Grief and Death for Non-Believers

People want to offer some comfort at a time when words of comfort are hard to come by, I feel if someone shares their belief in something with me it's OK as long as they don't expect me to agree with them. What really annoys me are the semi religious platitudes that are repeated so often that aren't even scriptural - "god never hands you more than you can handle" is one that sets my teeth on edge, or BS about heaven having a new angel....

I hear that, cwillie. Those kind of "comfort" platitudes make me feel like....I don't want to say that person seems shallow, but those phrases seem similar to the depth-less "copy and paste this on social media to show you care about (depression/breast cancer/child abuse)!" type posts.

Most of the time, when someone offers me spiritual comfort out of genuine believe, I just say a quiet "thank you" and hope they stop there. But sometimes they keep on going and then get upset with me if I say, "I'm sorry, but that really doesn't help." And/or then I find myself avoiding them if I run into them somewhere!

I wanted to add, before this thread blows up in my face somehow, that I actually really ENVY people with genuine faith. I wish I could believe that I will see my loved ones again, but I just don't.

Oh boy....A thread about annoying Christians! This ought to get good fast....

I predict soul saving efforts, heated debates and prayers for us non believers. And the thread will probably get shut down soon.

I respect anyone’s right to believe anything they want but I don’t like to be expected to respect what people believe. There’s some wacky stuff out there.

But let’s face it, most of the people on earth claim to be BELIEVERS. I bow my head during grace at thanksgiving, prayers at funerals and all that. I’m not a militant atheist. It just makes life to hard file a lawsuit over every nativity scene in the town square.

For example....My mom is not religious and has made it clear that she wants a simple service when she dies, not a church service. But I know most of the folks at her service will want to have a prayer or two. I’ll allow one prayer out of respect for our friends and relatives who are religious. It won’t kill me.

The only time I get just a little militant is when people tell me how they’ll pray for me or want to SAVE me. Or, let’s face it, all the evangelicals who think Trump represents family values.

Thank you, Dorianne, for starting this thread! I hear you. I do believe there's a plane for souls or spirits (not heaven). Like you, I don't generally mind too much from the kind genuine believers (just don't push it). A couple days ago the chaplain from hospice came to talk with Mom and I spoke with him about Mom so he could better understand her. Of course before they left he asked Mom to pray with him which she did. He asked me to join in their hand-holding. I did but I don't care for it but I saw no reason to be rude. I just kept my eyes open and stared. When he included me in his prayer-blessing it was very emotional for me. I appreciated what he said.

My response to "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" is that I think he's over estimated my abilities. That usually stops that conversation.....

I do go to church occasionally (I guess I've always hoped that maybe faith would rub off on me somehow) so I understand when people assume I buy into all of that. It used to make me squirm inside when the minister came to the house to visit with mom and give her communion because I was expected to take part too, I kind of wanted to roll my eyes sometimes, but there's no need to be rude about it.

"The Power of Myth", by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers is a very good read along the lines of finding meaning in life throughout the ages. I got a hold of it in my 20's and was able to settle down quite a lot about death after having been raise in a fundamentalist household and being unable to "believe". I am also not an atheist. Some people, according to psychologists, are just naturally able to have faith, some are not.

Dorianne, I’m somewhat there with you. I was raised Jewish but my dad wasn’t so I got to see more than one religion in a household as well as friends of different religions. Anyway, I don’t know what I believe or how I feel about “after death”. I agree, I want to think there is something after death but I’m not sure there is. I also have a huge fear of death and “not existing.” I just let the people say what they need, thank them and move on as long as they don’t push their beliefs on me.

Lol Windyridge.....

I don't mean just Christian faith, though. I was a strong Christian in my youth - totally by choice (my family is not religious....we were not even baptized because our parents wanted us to make our own choices about religion). In my mid-20s I started learning about other religions and faiths, along with mythologies, so my belief in organized religion fell away with increased knowledge. But I still believed in SOMETHING. A huge part of my shift towards disbelief in the last 10 or so years has come from the "new age" community of believers, alongside my growing interest in science. I made a dear friend out of a woman who runs a metaphysical store - selling everything from crystals to tarot decks, with customers varying from pagans to practitioners of what I now call "Buddhism Lite." *cough*Eckhart Tolle*cough* The more I got to know the customers, the less I found myself able to believe in anything. Especially when books like The Secret and the philosophy of (the totally b.s.) "law of attraction" started getting hot. I really lost it where "The Secret" basically says that Jews brought on ("attracted") their own torture and murder at the hands of the Nazis. And it seemed to me that some of these folks were just as - if not more - judgemental and self-righteous as some (SOME) Christians tend to be.  Plus....anti-science to the Nth degree. 

