How do atheists cope with death?

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Nelka

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I’ve never been much of an animal lover but when we had our dog put down yesterday it was very sad and I do miss him and I know I will never see him again.

When a loved one dies it hurts more but there is some comfort in knowing that one day you will meet them in Heaven and that they are happy but to an atheist they must feel that they will never see their loved one again as they don’t believe in Heaven.

It will be heart breaking when my parents die but I will fee that they are happy and hopefully I will see them again if I behave but to an unbeliever it must be completely empty for them.

How do they cope?

Thanks.
 
I don’t know, but there is here’s common phrase:
eat, drink, and get married for tomorrow we die
 
Nelka said:
I’ve never been much of an animal lover but when we had our dog put down yesterday it was very sad and I do miss him and I know I will never see him again.

When a loved one dies it hurts more but there is some comfort in knowing that one day you will meet them in Heaven and that they are happy but to an atheist they must feel that they will never see their loved one again as they don’t believe in Heaven.

It will be heart breaking when my parents die but I will fee that they are happy and hopefully I will see them again if I behave but to an unbeliever it must be completely empty for them.

How do they cope?

Thanks.
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I once read a book by Doug Hofstadter (an atheist) in which he reflects on the death of his wife, whom he obviously loved very much. His “consolation” is that even if she is dead, she lives on as an “internal representation” in the minds of those whose lives she has touched (him, their children, their friends, etc.), and that this provides her with a limited sort of immortality.

Obviously, this is just one man’s vision, but it’s still interesting. 🙂
 
I had an atheist friend actually state he’d be glad when life was over and did not at all want life after death for he perceived it as a continuum of more suffering.

Mary.
 
Depends upon the atheist.

Some may be afraid, but the stock answer seems to be, for some, that “there is nothing to fear in death, as it is just a headful of darkness.”

ICXC NIKA
 
If death is indeed oblivion, we’ll never know it once we get there… Not much to fear, really.

As for not seeing anyone again… Again, once we die, we won’t know or miss anything…

This is assuming they are correct. I am an Orthodox Catholic, so of course I know better. But if I didn’t believe in the afterlife, there’s nothing it can do to bother you once you cease to exist… So it probably wouldn’t scare me all that much.
 
It is always sad when a loved one dies, How does anyone cope when a loved one dies? For example, suppose you are Catholic and you wife died unexpectedly in an auto accident after missing Mass on a Sunday and she did not get to confession before her death? Or suppose she was on the pill, since she did not want any more children. How would you cope with the possibility that she may have ended up in eternal hell fire, being punished horrifically for all eternity?
 
Tomdstone said:
It is always sad when a loved one dies, How does anyone cope when a loved one dies? For example, suppose you are Catholic and you wife died unexpectedly in an auto accident after missing Mass on a Sunday and she did not get to confession before her death? Or suppose she was on the pill, since she did not want any more children. How would you cope with the possibility that she may have ended up in eternal hell fire, being punished horrifically for all eternity?
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Hope that she did not meet the requirements of a mortal sin and in the mercy of God. I believe hope is the key factor here. There is at least some hope. An atheist could only place hope in the possibility that they are wrong. The Christian hopes that they are right I thinking the loved one can reach heaven.
 
This is something I worried about when I stopped believing in God. As it turns out, the amount of grief I feel when someone dies isn’t dissimilar from what I experienced back when I was a believer. This makes sense since whether or not you believe in an afterlife, the sadness is due to the loss of that person here and now.

Of course, believing that you will be reunited with them can be a great source of comfort, but it’s not the only thing that can do that, and it doesn’t work for everyone. Coping with death means finding comfort until you find a way to accept the loss and carry on, and people will find different thing comforting or distressing. I’ve seen belief in an afterlife become a source of additional grief as well, where a survivor fears that the deceased will not be in the same place as them for one reason or another.

Personally, I don’t find the thought of an afterlife to be at all likely, so I can’t find comfort in it, or even in hoping for it.
 
JD1789 said:
Hope that she did not meet the requirements of a mortal sin and in the mercy of God. I believe hope is the key factor here. There is at least some hope. An atheist could only place hope in the possibility that they are wrong and that there may be a pleasant afterlife. The Christian hopes that they are right I thinking the loved one can reach heaven.
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The atheist copes with the idea that there is no afterlife, but I suppose he could hope that he is wrong. The Catholic has to cope with the idea of eternal damnation in hell as a possibility. Also, Catholics have to cope with the fact of Purgatory and according to the following article, “there is no hunger, no thirst, no poverty, no need, no pain, no suffering to compare with what the Souls in Purgatory endure.” "the fire of
Purgatory is equal in intensity to the fire of Hell, and that the slightest
contact with it is more dreadful than all the possible sufferings of this
Earth! "
ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/READRUE.TXT
 
There are different conceptions of the afterlife even within Christianity (among different Protestant denominations, Quakerism, etc.) and within Judaism since, in this instance, the Hebrew Bible does not spell out the details. Hinduism believes in reincarnation, while Judaism does not necessarily rule out this possibility although it is for a different purpose. Whereas Christianity, in general, seems to depend on an afterlife as an integral part of its teaching, Judaism does not. Thus perhaps if one is raised Christian (broadly speaking), one puts more thought into the likelihood of an afterlife as well as the hope one is headed for heaven or purgatory rather than hell.

