nj_heathens

Tom,

I can sympathize with what you're going through - both the loss of a loved pet and the talking to God. I was an agnostic until my late 30's, so I was usually just talking to the air - because of the possibility that a higher power might be listening - but I was really just working through the pain, confusion or anger of whatever the situation was. I stopped calling out to a god when I finally realized that I was calling upon my own very powerful inner strength (that I always forget I have until the situation requires it and then I'm always surprised when it comes forward - it seems I have to reacquaint myself with my own inner strength during times of crisis).

I'm sorry to hear about Misty's death. I hope you have many good memories and some pictures to keep around. I'm still sad sometimes over the loss of the love of my life (sorry, Mr. Heathen). His name was Spaz and he died in 1999 at the age of 17. I got him when he was 3 weeks old after his mother was hit by a car. I still have his cremated ashes in a little white plastic container in a drawer of my nightstand. I don't know what to do with them, the container doesn't take up much room in the drawer, and sometimes, when I have to get into the nightstand for something, I'll say "Hiya Spazo buddy." I have some pictures that I use as occasional bookmarks when I'm missing him, which is usually when I've been around kittens. I haven't thought about getting another cat, even now.

I know I'm exposing myself as a complete nutjob - talking to myself (and answering!) all the time, and keeping my dead cat's ashes next to the bed. BUT, I don't believe in an imaginary bipolar father figure who lives in the sky. That should count for something, right?

Mrs. Heathen

Snaddel

Sorry to hear about your cat, I know how that feels.

Religion isn't always so comforting when it comes to personal tragedy. Catholicism, I believe (if not other forms of christianity at least in their original strict sense) say that animals have no soul and do not have an afterlife.

It seems to me when you take god out of the equation, all we have is life. All things that live die, but not all things live in the first place. The death of your pet isn't so important as the life it had and I'm sure the moments passed with your pet made it happy in life, and we as temporary blips of life in the grand scheme of things can ask for nothing more. A life of happiness followed by eternal lack of suffering can't be such a bad thing..

LLaurieG

blondegoddess: Tom, I'm very sorry to hear about your cat. I hope that your conversation helped you vent and blow off steam. I think that the most traumatic part of my deconversion was the realization that I would never see my loved ones again.

(Laurie) Tom: You feel hollow, empty and depressed now because your sweet, best-friend cat has died. How I can sympathize! But what I mainly wanted to share was that, odd though it may seem, your relationship with a person doesn't exactly end when that person (or pet) dies. You go on interacting with them in your mind. You go on thinking of them. "What would Auntie Imelda have said about that!" They're not present, but you still go on having a relationship with them... they're always in the back of your mind, so they're not exactly gone. Interestingly, sometimes your relationship with the person passed-away continues to change and grow, as current events in your life keep on intersecting with your clear memory of how that person would react. Departed loved ones don't live on in a heavenly afterlife, blondegoddess, but they live on in your memory. That's the way you see your loved ones again, and always will.

CX

Dear God by XTC


Dear God,
hope you got the letter, and...
I pray you can make it better down here.
I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer
but all the people that you made in your image, see
them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get
enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you
Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard
loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God,
I can't believe in you
Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make
mankind after we made you? And the devil too!
Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on
a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you
should take a look, and all the people that you made in your
image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and
so do you, dear God, I can't believe in I don't believe in
I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always
letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you
drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the
whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon
my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in
it's you... Dear God.

LLaurieG

(Laurie) Wow, CX, that's really good! :notworthy I'm saving that in my permanent file. Are you the author?

KitKit

i'm so sorry to hear about your cat. i have a dog who is 10 & i am not looking forward to her not being around. it will be a very sad day for me indeed. but she will live on in pictures & stories we tell & all my precious memories of her.

as for talking to god. i talk to myself all the time. and i have been known to talk to god, even though i have never been a believer... "ok, god if you really are up there & i am wrong then..." it is a very good way to get your thoughts straight when you are confused. you are your own therapist. it's wonderful that you are able to do this. i feel sorry for people who can't do that.

it is pretty funny that you were complaining to god that you were angry for him not existing. we think silly things when we are emotional don't we?

lpetrich

Actually, gods and afterlife are two differerent things. One can exist without the other. Much of the Old Testament features only a shadowy afterlife -- at best. And many Buddhists believe in a sort-of afterlife without belief in any deities.

So one can be a complete atheist and believe in life after death.

However, most atheists of recent decades, at least, have disbelieved in it, out of lack of positive evidence and because of mind-body connection.

And even if there was an afterlife, it is not guaranteed that one would meet one's dead relatives and friends, or even one's dead pets.

For my part, the only afterlife I'd really care for is to become a ghost and watch future history, perhaps from a vantage point of some house that I like to haunt.

Definitely Maybe

Laurie, those were the lyrics to a song by the band XTC.