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Atheists Dealing With Loss?

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by BryanM, Jul 20, 2014.

  1. BryanM

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    So, recently, I've became an atheist, and I've been wondering about death as well. I know that this is probably our only chance at being a cognitive being that can sense and feel things, and that we have that one chance is amazing in its own light. But once it's over, it's over. I haven't lost a family member or loved one since becoming an atheist, and with the rest of my family being religious, I think it'll be a bit difficult if and when someone I and they love dearly were to pass away. They'll believe that there is an afterlife, and that they'll meet each other again. So I was wondering how atheists cope with loss.

    What I've thought about it, is that in most deaths, the person was in great pain before they passed, and that they are finally "at peace" and that the pain is gone. Also, the idea that your body and mind is finally at rest is something that I also think would help me cope, and also, celebrating that person's life. Is there anything else that could help me out with losing family members.
     
  2. Peacemaker

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    remembering them as a great person, if they were and keeping something to remember them by, but thats just me
     
  3. Ghost93

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    Me switching from Christianity to agnostic has made me feel more comforted about life (or the lack of life) after death.

    Because if Christianity was real that would mean that the majority of the human race is destined to burn for eternity in hell. I think death is a much nicer alternative.
     
  4. I agree with peacemaker, certainly, but I also think about it this way--

    If this is the only life we have to live, if it is the only chance we get to touch people's lives and enrich our own, then having whatever time you have with the people you love is really special because it's so finite, so rare, so ephemeral. It feels lucky just to have as long as you do to enjoy life and the people around you (though I don't really believe in luck, it's just a good way to describe the feeling)


    Ann Druyan, wife of the late and great Carl Sagan said this about his death and I think it's perfectly summing up how I feel about this:

    “The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”
     
  5. KyleCats

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    Looking at the positive things they did over their life, whether it was something big or something small, or even something that is only special to you. I suppose that would fit into 'celebrating their life' but yeah. Focus on the positives :slight_smile:
     
  6. butHitlerisDead

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    As everyone else in this thread has said (especially loved the Ann Druyan--big Cosmos fan) you have to focus on the memories you have of them and appreciate how they've touched your life.
     
  7. Hyaline

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    My suggestion is to attend the religious ceremonies.. Funerals and ceremonies like this are for the living, not the departed. If you don't believe the way the others attending do, celebrate in your own way the life of the person lost. Good part is, you don't have to worry about going to hell or anything...

    I prefer to look at it as their bodies returning to the earth to be reused.
     
  8. mangotree

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    (as usual, I agree with Hyaline)
    Whichever way you look at it, death has the ability to bring new life.
    When your physical body decays, it becomes food or even shelter for any number of different organisms and creatures.
     
  9. wanderinggirl

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    I've lost 3 people close to my family this year; while grieving I spent time with my family and friends and used the grief to remind myself to feel gratitude, rather than fear that another family member might go. It's important not to stay positive for the sake of whitewashing the bad in life, but to accept the bad in life as part of a godless cycle.

    Although atheism is the only system that works for me, it's not for everyone. If you find yourself missing something in life, there are ways to let go of the idea of god while staying connected to religion: Unitarian Universalism, Buddhism, and Humanism are belief systems that don't revolve around deities. (I might be lumping things together that shouldn't be; sorry for any inaccuracies.)
     
  10. Akane

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    I might be the odd one to read this, since I am Christian. But I always thought Atheists took a pretty awesome approach when it comes to death, you go to the memorial service to support the rest of your family and to celebrate a life of the deceased person, but of course, not FOR the deceased. And that person BECOMES part of the Earth, most of it is a very beautiful place. So no matter if you are Atheist or believe in a higher power, that person is a part of something bigger now. :slight_smile:

    I just like to believe both. I believe in a soul, the soul gets released and the physical body becomes part of the Earth.

    ---------- Post added 21st Jul 2014 at 09:55 PM ----------

    Just to add. Some Christians don't believe people go to Hell.
     
  11. Argentwing

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    Being an atheist doesn't mean you can't believe there is consciousness after death. From the scientific perspective, and especially with the consideration of quantum entanglement linking every particle in the universe to another somewhere, the idea that the person's "soul" continues to exist outside their body is plausible. At least one physicist has had a near death experience and held this opinion (forgive me but I forget his name :astonished:).

    But if you don't want to speculate like that, nothingness is still free from all worldly suffering, so it is something to be thankful for after a painful last chapter of life.
     
  12. WearyWanderer

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    Here's how I see death: after the initial pain that doesn't last very long, that person is gone. There's no more pain, no more deterioration, they are just nothing. They feel nothing. So why do we mourn the dead, then? Well, it's for actually pretty selfish reasons, really. It's because we'll miss them. Once we get over that selfishness, we get over the death of that person itself. Because are they really ever gone from our lives? They still exist through our memories. Just because they may not be with us physically doesn't mean that they don't exist in our memory of past events. And because our memory of them will prevail until our health deteriorates, some might argue that they're living a better life than when they were alive right before death; no suffering, no pain, they feel nothing. We just remember what they felt in happier times. So once we get past the selfish desire that is physical intimacy with the dead, then death really isn't so bad. We all live on in the memories of others.

    Gah, sorry, I'm rambling. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: Anyway, that's kind of how I cope with it. I actually find the topic of death very interesting.
     
  13. Damien

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    Hi Bryan,

    one way to look at it that might help, is to see life and death as a Natural process, and that when someone dies it is fully in accordance with what is natural. It's the nature of things that beings are born, remain for some time, then pass away. It's always been that way, and always will be.

    If everyone lived forever, the Earth would quickly become overcrowded to the point where it would be intolerable and unliveable. The old must pass away, so that those coming into this world can also have the chance to experience life on this amazing planet we all share.

    By the way, believing in a future existence - which I personally do - does not make the pain of separation any easier. When my dad passed away, it still hurt a heck of a lot. So don't think that those of us who do think there is some kind of continuation of consciousnesses after death, get to escape the awful pain of grief; we don't. I'm sorry to say that having to say goodbye, is something we all have to do. Maybe it's different for folks who think they will see their loved ones again in some kind of heaven, but my faith does not guarantee that at all, so in my case I still had to assume that most likely, I would never see my father again. Yes, it hurts, but the hurt eventually passes. Grief too is natural, it's a process that has to be gone through; whether we have a faith, or not.
     
    #13 Damien, Jul 21, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2014
  14. Sabot Kitty

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    I don't cope with loss, because the deceased are condemned to an everlasting oblivion from which there is no recourse. Death is an absolutely terrible and terrifying thing.

    The only silver lining here is that we can channel this extremely rational fear of mortality into prioritizing life saving research and charity.
     
  15. AwesomGaytheist

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    I think being dead is a lot like your existence before you were born. Before you were conceived, you were an egg. Just an egg. Nothing more, nothing less. And if sex hadn't taken place when it did, the egg that became you would have been discarded as normal, just like most of the ovum that a woman has. Did you have any consciousness back then? How did it feel to be conceived? You don't know. You had no consciousness. It's the same being dead. There's no afterlife, there's no feeling. You don't see anything, you don't hear anything, you aren't anymore. There is no you.

    It's a harsh reality, and that's why it's my view that the idea of an afterlife is simply a coping skill for the reality and finality of death.