Catholic Convert

I think the sadness is natural. Just as I am sad my older son will be moving away and I won't see him as much over the upcoming years, enven though he may be healthy and alive.

If it were not for the belief in the eternal, and the prospects of their loved ones making it to Heaven, the sadness and grief would be much greater.
Plus, to a Christian, death is a punishment, a result of the fall of man, and there is a sadness in that tragedy in which we all participate.

Lastly, I belive the sadness is because even believers have too tight a grip on this earthly existence, and like it too much, even though this is not our home...we should remember we are just passing through...

scombrid

It isn't any greater for me. I've experienced the loss of very close friends and family as both a believer and an unbeliever and it hurts about the same either way.

If death had never been introduced then you and I wouldn't exist I don't imagine. Adam and Eve would still be the only ones here. Without death there would be no call for reproduction. Can you imagine the state of the earth if humans had been reproducing for the last 6,000 years without death? Your and my life exist upon myriad deaths of our ancestors. Were they still here, things would be terribly crowded.

Perhaps it is the nagging doubts that perpetuate the love of this life. They wouldn't love this life if they actually knew of something better to come. But they don't know, they wish. I used to wish.

lpetrich

As I've pointed out elsewhere, whoever makes their last words

See you in Heaven

?

The closest I've seen is militant Islamists who refer to each others' deaths as "weddings" -- to all those houris a Muslim man will get in the next world. The 9/11 kamikaze hijackers were not exactly alone in this.

Furthermore, there is a serious theological problem -- afterlife as a consolation presumes that one will necessarily be going to Heaven and never to Hell; does anyone ever mention that the dear departed might be in "a worse place" instead of in "a better place"?

And why don't the dear departed ever try to return to those that they had been separated from by death?

neorask

In reference to the OP, sullster makes a valid point. Unfortunately, the evil in the world causes us to experience sadness from the death of a loved one regardless of our beliefs in afterlife. It has something to do with the fear of change and the loss of companionship you had with that person. You see how a young child will sometimes cry and scream when their parents leave them at daycare. It is the same thing with a Christian experiencing the death of someone, but it is just on another level.

In reference to other posts, how can death be anything more than a BREIF punishment for sin that leads to the great reward of paradise? I'm scared of death, but I'm not tormented with the fact I will die because I know where I will go when I die.

MsChutzpah said, "I simply do not believe very many truly believe; but like everything else with religion, it is merely wishful thinking."
I agree 100%! You see, this is the problem with so many believers in the world today....they don't take it seriously beyond the point of personal gratification. However, there are some people, myself included, who actually feel the presence of God and know that he is there for our own good.

Answerer

Simple, because most of them doubt the existence of eternal life itself. They may put up a strong front (or great faith ) when the good days are around but when the bad things finally appear, many of them will go about (or in thier hearts) asking "Why", "Why me", "Are good people really ended up in the Heaven" or kinda of similar stuffs.

No one is truly immune to doubt and pain.

sullster

Neorask and Catholic Convert confirm the insight about Christianity discussed by Nietzsche that one of the underpinings of christianity is contempt for life. Life is looked at like a filthy coat which has to be taken off by death. We are just "passing through" to some bliss and must suffer the curse of life.

Yet, the christians are seen to be two faced when it comes to the actual fact of death. If they all really believed that life was such a disgusting and vile thing,( even though they claim that their god created this vile and disgusting thing, but that is another topic), and their soon to be entered eternal bliss was so far superior, they would not shed a tear over death, but would cry out in happiness and glee. They would be like concentration camp inmates being freed.

Christians say they "know where they are going". Don't we all. It is into the ground.

Anne Fidel

I've wondered about this quite a bit. I don't feel any worse about a loved one dying now than I did when I was a Christian either. I wonder if it is just the idea of missing someone. My cousin died at the age of 23 last year, and our whole family was devastated. I'm the only atheist in the bunch. The rest are pretty much devout Christians. The preacher and people from church would come by my aunt's house and comfort her with the whole heaven thing, but I don't think that she could have been any more destroyed if she'd been an atheist. The one thing Christianity might have saved her from is suicide. Losing a child is probably the worst thing that can happen to us humans.

Now, I wouldn't expect her or anyone else to actually celebrate this beloved girl's death, but I did find myself wondering how it was that heaven didn't even seem to comfort them in any real sense. She was gone, and they wanted her back. No one who was close to her said anything like how we should be happy now that she's with Jesus. People on the periphery said it constantly, but the rest of us just grieved for her being gone.

I don't have an answer, but I have to wonder if we don't all know deep down that this is it. At least, maybe even the strongest Christians aren't sure enough to really and truly be convinced. The few times my mom would say that at least she's in heaven, she just didn't look convinced to me. The tears kept coming. My uncle quit church altogether, so it obviously didn't comfort him. How awful that must be, to lose your daughter and your faith at the same time. :crying:

Catholic Convert

I like living just as much as anyone else. This life is a "mixed bag," though.

Some things are great, others like war, disease, poverty, crime are not. There are times when I want to cling to it forever, and times when it really sucks and I woull like to take off the "filthy coat."

But "death" and a "corruptible body" are the curse--not life.

The pain of separation will be great for all of us. But after they get over their grief, they will be comforted by the hope of seeing her again.

Anne Fidel

Although I do not believe, I do hope that the idea of heaven does eventually comfort my aunt. She is thinking at this point that God took her away because she loved her too much (ie more than she loved God). She's blaming herself, blaming God, and just overall has lost her zest for life. I can certainly understand all that. I know it's only been 10 months, but I have to wonder if she'll ever get over her grief enough to take comfort in her beliefs. I have a feeling that all bets are off when you lose a child. Comfort is hard to find, and the promise of an eternal life must seem like a joke at such a time.

Philippe*

I don't know, but I have always found weird that if there is any afterdeath, it would be better, i.e. with eternal bliss, without pain aso than life here, why ? I too wonder why so many people have to live personal tragedies to question their faith and the goodness of God, when almost all the time their faith deal with such events, death, pain, injustice, and subjects like the futility of this life, heaven, hell.

Philippe