Posted by Jason on: 10.27.2008 /
I’m quite a practical person. I don’t just mean physically in the way I implement plans or use my skills. I don’t even mean intellectually in the way I come up with ideas or see solutions to problems. I also mean emotionally. If there is something that has the potential to hurt me I distance myself from it. I do this without any real conscious effort although I am aware of separating myself from the situation.
As an example my father in law died a few months ago. He was in his late eighties and had been ill for…well…ever since I’d known him. For fifteen years he’d say “Don’t get me anything for Christmas, I won’t get the use out of it”, till it became something of a joke. When he became very sick and went into hospital I volunteered to look after the kids and I offered support to Hil and the other family members. In the back of my mind I was aware that by being supportive I could come to terms with his impending death in advance of it happening.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, it’s just one aspect of my personality. Some people see me coping well with bad news like a death in the family and admire how well I cope. Others see the same thing as me being heartless. Not that I’m particularly concerned about how my behaviour is seen by others, only on how I see it.
This defence mechanism works in other aspects of my life too. I might distance myself from a lover when a relationship starts to turn sour. I might put aside a work friendship when the other person’s standard of work starts to slip and I might have to discipline them. I think that we all act like that to some degree to keep ourselves safe from emotional turmoil and pain.
That still leaves us open to the unexpected. On Thursday we had an unexpected death at work. One of our local field agents, Richard, died suddenly. It was probably a heart attack but he was barely 60 and in reasonable health. He was popular with managers and general staff alike so it’s no surprise that people were naturally upset.
Inevitably a few trotted out the same old platitudes. He was in a better place now, he was free from pain, he was with his loved ones who passed before, etc. Normally I’d bristle at this sort of dismissal of grief as part of some divine plan. It irritates me that some people can sound so sure of an afterlife with no evidence to support it. It irritates me that some people feel it necessary to transfer their own opinions and religious beliefs onto those who are grieving.
I prefer either to remain silent or to recall for others some happy time in the life of the deceased. To take joy in a happy memory can relieve the tension of mourning and allow the pain to find an outlet. That’s just me though. Some people, I’m sure, find comfort in the idea of heaven. I simply find this to be false. My way offers no such comfort, false or otherwise, and so may be less effective. Nor does it refute the beliefs of any who do find comfort in an afterlife. I think that pointing out the possible, even probably, falsehood of their beliefs in the face of emotional pain would be the height of crassness and extremely hurtful.
My preference is to concentrate on the living and to remember the things about a person who dies that give us pleasure. For me a fond memory is better than a belief, whether true or not, and honesty is better than false hope.
Comment by: joe
1Seems fair enough to me Jason. I read and hear all kinds of rubbish from different people all the time and it makes no sense to try to refute them constantly.
That said, I don’t think it is true to say that the hope of heaven is a dismissal of grief. Grief is a powerful emotion, something that can totally paralyse a person. To rationalise that death is not the end is not to dismiss grief, but to attempt to put it in some kind of context. Which of course sounds a bit silly if death really is the end, but I’m not sure how we would cope as humans if we didn’t do this kind of thing. But then, that appears to be what you’re concluding here anyway.
It seems to me that someone putting his trust (and responsibility for things like death and the afterlife) onto a higher being is going to have some level of emotional stability greater than the atheist for whom there is no explanation or other person to hold accountable.
In a similar (OK not really) way, I was thinking about the problem of pain the other day - and how some people might use the issue of pain as a reason against their being a deity. But if I rationalise away God (by saying that if there was a God he wouldn’t allow all the crap in the world to continue, and it does so there isn’t) then I am left holding the baby. We have the knowledge, the money and the expertise to eradicate many of the causes of great pain and disease yet we don’t. How would I function if I was constantly aware of my own contribution to and responsibility for the pain others experience?
I appreciate that is a bit of a backwards way of thinking, but I found it a useful thought process.
Comment by: Jason
2Joe said:
I don’t believe that it is rationalising. I believe it is allowing our wishes and emotions to supplant our rational side. That’s fine in the short or temporary term because we all have coping mechanisms to help us function when we deal with grief. The fact is that we have no way of knowing what happens to us (if anything) when we die. We know what happens to our biology because we can witness that. We know that our thoughts, our intellect, our feelings are housed in the physical brain and that this rots with the rest of us. What happens to the energy that makes up our thoughts is anybody’s guess. Basic physics would seem to indicate that the energy is released and dispersed into the world as any other sort of energy would be.
Funny you should say that because the opposite is true for me. Someone able to accept the inevitability of death and the end of existence strikes me as much more emotionally stable than someone who defers that to a third party. Each to his own though.