Apart from specific religious belief, there is also the issue of an individual’s personality when considering thoughts and feelings about the existence or non-existence of an afterlife. This is a big topic, but, just to take one example, a person who has a more extraverted personality may have less fear or concern about the afterlife compared to a person who is more introverted.
 
Tomdstone said:
It is always sad when a loved one dies, How does anyone cope when a loved one dies? For example, suppose you are Catholic and you wife died unexpectedly in an auto accident after missing Mass on a Sunday and she did not get to confession before her death? Or suppose she was on the pill, since she did not want any more children. How would you cope with the possibility that she may have ended up in eternal hell fire, being punished horrifically for all eternity?
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I think you oversimplify the judgment of God into something similar to the rules of Cricket. Jesus was never black and white in dealing with sinners. My greatest fear is that my wife, due to her constant care for me in my sickness and her love and charity for so many in her life will get to heaven and miss me dreadfully.
I really believe a lot of atheists have rationalised their eventual elimination as a natural consequence of the lack of purpose in our existence. All the best to them.
 
I lost my dear parents over 20 years ago. They weren’t Catholic or even church-goers, although they were open-minded and respectful about religion, sent me to a Church of England school and made sure I went to church all through my childhood.

When they died (within a couple of years of each other), it was a time when I wasn’t going to church myself, although I still (kind of) believed in God. I was desolate for a long time, simply because I loved them so much and I missed them every minute. I think it’s hard not to feel like that, even if you have a strong faith.

Now I believe I will see them again, as they were completely kind, loving and charitable people, who never put themselves first and always tried to do what was right and proper. I trust in God’s mercy and love.
 
Petaro said:
Jesus was never black and white in dealing with sinners.
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Matthew 25 says Jesus separates the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
 
Tomdstone said:
The atheist copes with the idea that there is no afterlife, but I suppose he could hope that he is wrong. The Catholic has to cope with the idea of eternal damnation in hell as a possibility. Also, Catholics have to cope with the fact of Purgatory and according to the following article, “there is no hunger, no thirst, no poverty, no need, no pain, no suffering to compare with what the Souls in Purgatory endure.” "the fire of
Purgatory is equal in intensity to the fire of Hell, and that the slightest
contact with it is more dreadful than all the possible sufferings of this
Earth! "
ewtn.com/library/SPIRIT/READRUE.TXT
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Why would anyone cope with a possibility? The Christian is not guranteed hell, the atheist is in their thinking. Since hell is the eternal separation from God, the atheist must cope with the reality. The Christian requires no coping because they have a reason to hope. If a loved one is receiving CPR, I have hope that they will recover, I don’t cope with the possibility of their death.

Yes purgatory requires suffering to enter heaven. Why would these be something that needs to be coped with? Jesus did suffer and die to allow for this enterance into heaven. Our sufferings here on earth already have meaning because of what we believe. That doesn’t change in purgatory. Now the atheist has no meaning to suffering. They must cope with the sufferings of their loved ones and their own sufferings without the hope that it somehow has meaning.
 
Tomdstone said:
It is always sad when a loved one dies, How does anyone cope when a loved one dies? For example, suppose you are Catholic and you wife died unexpectedly in an auto accident after missing Mass on a Sunday and she did not get to confession before her death? Or suppose she was on the pill, since she did not want any more children. How would you cope with the possibility that she may have ended up in eternal hell fire, being punished horrifically for all eternity?
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Theist wise, this eventually becomes a moot point in a sense…

The whole loving God first, when you attain that the issues of if a loved one is in hell are kind of irrelevant. You can one hope they are in heaven and two fully trust that if not it is the right thing. I really don’t know how to explain it but it is possibly logical my loved ones could be in hell which makes avoiding theology comforting. It us finding a love of God that makes it 10x more comforting

In atheistic days death if a loved one was the worst, they wre gone forever period… much grief.

Now the reason the grief is often the same is that people’s faith/love of God is not where it should be. I had never understood a true believer being sad… when someone good dies, it should be a celebration of their graduation to greatness. The onky sadness should be not being able to visit their way awesome new house.
 
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