jenn

After viewing and participating on this thread for a couple of weeks I have found myself back to where I was three years ago when my son died of Leukemia.I am reading about death and dying again and I am questioning the UNKNOWN.
I have only read about 50 books in my whole life.The fifty I have read have been since my sons passing. They have all been either of death and dying, GOD,Science,physics,etc...
I feel as if I am on a journey that will take me nowhere. I feel as if this journey will never end and one day when I take my last breath, I will either no what life is all about, or I will be in eternal peace.
I have read and studied the bible several times and have pretty much decided that MAN wrote it, and I DO NOT trust MANS intentions!!
Therefore, believing in GOD for me is believing in a force.
What force is HE? Is HE the Universe, is HE Love,
or could HE be energy, matter.........
What would some of you say to someone on a journey that is really hopeless? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Godless Dave

I'm sorry about the loss of your son. I can't help you regain hope in your life, but support groups like <a href="http://www.compassionatefriends.org/" target="_blank">The Compassionate Friends</a> may be able to help you grieve your loss. There is hope, you just have to find it again.

Adrian Selby

There is hope. Or rather, there is a coming to terms. My best mate lost his baby daughter at 5 weeks old, complications in the heart.

Like me, he's pretty much an atheist, just without all the books with big words in. As such, there could be no reason to it, no reason for her being taken away.

But if the only alternative to life is death, choose life. Choose to continue, choose to embrace this introspection and humanity, for you're bound to have grown a great deal in wisdom.

The key question is, "Do you wish he was born at all." Perhaps now the answer is no, but with life being all there is for us atheists anyway, you have to find a way for the answer to be yes. Or become a christian.

As for this force God might be, well, if this force is responsible for anything its responsible for free will. All the beauty in the world cannot make up for all the suffering, the fact that we are defined by both does not justify either, for the one need not be the cause of the other.

I wish you well.

Adrian

jenn

I didn't mean to make anyone feel like I am at my wits end. I am doing better, some days are worse than others. If you dont mind answering this question ,I would love to know something.
I have studied on religion and such, but I have never known exactly what it means to be an atheist. Can you please answer. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Jamie_L

My first child was full-term stillborn, and I was an atheist at the time. For me, it was comforting to know that there was no reason why. It would be harder for me to deal with knowing that my son and I were purposefully subjected to this experience.

It was also life-affirming in the outflow of support I received from friends and family.

I don't believe even in god as "force" or "universe". It can be rough to live with a cold, unfeeling universe, but at least I know it's not out to get me. It gives me more reason to cling to those I care about in this world, and to keep those who have passed alive in memory.

My wife and I have given our loss purpose by joining a local foundation that seeks to provide support for those who experience stillbirths.

As for death itself, I'm of the opinion that once I'm gone, I'm gone forever. It's a scary thought, really, but I can't do anything about it. I just live my life to the fullest and don't worry about the things I can't change.

Jamie

Mostly Lurking

Like the others, I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

If you lack the belief in a god or gods, you're an atheist. For me, it's as simple as that.

You could expound upon that if you want, i.e., thinking that a god cannot possibly exist. Or... you can think that a god could be possible, but you may think that there's compelling evidence that proves any god's existence.

Or... any number of things, really. As I said, all it takes to consider yourself an atheist is to not have a belief in any god. There are no further qualifications.

jenn

I wasn't real sure if an atheist believed in a GOD or not.Thanks for the clarification.I will never be "comfortable"with a belief.I am the type that has to see it to believe it.But, I do feel a certain energy of something out there. Something that is beyond my comprehension. I remember when I was a little girl, maybe the age of 6, wondering why I could not hear or know what someone else was thinking. I felt at that time, a feeling of emptiness. I felt real alone. I always think back to that day and wonder if it was my inner self trying to come to terms with being in this cold body, alone.
I have always thought of a "being" that was much different from what my friends or parents thought.
I think of this being as a non mover, a being that gave us free will before we entered our mothers womb. A being that would not allow us to go to a "hell" and a being that would only embrace us when we came home. It doesn't hurt me to think this way. It is what I have conjuorned up in my head and heart because the Bible was too painful.If I dont believe in the Bible and it is true, I will go to hell.Why would God send us to a hell when I would not send my kids to a hell on their and my worst day....it is weird stuff!!!Furthermore, why does so many people think that only God could have been the "creator"? If one can say he created the heavens and earth, then, why cant I say, we were all there, we all created it.In Genesis God had an audience.Who can say that we as souls were not there.Just some thoughts that I had...expressing them feels good!!!!

MaxMainspring

I have only a few puny words in the face of your terrible loss so I can't expect to impart sufficient wisdom to deliver you from your suffereng, but I do want you to know that others share your pain and do want to see you find a way to bring meaning into your life.

I do have one thought though and it is the observation that one of the things we all fear about death is the possible suffering it will cause for others. So, in a sense you owe it to your son, just as we all owe it to all our departed loved ones, to struggle to find a way to discover meaning and fulfillment in our lives in spite of our loss. To do otherwise is to fulfill that aspect of their fear, the fear that it their deaths will cause suffering and long-lasting pain.

