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Religion is widely believed to help older people make sense of the proximity of death. In recent years, however, a growing number have turned away from religion, and little is known about how non-religious individuals (Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and others) find meaning at the end of life. This chapter reports pilot data from an on-going study of meaning making among older non-religious individuals. The project begins with the premise that we create meaning by telling stories about our lives, and that we draw on various resources including religion to frame those stories. Using qualitative methods, the study will collect and analyze such narratives among 130 elders in the United States. In this chapter, the author compares five narrative patterns that emerge from the early stages of the research and examines how the meaning making process among the non-religious is similar to or different from that of religious persons.
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