Question about people who are no longer religious after the death of a loved one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lost both my parents when I was young. Religious people have told me that God called them home, that he has a bigger plan, that my strength from dealing with these losses is a gift. Bullshit. I needed my parents. So many people have both parents well into their lives. My children will never know their grandparents. Why would god do this to me? I was raised religious and both parents were religious until their deaths. I just don't believe anymore.

Under these circumstances, it's a lot easier to assume that there is no God than to try to figure out why a supposedly good god would be so obviously cruel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My faith has been tested by unimaginable trauma. What I believe now is a personal spirituality that is loosely based on the religion of my childhood (an Eastern religion), but is more accurately described as my own personal theology, which is how I understand the God and Existence. I don't require anyone else to share my beliefs, nor do I advertise my beliefs.

I am similar to you, though I describe my experience a bit differently. I had many experiences as a child and teenager that tested my faith in the (also Eastern) religion in which I was raised, but they did not shake it. In fact, I even remember speaking about this once in a class when discussing religion, and I said difficult experiences made my faith stronger. I felt I was being given challenges which made me a stronger and better person. But ultimately, I experienced a trauma that I simply could not reconcile with a belief in God as I had understood it in the past. Or, more accurately, the only way to reconcile it was to believe that I was such a horrible person deserving of what happened to me that I couldn't go on living.

For a while I was more agnostic in my beliefs, but also felt quite wayward. I then undertook a period of spiritual curiosity, if you will, attending religious services with friends and talking to them about their own faith. Ultimately, I've found myself in a place where I am in no way religious, but I ascribe to my own personal spirituality.

It works for me, though I'm coming upon the time when I will have to discuss it with my kids. And that's going to be a bit more confusing. I was not raised in the same religion as my openly agnostic DH, and my family is much more religious than his. We are both comfortable with having my parents expose our kids to their religion, but we will ultimately have to answer more explicit questions. I guess we'll cross the bridge when we come to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lost both my parents when I was young. Religious people have told me that God called them home, that he has a bigger plan, that my strength from dealing with these losses is a gift. Bullshit. I needed my parents. So many people have both parents well into their lives. My children will never know their grandparents. Why would god do this to me? I was raised religious and both parents were religious until their deaths. I just don't believe anymore.

Under these circumstances, it's a lot easier to assume that there is no God than to try to figure out why a supposedly good god would be so obviously cruel.

I'm 1:13, and I understand this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lost both my parents when I was young. Religious people have told me that God called them home, that he has a bigger plan, that my strength from dealing with these losses is a gift. Bullshit. I needed my parents. So many people have both parents well into their lives. My children will never know their grandparents. Why would god do this to me? I was raised religious and both parents were religious until their deaths. I just don't believe anymore.

Under these circumstances, it's a lot easier to assume that there is no God than to try to figure out why a supposedly good god would be so obviously cruel.

I think there are roughly 3 paths:
- still believing god is good and benevolent, but we can't understand their reasons
- god is a a pretty vengeful, angry, and powerful god that we let down, and thus terrible things happen (most religions pre organized religion tended toward this idea)
- we're all dust in the wind, there are no gods, and stuff just happens because that's life and those are our cards

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lost both my parents when I was young. Religious people have told me that God called them home, that he has a bigger plan, that my strength from dealing with these losses is a gift. Bullshit. I needed my parents. So many people have both parents well into their lives. My children will never know their grandparents. Why would god do this to me? I was raised religious and both parents were religious until their deaths. I just don't believe anymore.

Under these circumstances, it's a lot easier to assume that there is no God than to try to figure out why a supposedly good god would be so obviously cruel.

I think there are roughly 3 paths:
- still believing god is good and benevolent, but we can't understand their reasons
- god is a a pretty vengeful, angry, and powerful god that we let down, and thus terrible things happen (most religions pre organized religion tended toward this idea)
- we're all dust in the wind, there are no gods, and stuff just happens because that's life and those are our cards

I'd add a fourth, which is sort of a combination of one and two above: God is both benevolent and vengeful, wielding power of good and evil, depending on our actions and his mood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:35 poster here. Those types of sayings are what I was referring to in my last sentence. God didn't need my father in heaven, we need him here on earth. God will presumably have him for eternity. My children have no Grandfather, and don't even really remember him. He did not want to die, and was heartbroken that he would not live to see long enough for his grandchildren to know him. God didn't" open another door," and no good came from my father's death.

This was the last straw for me too. Except it was my child, not my father. How someone can tell a grieving mother that god needed another angel more than I needed my child is beyond my comprehension. By the third time I heard it I was seeing red. It was as much the lack of sensitivity of people speaking to me in god's name as it was the concept that god would allow my child to die/cause my child's death that made me want to wash my hands of religion. I couldn't imagine being part of a group that would use words like that to cause such pain and then defend those words when asked to be more compassionate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My faith has been tested by unimaginable trauma. What I believe now is a personal spirituality that is loosely based on the religion of my childhood (an Eastern religion), but is more accurately described as my own personal theology, which is how I understand the God and Existence. I don't require anyone else to share my beliefs, nor do I advertise my beliefs.

I am similar to you, though I describe my experience a bit differently. I had many experiences as a child and teenager that tested my faith in the (also Eastern) religion in which I was raised, but they did not shake it. In fact, I even remember speaking about this once in a class when discussing religion, and I said difficult experiences made my faith stronger. I felt I was being given challenges which made me a stronger and better person. But ultimately, I experienced a trauma that I simply could not reconcile with a belief in God as I had understood it in the past. Or, more accurately, the only way to reconcile it was to believe that I was such a horrible person deserving of what happened to me that I couldn't go on living.