In a nutshell.

Possibly in America, your focus is more on Christianity than anything else, but I do feel just as much frustration with members of other faiths, especially the "new age" ones.  Being a musician, I tend to meet more "new age" folks in the "artsy" circles of my real life these days than Christians.  Actually, the one Christian musician in my close friend circle is probably the least self-righteous and judgemental person I know!  And also one of the sweetest.  :-)

I love the "new age" christians, they sort of just make sh*t up as they go along.... add a little of this, subtract a little of that.... kinda like when the head of the united church said it wasn't necessary to believe Jesus is god...

Mountainmoose - lol, if that were my mom, I could see her just saying, "I don't want prayers, go away."

Linda22 - I am TOTALLY with you there!

cwillie - I agree there's no need to be rude. But I more likely would not participate in communion, and would quietly leave the room instead. Like, "Here, let me give you some space. I'll go get a coffee."

Branchingout - I did buy and read that in my 20s, but to be honest, I found it very oriented towards the meaning of men's lives. I felt very short-shrifted and "second classed" by most religions and mythologies when I was younger....as a woman and a feminist, I was looking for something that included me more.

EricaMagoo83 - I think we are on the same page, for sure. Do you find....ok, this is what I find hard. Do you find it hard to comfort the dying themselves? I had a really difficult time with this when my stepmother was dying.

cwillie - I wouldn't say most of the "new age" folks I know are Christians. But yes, that sort of spiritual practice DOES feel a lot like making up a recipe as you go, so long as it suits or reflects what you WANT to believe. I would have more respect for someone who went hardcore at Buddhism and Buddhist practices, to be honest.

Too many posts from me, sorry. I didn't expect this to get so busy so fast! But I asked EricaMagoo this, when it might be for all of us....

As a non-believer, how do YOU comfort the dying? Especially if they are afraid of dying? What do you say, what do you tell them? How do you console them? How do you deal with their fears?

I did Hospice visits for a couple years. Quit because the demands of my own elderly parents became a priority.

It was a great experience. Many of the folks I visited were elderly and religious, and were in the last months and days of their lives.

I did lots of bible reading for folks. It took a little while to get back into practice, get the language, the cadence....It was very comforting to people who had been church goers their whole lives.

But I was so rusty I had to do a little on line research for comforting passages. I had forgotten how much of the Bible involves the lord striking down the sinners who doth not believe in him. I learned to skip the hellfire and brimstone and other scary parts.

But I never offered up the standard biblical platitudes.  YOULL BE IN HEAVEN SOON WITH YOUR FAMILY.  And all that.  Really no call for me to do so.  There were Hospice chaplains for all that.  Those folks were a great comfort to so many of my patients.

Your question "how do you comfort the dying" brings us full circle, I really doubt that most people who fall back on the religious platitudes are any more certain than you or I.

Dorianne: You asked, "As a non-believer, how do YOU comfort the dying?" I'm a reality- and science-based person. Since religious platitudes are out of the question, for Mom, I focus on what she's achieved in her life, how us kids have turned out and, since I believe in the spirit world, I talk about our deceased relatives and that they'll be waiting for her. She finds that uplifting.

Windyridge - lol, I know what you mean. In my 20s I got a red letter edition of the bible and stuck to reading only the words of Jesus. All that love and forgiveness was lovely, hippie-ish stuff!

cwillie - I sort of disagree with you there! About half of my stepfamily are evangelicals. My stepmother resisted them all her life, and struggled when she was dying because she never got over that implanted fear of hell and the devil. (Her mother actually told her she was going to hell because she divorced her first husband.) They are absolutely certain, righteous even, in what they believe....to the point where they have an answer for everything. They were so relentless, my agnostic father actually faked a "conversion" just to get them off his back. I agree that's probably not representative of most Christians, but it seems to be representative of a fair number of them, especially in America (from an outsider Canadian's perspective).

