I’m a believer, but I have been struggling with my faith of late. One thing that gets to me is the some of the displays in church. For example: We have an guy in his mid 70s who got his tests back from the doctor. No cancer, no alzheimers. PRAISE THE LORD! HALLELUJIAH!
Well, my thought is, if you are so sure of heaven, then why the sense of overwhelming relief that you aren’t presently dying? If there is bliss and no more pain in heaven you should almost be upset that you have to live longer.
You’re looking at it from a logical level. People in grief don’t usually come to that by a logical decision. It’s emotion that we’re hardwired to feel.
I’m not a spiritual or religious person. But in any given scenario, I would be sad to leave my friends and family behind for a potentially long time, and sad that they would be sad that I was leaving. Even if I was excited about where I was going. You can be excited and sad at the same time. I, and many other people, also feel a sense of sadness when there is an end of an era.
Even Jesus wept as the death of Lazarus, knowing He was going to raise him in just a few minutes. Now, those tears may have been more in empathy to the mourning of his family, I grant. However, faith in the Afterlife/Resurrection doesn’t eliminate the sense of loss right now. The Bible writers, with few exceptions, speak of physical life as good and desirable and to be chosen over death. We are here for a reason & should strive to make the most of it until we have to go, and for a child’s death, there are the hopes and dreams of the parents that have been crushed and all the potential of the child that has been lost.
If atheists believe there is nothingness after death, no pain, no cancer, no telemarketers, just peaceful nothing, why do atheists grieve when someone dies?
Because the person they love no longer exists, so they won’t be able to hang out with them, of course. They’re grieving for themselves, really. I guess it’s the same for anyone, regardless of their belief. Is that the point you were making?
There’s many things at work involving the emotions over a death (personal loss, tragedy, suffering, empathy, etc.) , but I believe you still hit on a valid point, jtgain, and one I’ve wondered over for many years. People are afraid of death, because deep in their heart of hearts, they don’t know what’s next, despite what they procalim they believe. Be it nothingness or eternal bliss… it’s a disconcerting proposition.
That’s how I feel too. I believe in an afterlife but I still don’t know what it will be like to die and go through whatever-it-is. This life is all we know and imagining anything else can be exciting but also scary. And we love a lot of what we know about life and want it to go on, even with the bad parts.
Being excited to not have cancer or Alzheimer’s makes sense, it means you have a better chance of a happier rest of your life, and dying a painless death in your sleep!
I guess that was sort of what I was getting at. I’m not trying to impugn their motives, I’m just saying that at the root of it, they aren’t really as sure about eternal life as they claim to be.
Take the death of a child. I have a daughter. I can’t fathom if something were to happen to her. To me it would be the absolute worst thing that could happen to me, and when I speak to parents who have lost children, they say the same thing.
Now, if you are a believer, then sure you would miss your child. But why would it be SO AWFUL if the child was living in paradise never to experience pain, sickness, or suffering? Why would you be absolutely inconsolable?
Grief over the death of a loved one happens independent of religious belief. We grieve for our loss–we don’t get to be with the dear departed ever again on this Earth. Even for believers, the prospect of being separated from a loved one for the forseeable future is not a happy prospect. Maybe Granny is with Jeebus now. Maybe Granny is now nothing but a buffet for maggots. The point of grief is that Granny is not with us anymore.
I wouldn’t be inconsolable. As a believer, there is great consolation in the afterlife. That does not mean there is also not great loss in the present life. I do know of Christian parents who have lost children. It is incredibly sad, and they go through mourning and stages of grief and anger like anyone else, and of course they miss their children terribly. But they do often also find great consolation knowing their child is at peace. And there is often a sense of relief too if there was suffering at the end. When my grandfather died after a long illness, there was relief there, and yes, even joy in that he was in paradise. But of course we are sad to not be with the people we love.
There is a vast difference in attending a believer’s funeral and a non-believer’s. When you attend a believer’s funeral, there is a great sense of sadness, loss, and mourning. But there is also hope.
As a lifelong believer, I have often thought about how I would deal with death if I did not have faith. I don’t know how people cope. It would be a million times worse.
As the others said, grief isn’t a rational thing. If your best friend was moving to their dream mansion out in the Islets of Langerhans, and there was no way you’d be able to see them again for years, you’d be sad. It doesn’t matter that the friend thinks it’s a blast, you’re still sad for you.
Theologically? I don’t know what your church teaches, but in Judaism we have the saying that “One hour of repentence and good deeds in this world is better than a whole eternity in the next world”. In other words, it’s only while we are alive that we get to grow and change. (It’s said that when the great rabbi the Vilna Gaon was on his deathbed, he started crying. His students asked him why he was crying if he was going to paradise, and he said, “Here on earth I can do all sorts of good deeds for just a few pennies. Where I’m going, I won’t have that oppotunity.”)