Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Atheism and Death

One of the hardest things for anyone who does not believe in an afterlife, is to console someone who is bereaved.  What are we to tell them?

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God has called your loved one, to be with him?

He's in a better place now?

We'll all meet together in some happy place someday?

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The best we can do is to listen to them; identify with their grief, and suffer with them; show them our love for them; offer to help with their duties, if possible.  Recently bereaved find relief in talking about the dead one, so listening is important.  But other than helping in practical ways, I wouldn't know where to go to get spiritual help.

There have been atheists among us for millennia.  Many of our greatest thinkers have been closet atheists.  But when they meditated upon death, they often used Christian--or theistic, anyway-- imagery: an immortal soul, and a hall of heroes.

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