Other pretty good evidence for the "no atheists in foxholes" argument could be work showing that atheists shift to theism at the end of their life. But such research doesn't really exist. (and no, the guy who hasn't been to church in ten years wanting a priest before he dies is not the same thing as a staunch atheist continuing to deny God belief, or to accept it).

Ok, so with those caveats out of the way, let's address the closest research related to this.

Well, several studies have found that people low in religion (e.g., "how important is religion to you") do not show increased belief in spiritual stuff when death is salient. Highly religious folks do. One study tested this using belief in spirits and the power of prayer, and others have specifically used afterlife belief.

These studies seem to (loosely, perhaps even very loosely) suggest that there may be atheists in foxholes. But this work didn't actually use atheists (I don't know precisely, but if it is like my usual college sample, it would maybe have 2-3% of people who are atheists). And further, this design is fairly obvious to participants. Prime death (or control topic) and then measure belief in God. Clearly, believers and non believers alike could catch on, and adjust their answers accordingly.

So I (and Jamie Goldenberg) recruited atheists, agnostics and theists. Unknown to them, they were assigned to write about their own death or pain. But first, they were shown a presumably "random news article" that they thought they would need to remember for a memory task.

In actuality, half of the participants read an article arguing that near death experiences are proof of an afterlife; the other half read an article arguing that they are not evidence of life after death at all, but are a biological trick. The death (or pain) prime was next, and then we measured psychological defense of their secular beliefs.

The idea is that people turn to what they value more when death is primed. So, death primed participants should be more patriotic, which many, many studies have found. But, if certain beliefs protect people from death fear, then reminding them of these beliefs should protect them from the death prime. In turn, they shouldn't show the typical increase in patriotism following a death prime if their beliefs are supported beforehand.

In other words, unless comforted by either of the articles, people should become more patriotic when reminded of death. If atheists are buffered from death awareness by an argument that there is no afterlife, then they should not be more patriotic when death is primed following this article. The opposite would be true for theists, who should be more patriotic when death is primed, but this should be reduced by the afterlife affirming article.

As expected, theists were more "pro america" when death was salient and they first read that there is no afterlife, but not when they read the opposite. More interestingly, the same findings occured for atheists and agnostics. They were not psychologically protected from the evidence there is no afterlife.

But, everyone was psychologically protected from death when reading that there was "scientific evidence" of life after death, even atheists. In other words, it seems like all people, whether they believed in God or not, were comforted when reminded of death by evidence of an afterlife. And, no one was buffered from the non-existence article stating that there is no evidence of a next life.

So are there atheists in foxholes? Perhaps.

But this latter study suggests that atheists, to some extent, are comforted by evidence of a next life. And it is difficult to imagine this happening without some sort of "buying into" this evidence.