I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
- Conan of Cimmeria, Queen of the Black Coast, Robert E. Howard
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But it’s not barbaric wisdom. It’s the wisdom of writer Robert E. Howard, who was an atheist.
It’s the wisdom of his fictional barbarian character. I don’t think Howard acted like this in real life (though he might have wished he could).
Incidentally, Howard might have been an atheist, but in his fictional world the gods are real, though it’s probably best not to attract their attention.
Howard wrote once that it’s easier for an atheist writer to create convincing gods than for a theist, by which I think he meant a monotheist. The latter can’t let himself go; his beliefs interfere.
An interesting claim, and I think it’s true. Presumably, a polytheist wouldn’t have the same problem.
Yes, Howard must have had a rich fantasy life, probably trying to compensate for the reality. Conan certainly didn’t kill himself when his mother died.