Death anxiety and religious belief: an existential psychology of religion

There are no atheists in foxholes; or so we hear. The thought that the fear of death motivates religious belief has been around since the earliest speculations about the origins of religion.

Why do people believe in gods? Because they fear death. Yet despite the abiding appeal of this simple hypothesis, there has not been a systematic attempt to evaluate its central claims and the assumptions underlying them.

Do human beings fear death? If so, who fears death more, religious or nonreligious people?

Do reminders of our mortality really motivate religious belief?

Do religious beliefs actually provide comfort against the inevitability of death?

In this book, Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt begin to answer these questions.