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Dealing with death as an atheist

Jumi

Jumi

Well-Known Member
We have an inbuilt mourning mechanism. It just takes some time before we are whole again after someone you liked has died.
 
dust1n

dust1n

Zindīq
Deidre said:
I'm an atheist, but I'm open to the idea that 'something' somewhere...might exist...beyond this universe. I wanted to ask the atheists here, how do you process situations like this? Death? Calamity? Suffering?
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Understanding and appreciation for the slivers of joy we get here and to avoid taking for granted the very little we have to appreciate while it's there to appreciate.

Hope all is well.
 
D

Deidre

Well-Known Member
dust1n said:
Understanding and appreciation for the slivers of joy we get here and to avoid taking for granted the very little we have to appreciate while it's there to appreciate.

Hope all is well.
Click to expand...

Oh, I like that a lot. Great way to view things. I'm better, thanks. Hope u are well, too.
 
D

Deidre

Well-Known Member
Snippit from my journal today, ties in with this thread.

Well, today is Monday, and it started off well...very well, actually. I had a very positive view of the day ahead...and am deciding to explore a bit more, my faith journey. Apparently, the path is still winding for me. lol Maybe it's always winding, and we never reach a final destination. I don't know.

Anyway, the work day went well...considering I had many days off for the holidays, it was hard to wake up early today :) But, driving home from work...despite the weather being beautiful outside...I fell into this fog, that seems to come and go, over the loss of my grandmother. It sometimes feels really heavy, and cumbersome. I want to shake it off, but it's like wading through quick sand or something...the harder I try to shake it off, the fog pulls me in. I figured out today that it isn't only the loss of this special person that has me saddened, but it's what she represented in my life. She loved me unconditionally. She loved me when I left the faith, and she loved me when I said I was an atheist. (she wasn't happy about it, since she was a devout Christian lol) She loved me no matter what my choices were in life. Even my dad places conditions on me.

It's hard to find people out in this world who love us without conditions. Without strings. Without recompense. But, my grandmother loved for the sake of loving. It's rare. If you ever find this type of love...you will know what I mean. If you have ever experienced this kind of love...you will it miss terribly, when it's gone.

When I was a Christian, I used to think God loved me like that...

Maybe he does. :sunflower:
 
Penumbra

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Deidre said:
How to process all of this an atheist, is the question.
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I view death as peace.

I'd like the idea that the individual consciousness of people can somehow go to a happier realm where injustices or pain in this life are balanced out by a better life somewhere else. I don't see a reason to believe something like that, though.

And yet, at death, if it is oblivion, one can still see that it is peace. One can rest in the observation that they will never suffer again. When my father died after years of sickness and pain, I viewed it more as a relief that he was at peace now, even though I miss him. It would be admittedly harder to do this with a loss of a child or someone else that dies young or unexpected, but basically, at the very least, oblivion is neutral. We can feel sad for people that no longer exist, but those that no longer exist feel sad about nothing.
 
Underhill

Underhill

Well-Known Member
Deidre said:
I was raised in a Christian home, indoctrinated if you will. I never really believed in places like heaven or hell, even as a Christian. I've been deconverted for about four years, and have identified myself as an atheist for about two of those years. I'm not a 'hard-lined' atheist per se, but the concept of an after life never brought me any comfort when I dealt with a friend's death from cancer, or an uncle who died suddenly in a car wreck. The idea of an afterlife always seemed at best presumptuous, at worst a flat out lie.

''He's going to a better place,'' just seems like such a cop out when it comes to grief, and mourning.

My grandmother is dying, she is in hospice care now. She means a lot to me, she always believed in me. I'm close to her, and I want to pray for her, but don't know what to say as an atheist. Can an atheist pray for a dying person? I don't know. If a god exists, would he hear me? Would he be mad at me for turning my back on him?

I'm an atheist, but I'm open to the idea that 'something' somewhere...might exist...beyond this universe. I wanted to ask the atheists here, how do you process situations like this? Death? Calamity? Suffering?

I'm of the belief that we should do away with funerals, and instead have parties that are a celebration of life for the person you love. I have been crying off and on for weeks over this, and why? I guess death marks a transition for us too. We are losing someone we dearly love and I want my grandmother to be out of her pain, that she has been suffering in for a few years now. So is it selfish to not want her to go?

And suppose there is no heaven, the finality of that hits home that I will never see her again.

How to process all of this an atheist, is the question.
Click to expand...

I always liked what Carl Sagan had to say about death in his book, "A Candle in the Darkness". But I recently read an article by his daughter on the subject.

My Dad and the Cosmos -- The Cut

"One day when I was still very young, I asked my father about his parents. I knew my maternal grandparents intimately, but I wanted to know why I had never met his parents.

“Because they died,” he said wistfully.

“Will you ever see them again?” I asked.

He considered his answer carefully. Finally, he said that there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again, but that he had no reason — and no evidence — to support the idea of an afterlife, so he couldn’t give in to the temptation.

“Why?”

Then he told me, very tenderly, that it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don’t question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority. He told me that anything that’s truly real can stand up to scrutiny.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I began to understand the permanence of death. As I veered into a kind of mini existential crisis, my parents comforted me without deviating from their scientific worldview."

Sadly it was only a few years later that Carl died.

I met him once at Cornell. One of the greatest communicators of scientific understanding to have ever lived.
 
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