IF we succumb to despair then we have done them a disservice and we are, in my opinion anyway, obliged to seek ways to rediscover the meaning, joy and wonder of life.

Consider if the situation had been reversed and it was you who had faced death, wouldn't your most fervent hope be that your passing would not permanently damage your son and his ability ot find meaning in his life. And would you not charge him with the obligation to work to handle his grief and to not allow himself to be overcome by the loss. And would you not be greviously disappointed if you knew that your death would make him loose his attachment to life.

So I think you must grant him the right to have the same aspiration for you. If you are able to find joy and meaning in life once again, it is not a betrayal of his memory, but is a tribute to it.

Now I have said much more than originally intended. My hope is that these musings do not do more harm than good.

You have my best wishes and, I am sure, the best wishes of all those who post to these boards.

Typhon

I see no mystical force extant in the universe, neither the aware, anthropomorphic shapes that theists bow before in their homes and churches, nor the new age Gaia, nor even the Tao. Does this mean that it is not there? Perhaps not, but I can say few comforting words for the existence of something I have no reason to suspect is present. What I can do is ask why you seek it, and in the midst of so much obvious pain.

While no personal loss of mine may compare to the loss of a child, I have had my share of those whom I loved, pass through the gray gateposts of death. As an envoys of life, such departures, especially those we judge as untimely, chill us to the bone, often stealing our breath and casting a pallor over our days. And yet, as I age, I fear death less and less.

We come from nonexistence I believe, without any plan save life's defining characteristic (and perhaps the universe's) that it exists, but that it will not necessarily always do so. Why should this not be enough? I do not believe there is any grand purpose behind the picture show, no secret battle being waged for good or evil within the breast of each sentient being, no formula scrawled upon a cosmic blackboard. These concepts can at times be comforting stories, but they do not, I believe, sketch a true picture of the greater world outside the realm of the fervid human imagination. We desire this because we are life, but the universe, which appears mostly to be composed of non-life, cares nothing for our desires.

All that said, I find my path through life, my own life, and the lives of countless others, human or otherwise, far from empty. There is a great joy involved in living, even in the pain and disappointment that seasons our many victories and our sweetest pleasures. I need neither hope nor hopelessness, I crave only acceptance perhaps, acceptance and joy in the life that I find myself thrust into, by the endless cravings and strivings of all the life that has come before me, and in whose future life I play my own small, significant part.

I do not suspect that the human ego survives after death. There it is, but what of it? Consciousness is fleeting and of no use to us, after our bodies return to their origins. Yet, what change has occurred? We are still the stuff of the universe. Our bones and our flesh are made of the same atoms and elements that once were the fiery hearts of stars. Our blood is sea-water and our minds wreathed in a net of charged particles that might have been born in the very first moments of the universe's own birth.

With our death, are we not simply transformed? Perhaps, not in the in the manner most theists and spiritualists would desire, but transformed all the same. Our bodies slump off their mortal coil, close the shop windows on our firefly lives of consciousness, and once more rejoin that vast, quiet darkness. It would seem that most of the universe is this, unaware, blissfully unfretted by worry or doubt, by need or the driving push of life and mind. The universe does not seem deterred by a lack of metaphysical purpose. Are we not then only returning to a more natural state, when we, busy, short-lived, a tumult of motion and desperate urgings, still our hearts and our minds in accord with this greater, silent majority?

While grief can be a way of healing our own hearts and settling the unspoken debts to the departed we gather secretly throughout their lives, I question whether you will find true relief in so desperately seeking, something in books of death and mysticism. It does not behoove life, to constantly live with its eye pressed to the keyhole of death. There are only dry bones and brittle weeds in that kingdom, dust and the hollow carapaces of beetles scattered like bottle caps upon the slate floor. I do not think you will find acceptance or joy here, nor I am afraid, answers to your great questions. Why do you feel compelled to study death? Death is the end of the sentence, not the beginning. It is the last blank page of the compendium of life. There are no secrets there, nor I fear, answers.

Life is for the living. It is our one charge, and our only task. The answers you seek are among the brighter fields, where friends and family still dwell. Your son, however untimely and painful his departure, still lives on in those who hold memories of him. Life, even those who do not share his blood, is patterned in his departed shape. These are the ones who still have a voice and a need in this drama. The dead have no want of us anymore, not our grief, not our comfort, not even the memories they leave behind. Perhaps you should instead turn your mind and your heart to those who can still benefit from its cares and its warmth. However hard it is to do, if you are still carrying the weight of the dead, you should set down your burden; it is not made or seemly to be born upon the backs of the living. Let the universe have its own, there is no nobler resting place in my opinion, than in that vast and quiet field.

Peace and well wishes,

.T.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Godless Dave

I'm not sure if the correct term for this is Deism or pantheism, but it's similar to what most of my friends and family believe. They seem none the worse for it.