rationalskepticism.org

my_wan wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:It occurs to me that - based on observations when my father-in-law was at death's door and suffering horribly - some believers may actually be afraid to die because of what they fear will happen to them when they get to the other side. Thus they may cling so tenaciously to a life that, like his, had become unbearable. He was a lapsed catholic who, while he wasn't a really bad person, believed he had broken many of the rules, and he actually said to one of his daughters that he was scared because of this.

The studies tend to indicate that neither the atheist or the religious are significantly afraid of death. It is those who waffle in the middle that fear death the most. In fact many of the claims about atheist are often based on seeing variations between religious wafflers and highly religious, and they merely assume the graph extends down into the secure atheist. Yet this has been demonstrated to not be the case in many examples, such as the fear of death issue for one.