MountainMoose....that's the part I find hard. When my stepmother was in hospice, I felt like I was missing something that other people say, about the afterlife or something. Plus my stepmom was steeped in all that fire and brimstone stuff from her family - she kept hallucinating the devil while on morphine. I wound up bringing a friend along, who is a monk (a very modern one). He was the first (only) one who thought to say, "You're going to be with R___ (my dad) very soon.  R___ is waiting for you." And even though she was barely conscious and whacked out on morphine, it was almost the only smile she gave throughout the last week of her life. 

It was the one thing that finally helped her shake off her family's vision of fire and brimstone.  And I couldn't give her that. It never OCCURRED to me to give her that, but who else would have? Nobody did. It should have been me, but it would have been a lie, to me....or at least something I couldn't possibly know. It still troubles me. And I wonder what it's going to be like with my mom, who doesn't even have ANY afterlife beliefs.....

Dorianne,
I've really been thinking about this subject. No proselytizing here.
As a nurse, I've comforted my share of dying patients. I can't remember a time when God or spirituality wasn't involved.

I am a Christian but I don't push it on anyone. I will make "religious" statements like "God bless you" or "I'm praying for you" and I mean it. If it doesn't pertain to you, then I figure you can dismiss it. If you're really offended you can get pissed and tell me to take it somewhere else.

I didn't grow up in a religious home but my folks sent me to Sunday School and I went all through Catholic school. I don't subscribe to any one denomination.
I don't read the bible every day but I've completed 6 years of bible study. I don't agree with everything I read but I don't think that's necessary. There are things I struggle with but I don't dwell on them.

I believe that, through my faith, I will have a spiritual (soul) existence after my physical body dies. That makes me feel good. I'll have an existence with God and others, without the physical encumbrance of a worn out, old body. OK, enough about me.

When an atheist friend died, I was amazed how sad I felt that he thought there was "nothing" after dying. It made me feel so empty. Is that all there was? (this life).
I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that he believed he had no soul. He was just a body with an intelligent mind that lived for 78 years then expired.

Since there would be no continuing in a spiritual realm, there would be nothing to speak to the dying about in a future tense. I suppose that, in that case, one would only be able to speak about the person's PAST achievements, joys, hallmark moments, etc. There is nothing to "look forward to." Death will be "it, kind of anticlimactic.

If the death is a painful one, dying will bring relief. But somehow I wouldn't want to hear that on my death bed. I would want a more positive thought as my candle burns out.

Physical death IS final as far as we know. Unless you are of other religious beliefs, there is no reincarnation to have another go round in human life.

Like you said, death would scare me too if I believed that ALL of me was just stopping. What keeps me going is that I believe that my spirit will live on with other spirits in God's realm. I won't be JUST a cold, hard body in a box or ashes in an urn surrounded by nothingness.

My faith gives me hope that I will have a different and much more lovely spiritual existence after the flesh gives up. I can have the "courage" to die because of the promise of an afterlife. I don't see how an atheist would find that same courage. Maybe that's why your mom won't let go.

If you don't believe in a deity, then YOU are all you've got. You are the highest life form and knowledge source in your universe. If there is nothing ahead, you should enjoy what's here and now.

If you believe in a spirit realm or afterlife (without "God"), then I suppose that would provide some peace knowing you'd be with other spirits. We humans are a social bunch and no one wants to think they would be completely alone in a dead body. But then, I'm assuming there is a living soul to suffer the "aloneness".

After all these thoughts, I'm at a loss of what to say to give the dying non-believer comfort. You could say, "I'm here for you." "I'll be with you through your journey."


You wrote; "It would be easier to deal with all this if I could just believe in some kind of afterlife, but I don't. I have wrangled with spiritual issues all my life, and my conclusion is that....I HOPE there's something, but I really don't think there is."

Out of curiosity, what made you give up your faith? Your analytical mind doesn't believe in the Divine/Afterlife but you sound like you wish you could. Please don't take offense. This is just my observation.

A long time ago, I questioned the existence of Jesus. I asked God, "If He is real, then let me know it." I got my answer over time.
I'm not trying to force anything on you nor am I suggesting you do what I did.

Hopefully someone else will have a better suggestion. Thanks for bringing this issue to light.

