretched over the Schuylkill River just outside Philadelphia. The twilight bled over the riveted beams, concealing the rusted green-painted angles. I walked over the water, pulling a plaque out of my pants …

So what’s it like, I’m often asked, to be alive more than six years after I’m supposed to have died? Well, one thing’s certain: I’m older by the calendar. But I hope that I’m younger in attitude and outlook. And it’s gratifying to be still walking on planet Earth, knowing my ashes had been scheduled …

I don’t believe in God, but I believe in hell. I’ve been there. It all began with a late-night phone call from my ex-wife, telling me that our eldest son had overdosed on drugs and was near death. She said that a buddy of his had found him and initiated CPR. When the paramedics arrived, …

When my mother’s body dies, her obituary will accurately state her date of birth, but the reported date of her death will be a lie. The truth is that her soul has been dead for a long time. Mom has dementia, probably Alzheimer’s disease. Her memory is lost. She awakens every day not only to …

Four years ago, at age twenty-four, I was in high spirits because my boyfriend was about to finish his last trimester of college and move to the city where I live d so that we could begin thinking about our future. We had met in high school and had spent most of our relationship living …

I have a chronic illness. It’s not cancer, and it’s not heart disease: I have a chronic mental illness. I frequently deal with suicidal thoughts. I have gone through periods when I’ve had thoughts of killing myself every single day. Once, it lasted for two and a half years. I’m kept alive by my boyfriend, …

Father, Mother, and Dweezil took very different roads to death. All three were along in years and suffering as their ends drew near, but Dweezil the cat got the best deal by far. A vet solved his problems in seconds, and there were no dubious religious ethics to make a mess of it. My parents …

At what point does an illness go from being a challenge in one’s life to becoming one’s life? The progress of the transformation is so gradual, the change so nearly imperceptible, that one barely has time to realize that while a short-term coping strategy is helpful, a long-term plan is critical to the well-being of …

Theodicy refers to answering the problem of evil. The term was first coined by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to describe how the existence of evil in the world does not conflict with the supposedly essential goodness of God. Christian apologists spend an inordinate amount of time addressing this issue because the tremendous amount of …

Radio evangelist Harold Camping, who predicted that the Second Coming would occur in September 1994, is now positive it will take place on May 21, 2011. Sixteen years ago—in the Winter 1994/95 issue of Free Inquiry—I reported on that earlier apocalyptic date-setting episode (read that article here) What follows is an update that takes the …