By acting in such a way as to minimise the pain we cause and maximise the happiness. How would you function if you believed that some, apparently benevolent, being willfully inflicts pain and suffering on others as part of some plan? No, pain and suffering are something that we experience as part of being human and something that we must deal with ourselves. Belief in God or gods might help or hinder that but it is still a human problem.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
3Jason I like your approach of saying something positive, relevant and meaningful rather than trying to argue with people. I find that rarely works and especially not at a time when people are likely to be too emotional to be willing to argue in a rational way anyway.
I know it’s irritating when people seem to be assuming stating platitudes based on their beliefs will comfort you - I try to remember their motive: to say something comforting. They mean well even though their actual words are irritating rather than helpful to you.
Joe wrote:
Not necessarily; the key step is the final stage of grief i.e. acceptance, which means, accepting what is, according to one’s belief system. Christians need to accept God’s will in letting the person die. Atheists need to accept that this person no longer exists. I think it can be harder for Christians to reach emotional stability i.e. acceptance because they believe Someone allowed this to happen. That can be harder to accept than that it was a senseless/random accident.
I don’t understand how the existence of God makes you less responsible, if you have the means to help? Why does God’s existence make you less aware of your own contribution and responsibility for the pain others suffer?
Comment by: joe
4Hi guys, thanks for engaging even when it sounded like I was talking total crap.
Jason said:
Sure, that makes sense on one level. But on another level, there is a very deep part of me that is more than the biological stuff I am made of, to whom death is offensive. I might get upset if my car dies or a family pet is put down, but that doesn’t come close to the offense I feel at my own imminent demise.
Well, again that is another way of looking at it. When you and I have relatively meaningful and happy lives I guess it is possible to become fairly resigned to death after a reasonable innings. For most people in the world, life is total shite and for me mental stability is associated with a belief that they get a better go somewhere else.
Helen said
Well, I know we’re talking generalities, but my experience is that Christians are better at coping with grief than others. Maybe that is just the people I know.
Well because I actually believe that humans are broken. As a humanist I’d presumably have my faith in human ingenuity. Unfortunately it seems to me that the facts get in the way of believing in human improvement - we totally screw things up most of the time. As a Christian I can accept that corporately and individually we are screwed up people and that any positive stuff is more good fortune than anything else. And to me the teaching of the atonement is that God takes away the blame attached to our actions and inactions - which is not to say we are no longer responsible, but gives us a chance to stare hard into the mirror, accept the stuff we have done and take steps to put things right, trusting that the problem is now God’s and not solely ours. Again, I appreciate that might sound totally ridiculous, but it is something that enables me to sleep at night. Otherwise, I cannot justify my own existence.
Comment by: Jason
5Helen said:
Urgh, can you imagine anything worse than someone trying to smash through your grief to prove a point.
Indeed, the ’saving grace’ of delivering these views to comfort others is that it can be helpful, especially among those who share the belief system. In a world that is growing in complexity with multiple nationalities, ethnic groups, religious views and opinions all sharing the same space it isn’t so safe to assume that the person you are comforting shares your views. That is one reason why I aim for a positive and unchallenging method of support.
It is the wrong time to challenge a belief when someone is holding on to that belief for support. At least it would be wrong for me, I know of some people who consider it an ideal opportunity to try to convert someone. Much to their shame these conversion attempts during times of vulnerability tend to be among the religious. Atheism doesn’t have the prospect of seeing a dead relative alive again to offer.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
6Joe wrote:
The will to live is about the deepest instinct we have - speaking for myself, I can’t say for sure that there’s more to death being offensive than that. I respect that you believe otherwise.
I understand what you’re saying and it seems totally unfair if they don’t. But I have no proof that they do.
In theory I think grieving is more complicated with God in the picture because there’s someone to blame and wonder why he allowed things to happen the way they did instead of bringing about a more favorable outcome.
In practice though, my experience is that some Christians and people who aren’t Christians are better at dealing with grief than some other Christians and people who aren’t Christians. I haven’t seen Christians being worse or better than other people in general at handling grief.
It sounds like what you are saying is, your faith gives you hope. Hope you can’t imagine being able to have if you didn’t have faith.
I’m not able to find hope that way - I can’t just ‘make myself believe’ in order to have hope. But again I think the issue is acceptance - somehow we need to accept how life is in order to go on living and not be in despair. When I began to question my faith, one of the main reasons I started reading an atheist discussion board was to see how atheists got through the day without being in despair all the time.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7Jason wrote:
I appreciate your awareness/sensitivity that others don’t share your views and I wish more people had that awareness/sensitivity.
I agree that it’s inappropriate. I think many Christians would agree too. I would say the best way to share your faith with a grieving person is to be there for them in practical and emotional ways, so they see your faith leads you to behave in helpful ways like that. And when they’re up to feeling curious they might want to know more about the faith which inspires such great behavior.
Comment by: Defence Mechanism | All Reason
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