SueC - I don't take offense at all. I am very interested in these conversations BECAUSE I have struggled, and BECAUSE I want to have faith but don't. Let me have a re-read and a think, and I'll write a longer reply. :-)

Dear Dorianne,

Thank you for starting this thread. It has given me a lot to think about. I think this was my challenge in processing my grief. I couldn't believe my father was gone. I wanted him to be like your mom and just hang on for me. But I know that is not right either. We all have one life to live and we all hear about how everyone wants to live fully. But I see how so many people's bodies wear out and then I think, is that it?

I am still seeking comfort but I sometimes I think I am too cynical to accept anything.

It sounds to me like I Corinthians 15:12-19 would fit in here.

"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."

Basically what this is saying is if there is no resurrection, the Jesus was not raised and Easter is a lie, your faith is useless, you are still in your sins and are to be pitied for your faith in Christ is only for this life.

However, the context of this passage is the argument for the opposite being true. Otherwise, we might as well, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die which is what some people believe but they mourn as those who have no hope.

That's basically what it all comes down to.

In reply to Sue C.....

So....I gave up my Christian faith when I was about 23. I mentioned earlier, it was something I chose when I was young (pre-teen), whereas my family was pretty agnostic. (Truthfully, I was a bit wobbly about Christianity until I went to a Pentacostal bible camp, where they showed us awful films and terrorized us into being true believers.) I gave it up because, until then, I'd understood the choices were Christianity or non-belief. When I started learning about other religions and mythologies, and learning about the way the original Christianity had been altered through the centuries (mis-interpretations and "edits" of the bible, etc.) and used by individuals as a tool for gaining power, that's when I started looking around at other belief systems.

For a long time, I did still believe in a higher power. Because I'd felt excluded from and discriminated against by major religious organizations, I called my higher power "she" and even "goddess." I was really comfortable with that for a long time, probably into my mid-to-late 30s.

When I was 37? I got very sick and nearly died from a septic kidney (kidney stones, blocked ureter....and I was sent home from the ER the first time with the news I had a simple bladder infection....so I almost died in my own home before a family member got me back to the ER). The whole time I was in the hospital, it never occurred to me once to ask for help from god or a higher power. I put ALL of my faith in medical science and my personal will to live. And then when I went under for surgery to drain the infection - the first time in my life I went under anesthesia - I woke up with a "certainty" that death would be just like that: you just disappear into pure nothingness and don't even know it. So I came out of that experience fairly atheistic, to be honest. And I was comfortable with it at the time. I was just happy to be alive! And I thought if there's really nothing, then it's time for me to really LIVE this life. And I took up playing music in public, which was my lifelong dream.

It was actually a very powerful feeling, very empowering, to think that I was the highest being in my own universe. To think that there was no one above me, and mainly, that *I* and no one else was the one who controlled my life and my destiny. Yeah....it was incredibly empowering to put myself in the driver's seat, to take control and abolish the concept of "fate" and "god's will."

Through the music community, I met a lot of people with a lot of....let's say hippie-ish beliefs. Love and light and even some of the "new age" stuff. I was starting to come around to believing in a universal force of some kind. Not a god, but a spiritual connectedness, I guess. "We are all one."

But the longer I started hanging out with the new age set, the more it just seemed like a big steaming pile of nonsense. Being very science-minded, I asked questions that people couldn't answer. I found instead that so many spiritual leaders are tricksters, hucksters, confidence men (and women), "cold readers" - whether Christian or new age. I investigated further than believers were willing to investigate. I needed evidence instead of words, I guess. And I found none.

I guess that's what it comes down to. I am a skeptic, a questioner, an investigator. I need evidence, proof....and I've never seen any. Not even once. So when I say I would really LIKE to believe....I guess I mean I would really like some proof! And I realize proof is probably a near-opposite of belief. But I just can't bring myself to believe in something that's never shown itself to me.

Having been a Christian, and a spiritual person, I do believe in the power of the mind to feel something is real. Like love for god. I've felt that. Powerfully. I also think I made it up in my mind, during a lonely, abusive childhood when I needed love and a strong, unseen friend. (Like in the book, The Color Purple, where the main character is alone and starts writing letters to god....but then when she discovers her sister is still alive, she starts writing to her sister instead.) As an adult....I think I still needed love and a strong, unseen (this time female) friend....because when I almost died, I wound up realizing I was quite alone and almost friendless in the world. Since then, I made the effort to surrounded myself with a loving group of friends, and I find the need for an invisible one has disappeared.

