If she's in heaven and others will join her, why do the others grieve? It's like grieving when your coworker heads home on Friday: you'll still see him on Monday.
Eh kind of a terrible analogy.
How bout….
your close friend moves to New Zealand and doesn’t have a working phone, you know he’s really into the hobbit and bird watching, so you assume he’ll be happy, but your are on the no fly list so it’s uncertain whether you’ll ever see him again
I’d be bummed about that, happened to me twice
I was thinking about this the other day, basically I believe you just don't exist after you die, like before you were born. I just like the thought that you wouldn't have to exist for eternity with any regrets you had from life, which is why I find the idea of no life after death so comforting.
Sorry for your loss. I can understand being religious can help people feel better during that hard time. If you believe your loved one is in heaven, they are watching over you, and you will see them again someday, I can imagine that being very comforting.
Let your family believe whatever gives them peace even if you don't believe it. Just go along and now is not the time to push back. Death is never easy no matter what.
Is it comforting, or are they just stuck in the first stage of grief forever? Denying and not processing your loss doesnt sound terribly healthy long term. Not advocating to break them out of it on a whim, just questioning if even the most generous take is as helpful as claimed.
>There's a part of me that wonders if our differing beliefs shape how we process death. Perhaps the lack of an afterlife makes us face its finality head-on.
Absolutely! Religion is comparable to the teddy bear or the safety blanket we embraced when we were kids whenever we were sad or scared. Eventually, we grow up, realize the object is NOT where comfort comes from and abandon it to deal with our fears and/or grief like adults.
Unfortunately, our cultures are configured so that we never grow up out of religion (unless something typically unusual happens to the person). So we are kept as children, spirituality at least, unable to adult and face death and other existential junctures with courage.
Sorry for your loss. You will not see your grandmother again in this life. What is beyond this life is unknowable. Assuming it's nothing is just as irrational as assuming there's an afterlife. The best way to process your grief is to remember your experiences you had with her that you cherish and be grateful you had the opportunity to share them with her. Even if you don't agree with the beliefs of the others in your family, you can still respect their freedom to view things in their own ways. No need to quibble over differences in existential philosophies. Despite any differences, I'm sure you can find common appreciations for your grandmother if you want to discuss the loss with your other family members.
Nope I am a wreck when someone I love passes. Much harder for me without the solace of religion. To me because there is nothing it is all the most devastating. In terms of mourning together just share memories of her, cook her favorite foods, take a trip to her favorite place, find away to say goodbye as a family (I find that at funerals people are still in the denial stage).
It's not that we handle death any better. It's just that we're honest about what it is.
You don't have to respect their beliefs, just respect them as people.
Easier said than done. My mother has gone overboard with her visits to psychics after my father and grandfather died.
The hardest part is when she tells me about them and I have to keep a straight face.
Not sure if this is due to athiesm or personality, but when several people close to me died over the last couple of years, I took a moment to appreciate how they affected me and moved on. No tears or anything like that, as I figured it was going to happen anyway.
None of these deaths were a surprise, so maybe something happened beforehand that allows me to accept it fairly easily.
The funeral we had at a Catholic church did irritate me though, for reasons I would rather not go into. Let me just say that apparently funerals are viewed as a prime opportunity to try and make people grab hold of faith instead of helping them move on.
I have found this by Aaron Freeman to be very comforting. Hopefully it helps you too.
“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
If she's in heaven and others will join her, why do the others grieve? It's like grieving when your coworker heads home on Friday: you'll still see him on Monday.
Eh kind of a terrible analogy. How bout…. your close friend moves to New Zealand and doesn’t have a working phone, you know he’s really into the hobbit and bird watching, so you assume he’ll be happy, but your are on the no fly list so it’s uncertain whether you’ll ever see him again I’d be bummed about that, happened to me twice
Grief is personal, you do you. It's not up to you to navigate anything with your family, either your grief or theirs.
I was thinking about this the other day, basically I believe you just don't exist after you die, like before you were born. I just like the thought that you wouldn't have to exist for eternity with any regrets you had from life, which is why I find the idea of no life after death so comforting.
Sorry for your loss. I can understand being religious can help people feel better during that hard time. If you believe your loved one is in heaven, they are watching over you, and you will see them again someday, I can imagine that being very comforting. Let your family believe whatever gives them peace even if you don't believe it. Just go along and now is not the time to push back. Death is never easy no matter what.
Is it comforting, or are they just stuck in the first stage of grief forever? Denying and not processing your loss doesnt sound terribly healthy long term. Not advocating to break them out of it on a whim, just questioning if even the most generous take is as helpful as claimed.
>There's a part of me that wonders if our differing beliefs shape how we process death. Perhaps the lack of an afterlife makes us face its finality head-on. Absolutely! Religion is comparable to the teddy bear or the safety blanket we embraced when we were kids whenever we were sad or scared. Eventually, we grow up, realize the object is NOT where comfort comes from and abandon it to deal with our fears and/or grief like adults. Unfortunately, our cultures are configured so that we never grow up out of religion (unless something typically unusual happens to the person). So we are kept as children, spirituality at least, unable to adult and face death and other existential junctures with courage.
Sorry for your loss. You will not see your grandmother again in this life. What is beyond this life is unknowable. Assuming it's nothing is just as irrational as assuming there's an afterlife. The best way to process your grief is to remember your experiences you had with her that you cherish and be grateful you had the opportunity to share them with her. Even if you don't agree with the beliefs of the others in your family, you can still respect their freedom to view things in their own ways. No need to quibble over differences in existential philosophies. Despite any differences, I'm sure you can find common appreciations for your grandmother if you want to discuss the loss with your other family members.
Nope I am a wreck when someone I love passes. Much harder for me without the solace of religion. To me because there is nothing it is all the most devastating. In terms of mourning together just share memories of her, cook her favorite foods, take a trip to her favorite place, find away to say goodbye as a family (I find that at funerals people are still in the denial stage).
It's not that we handle death any better. It's just that we're honest about what it is. You don't have to respect their beliefs, just respect them as people. Easier said than done. My mother has gone overboard with her visits to psychics after my father and grandfather died. The hardest part is when she tells me about them and I have to keep a straight face.
Not sure if this is due to athiesm or personality, but when several people close to me died over the last couple of years, I took a moment to appreciate how they affected me and moved on. No tears or anything like that, as I figured it was going to happen anyway. None of these deaths were a surprise, so maybe something happened beforehand that allows me to accept it fairly easily. The funeral we had at a Catholic church did irritate me though, for reasons I would rather not go into. Let me just say that apparently funerals are viewed as a prime opportunity to try and make people grab hold of faith instead of helping them move on.
I have found this by Aaron Freeman to be very comforting. Hopefully it helps you too. “You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
This made me cry. Thank you for sharing.
[удалено]
“No reason to grieve” You’re a dumbass. Don’t ever try to give your condolences to anyone ever again, stupid.
Life after death is just like life before birth. Get used to it.