Kasih Interfaith Dialogue 2021 - Dr Heidi Nicholl

1. Confronting Life
& Death in
Pandemic
Times: Spiritual
& Secular
Perspectives Dr Heidi Nicholl, CEO Humanists Australia
1/33

2. • (Four) existential problems for humanists
• (Eight) consolations for those problems
• How COVID affected humanists at the end of life
- Briefly addressing the search for meaning
• How we can (perhaps) fix the harms inflicted by COVID and triggered by
this experience of death and dying
2/33

3. Humanism is a life stance which replaces belief in a god (or gods) with a
belief that humans are capable of defining their own morality. Humanism
focuses on values but humanists need to determine for themselves which
values they will particularly favour in their lives.
Humanists have a strong focus on human flourishing and being
compassionate to others. Humanists reject supernatural views of the
world and find guidance in reason and scientific evidence.
3/33

4. Four existential problems of
being a humanist
4/33

5. 1. The biggest existential problem faced by humanists is not having the security of
belief that we will go onto something better (or onto anything at all).
We don’t have faith that all of our good works, and a life well lived, will be judged
and that we will seamlessly transition on to eternal life.
5/33

6. 2. If there’s no meaning to life there’s no point to
anything.
There are no answers provided for us that truly give guidance
on the meaning of life.
There is a danger of slipping into nihilism.
6/33

7. 3. In humanism there is no ultimate justice.
We can clearly see that bad, or morally indifferent, people often
thrive (or at least live with material comfort and gain).
We can also see that good people, who live lives of humility and
contribution suffer, struggle or go without.
7/33

8. 4. The problem of existential doubt - ‘what if I’m
wrong’.
Pascal’s wager tells us that non-belief risks an eternity of
damnation therefore there’s always a concern that
perhaps we should have prudentially chosen to believe -
even if we didn’t really feel that faith.
8/33

9. How do we deal with this?
“What sort of consolation is there
for humanists?”
9/33

10. Eight consolations in humanism
10/33

11. 1. Consolation is difficult as we don’t believe that anything
will happen after we die.
Therefore part of what we do is to encourage talking
about death and dying – and the fear of non existence
– as openly as we possibly can during our lives.
11/33

12. 2. We have to accept the uncertainty of not
knowing.
Humanists may be ‘hard core atheists’ who are ‘sure’ there
is nothing ‘out there’.. but humanism also spans
agnosticism with many humanists accepting that we
simply can’t know what is on the other side.
12/33

13. 3. We are big on reflecting about what we can perceive of the meaning of
life.
There is meaning in the contributions that we have made. And there is
meaning in our legacy. This is particularly true of our relationships and
the influence that we have had on others.
There is meaning in the fact that we will live on in thoughts and
memories.
13/33

14. 4. We are able to find meaning in the
world around us: in nature, art, culture..
coffee.. or doughnuts.. and the interwoven
stories of people’s lives.
14/33

15. 5. We generally believe strongly in nature especially the
cycle of life.
While we don’t have an explanation for the meaning of life
(or death) we do know that they will happen - and that the
cycle of life will continue.
15/33

16. 6. Knowing that we’ve lived a good life without
regrets is a key consolation for humanists.
16/33

17. 7. The idea of experiencing a good death can also be
extremely important to humanists. This doesn’t necessarily
mean that we feel we should experience the full dying
process.
It does mean however that we feel it is important to die as
we lived.
17/33

18. 8. Marking life stages and celebrating lives well lived.
We are very big on ceremonies to mark the stages of life. Even though we
don’t have faith or religion we still do all the normal things that
humans do – we get born, get married, we have children and we die.
At the end of life it’s very important that we gather together and
celebrate the life that person led.
18/33

19. What specific impact has
COVID had on humanists in
relation to the end of life?
19/33

20. Not only have we lost people but COVID has deeply impacted on how
these consolations can be experienced.
Our beliefs about an afterlife, or the meaning of life, remain the same..
but of the 8 consolations that I just presented 4 of them have
been deeply impacted by the pandemic.
20/33

21. The four that remain unaffected:-
• Talking about death and dying
• Dealing with uncertainty of ‘what comes next’
• Working on what we can understand about the meaning of life
• Belief in nature, science and cycles of life (all too unaffected)!
21/33

22. The four that were deeply impacted:-
1. How we find meaning in life – we may find our meaning through family, art, drama,
community activities, volunteering etc. Much of this completely ceased during COVID (in
many cases for a long time) which risks slipping into depression and nihilistic feelings.
2. Knowing that we’ve lived a good life without regrets –the closure of so many options
and activities made it so very hard to lose people. People who lived their final weeks,
months or days during COVID missed out on so much that would otherwise have
contributed to this sense of a good life without regret.
22/33

23. 3. Experiencing a good death. Infection control and risk reduction led to tens of
thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of people – and their families - having a
reduced experience of a ‘good death’. Professionals, striving to do their best for every
patient, found this incredibly hard to live through.
4. Marking life stages with ceremony. We adapted – but it took a while. Reduced
numbers at funerals – or no funerals. A very reduced capacity to deal with the loss and
bereavement as a community impacted everyone who lost someone. This undoubtedly also
affected many people who prepared for their own death during this time.
23/33

24. Moral injury is the damage done to
one’s conscience or moral
compass when that person perpetrates,
witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that
transgress one’s own moral beliefs,
values, or ethical codes of conduct.
- from The Moral Injury Project
24/33

25. Addressing the search for
meaning
25/33

26. For humanists there is no one true doctrine.
There is no single set of guidance for us and there are few places
we can turn to for help with interpreting the world.
Therefore it can be really difficult facing an existential crisis and
trying to search for meaning even without a pandemic.
26/33

27. During pandemic times we also need to
deal with the trauma and moral injury
of seeing our patients, or loved ones,
denied a good death, being unable to
die without regrets and the impact of
disconnection on our usual ways of
finding meaning in life.
27/33

28. How can
these harms
be fixed?
28/33

29. Humanists need to do the work themselves.
We need to reflect and find our own
meaning in how we have lived and been a part
of the world.
29/33

30. As people who lost loved ones - or as professionals who experienced
both the hardest times during the pandemic and ongoing impacts - we
need to make this mental effort to reset.
We need to accept that these hardest of choices were made for the
right reasons and to make our peace with the trauma we
experienced.
30/33

31. Moral injury must be acknowledged in
the same way that we acknowledge the
physical and mental costs of traumas
experienced in war and other places of
danger.
Moral injury is subjective and personal.
- The Moral Injury Project
31/33

32. Final thoughts on death and dying for humanists
32/33

33. We need to consider our legacy, our relationships, the way
we live our lives - or have lived our lives.
We need to make our peace with the uncertainty
of not knowing what comes next (and strongly
suspecting that nothing comes next).
/end
33/33