Combine that with my questioning and lack of evidence, my feeling that everything in the world has a scientific explanation (even the color purple, lol)....and I think that's it in a nutshell.

And I mean, the part of me that WANTS to believe is the part of me that is, yes, absolutely terrified of just ceasing to exist. And it's not that you're alone when you're dead....if there's nothing then you don't know you're dead. You don't know because you just stop. You cease. (There's a "funny" meme that I see atheists and agnostics posting on social media: "When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.")

And it's the part of me that is absolutely and wholly bereft that I will never see my father or stepmother again, or any of the people I love, or even the animals I've loved. When my most beloved cat George died of cancer last year....I gave myself this picture of my dad and stepmom taking him into their fold....but I knew very well I was deliberately making that up to console myself, and in the end, it didn't really help.....because I am fully cognizant that I made it up. It's something I WANT to believe, but how can I believe it when it's a fantasy I made to comfort myself?

Does that make sense at all?

I prefer to call myself agnostic, rather than atheist, because I can't say for sure that I KNOW there's nothing, any more than I can say for sure that there's SOMETHING. In this, I think sometimes atheists can be just as dogmatic as theists....

This makes me so sad for you Dorianne, you said " BECAUSE I want to have faith but don't", All you have to do is ask for it.

Mark 9:23-24
23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

cmagnum - It seems to me the point of what you're saying is that the proof of resurrection is the witness accounts of the resurrection of Jesus? But to me, that "proof," those witness accounts, only exist in the bible, which I do not take as true. I know through my own research that the bible has been misinterpreted, mistranslated, and altered many times over the centuries, and that what went into the very first Christian bible was decided by a group of human beings, who rejected many other "testimonies." So putting all my faith in the resurrection of Jesus doesn't ring true to me at all.

I also find the concept of "sin" problematic here. If there's no god, how is there even a concept of sin? I think (I may be misreading) that your argument only makes the point that if there's no resurrection of Jesus, then your sins are not forgiven. But if there's no god at all, why are there things considered sinful in the first place? Who decided they were sins?

cdnreader - I feel quite the same as you, except I don't think I am cynical so much as I think I am skeptical. My questioning and investigation has only led to dead ends, as far as god and the afterlife is concerned.  (Edit:  I did not intend a pun here.)

smeshque - it's not my intent to try to squash open conversation, but I did ask specifically at the start of this thread that religious people not come in here to proselytize.

Thank you for feeling sad for me. I have tried very hard to live by your faith, and I know the bible very well, but I found it to be a false doctrine.

Also there is FAR more to spirituality than just Christianity.

Atheist Headstone......

ALL DRESSED UP
WITH NO PLACE TO GO.......

Dorianne, I would recommend

Alain de Bouton's Consolations of Philosophy (especially for his further reading list)

Any prayer book from any faith. There is always an interesting point of view to be found. Failing that, there's often a good belly laugh.

I'll share my favourite, it's from the thirteen articles of faith within Judaism's basic daily schedule...

"I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah and, though He tarry, I wait daily for His coming."

It's the "though he tarry" bit that tickles me every time. It's that fleeting glance at the watch, the imperceptible clench of the teeth, the suppressed eye roll. It's the determination to keep faith *in spite* of life's lessons.

As Mary Renault put it, "the time of gods is not like the time of men." I am not an atheist, I'm not really an agnostic either, but I have Absolutely No Idea what the nature of God is and not much faith - only trust - that whatever it is it takes much interest in the lives of little people. I'm pretty sure that it's not reasonable to expect our few pounds of grey matter each to comprehend the universe.

But, more to the point (you'll be relieved to hear), a study group in Dachau came to the same conclusion - that God in the terms they had always understood the concept did not exist. The evidence was overwhelming and all around them. It took them a long long night of discussion to get to this. And at the end of it, one of them got to his feet and said "good. Now, let us say kaddish."

I haven't encountered Pentecostalism close up so I can only imagine how alarming it might have been for you. What format used you to follow as a child? That may be the one worth having another look at - it's like home.

Grief and death... it's not like you're given a choice about having to face them, or even when, only about what support you might find helpful with the how. Keep looking.