In the book that I wrote, Reflections on the Existence of God, I did a great deal of research on the lives of famous atheists. One observation I made was that as confident as they were in their atheistic belief (No God, no afterlife), for some reason, they were all terrified of dying. All of them.

These men included, Voltaire, Bertrand Russell, Joseph Stalin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud.

You would expect Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, to have had a good grip on the nature and causes of human psychological weakness in the face of death. In fact, Freud himself lived with a dreadful fear of death throughout his life. In one of his letters he complained, “As for me, I note migraine, nasal secretion, and attacks of fear of dying.”

Ernest Jones has written a comprehensive biography of Freud’s life, and he points out, “Freud seems to have been prepossessed with thoughts about death, more so than any other great man I can think of. He hated growing old, even as early as in his forties, and as he did so, the thoughts of death became increasingly clamorous. He once said he thought of it every day of his life.”

Recently, I taught two Bible studies on, “The Reality of Heaven” and began to understand why people, particularly atheists, fear death.

One of the most interesting books of the Bible is unquestionably the book of Ecclesiastes. It is part of the wisdom literature and is very philosophical. Most scholars believe it was written by Solomon.

In the book of Ecclesiastes there is a verse that I find to be quite significant. In the third chapter, the eleventh verse we are told, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…”

What does it mean that God has “set eternity” in our hearts? I believe it is a hint that God has made us eternal beings. Since God is eternal and we are designed and made in his image, it stands to reason that we will live somewhere in eternity. There is life after death.

We are then told in Hebrews 2:15, that Jesus came into the world that He “might free those who through the fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” This verse is very revealing. One of the reasons Jesus came into the world was to deliver people from the fear of death. If we do not entrust our lives to him we will then be slaves to the fear of death all of our lives.

So by what means has God given us to find peace? The answer is simple: Jesus and the resurrection. Paul says that Christians are people who serve a “God who raises the dead.” (II Corinthians 1:10) We put our hope and faith in Him. And we are also told that one of the reasons Jesus came into the world was “to deliver us from this fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:15)

Do you realize you are an eternal being and that you will exist forever? Does that trouble you? Do you have faith in the God who raises the dead?

God promises us, His people, that He will walk with us through all of our fears and that He is even going to walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death. This is our source of peace as we face the reality of a short and temporal life on this earth.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.