For a while I was more agnostic in my beliefs, but also felt quite wayward. I then undertook a period of spiritual curiosity, if you will, attending religious services with friends and talking to them about their own faith. Ultimately, I've found myself in a place where I am in no way religious, but I ascribe to my own personal spirituality.

It works for me, though I'm coming upon the time when I will have to discuss it with my kids. And that's going to be a bit more confusing. I was not raised in the same religion as my openly agnostic DH, and my family is much more religious than his. We are both comfortable with having my parents expose our kids to their religion, but we will ultimately have to answer more explicit questions. I guess we'll cross the bridge when we come to it.

PP you're responding to here. Thank you for your beautiful story. I think you and your DH are doing a fantastic job and really, ultimately the realities of everyday stressors make it difficult to do more than this (for spiritual exploration). I'm sure your kids will do just fine, whether they have belief or don't.

[Anonymous]

Is this really so hard to understand? I think most people spend most of their lives in some shade of denial about mortality. And even most of us who have lost someone don't spend much time dealing with death and disease. I work in an office. I like it, and it is refreshingly sterile and devoid of reminders of our mortality. Unless you are an oncologist or combat infantry or hospice nurse or something, most people don't spend their days elbow-deep in the shit, piss, blood, and awful pain of end of life. The horror of that experience is kept at a distance, even though we know it exists. And it is horrifying when you find yourself in it - up close and personal - when it is your friend or mom or child screaming in pain or confusion. A once comforting scripture seems vain or insulting doggerel in response to your loved one slowly being eaten alive by cancer and chemo. And even those with a more logically grounded belief system find it cannot stand up to the sheer horror. That you knew death would happen eventually is not sufficient safeguard for one's belief system confronted with a painful, messy, flesh-and-bone-and-blood-and-shit-and-piss end. 14yo me found great solace and meaning in faith when my elderly granma passed away and my mom had a nervous breakdown. Faith is now, instead, something to be grappled with as my 30yo friend (with 2 small kids) wastes away from pancreatic cancer. And if it were my child who died like that? Faith would almost be beside the point; I would be insane. it has been a long time since I lost anyone close to me, but it is not hard to imagine how it strikes me differently now than it did 20 years ago.

-Christian/doubting Thomas of sorts

[Anonymous]

Just a general comment -- I think this thread has brought out same fascinating personal responses.

Thanks to OP for starting it and to all those who have shared their thoughts and experiences here.

[Anonymous]

Really interesting conversation. I think it's the combination between the personal tragedy, and religion offering you no support during the tragedy. It may be that religious people let you down, or that your type of faith itself was never actually the kind that would support you during a tragedy. After that, religion seems essentially pointless.

I never really thought of it that way, but that kind of describes how I ended up as an atheist. I was a cradle catholic, mother died a horrible protracted death when I was 12. No actual support from any adults in my life -- the only ones who did support the kids emotionally were not religious, and were pushed away from us for that reason. So I saw the hypocrisy or futility of religion from a young age, coupled with tragedy, and ever since then religious has had no point for me.

[Anonymous]

My mom died a terrible death from cancer. She did so much good in this world. I bet there are even a few people on this board whose lives she touched. She was the most kind and selfless person in the world. She wasn't super religious but she was observant. I don't understand why she got sick and suffered, while there are people all around me who are selfish, narcissistic, immoral and still here. There are people who don't attend church, temple, etc and they live well into old age. It just makes no sense.

I also question why there is so much suffering all around the world.

I accept death as part of life but I don't understand all the suffering innocent people endure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom died a terrible death from cancer. She did so much good in this world. I bet there are even a few people on this board whose lives she touched. She was the most kind and selfless person in the world. She wasn't super religious but she was observant. I don't understand why she got sick and suffered, while there are people all around me who are selfish, narcissistic, immoral and still here. There are people who don't attend church, temple, etc and they live well into old age. It just makes no sense.

I also question why there is so much suffering all around the world.

I accept death as part of life but I don't understand all the suffering innocent people endure.

Consider that it's because life is random. THere's no supernatural being rewarding the good people and punishing the bad ones

[Anonymous]

I lost my mom in my early 20s. I went to church a lot before then and then moved away for a while after. I don't know, it wasn't that I lost faith in God, but more than Church stopped offering comfort and became somewhat painful. I felt like it reminded me so much of my mom and her death. She sang in the choir, so each time the Church sang one of the songs she loved, it was painful. I spent a lot of time in Church prior to her death and it was just really linked to her and my memories of that time. Now, 10 years and 2 kids later I have finally made the move back into a regular church goer.

[Anonymous]

The posts about peoples' grief and spiritual journeys are moving. BUT, the point of the OP, I believe, was why does it take a personal experience of senseless tragedy before people face the existence of senseless tragedy? It's a sad comment on humanity that anyone could get to the age of 18 without realizing that babies die, people die of painful cancers at young ages, and millions of innocent people have died senselessly in the Holocaust and wars and plenty of other horrific events. Prior to your own parents dying did you not realize this? Did you think people deserved this suffering? It reminds me of politicians who say "I have daughters" to explain their opposition to rape or sexual assault. Would you not give a shit about rape if you had sons? If people were able to have more empathy just based on being human we would all be so much better off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lost both my parents when I was young. Religious people have told me that God called them home, that he has a bigger plan, that my strength from dealing with these losses is a gift. Bullshit. I needed my parents. So many people have both parents well into their lives. My children will never know their grandparents. Why would god do this to me? I was raised religious and both parents were religious until their deaths. I just don't believe anymore.

You projecting a perfect picture of what your life would be if your parents were alive. How do you know if the grandfather would not abuse your child sexually? How do you know that your parents would not get divorced and you had a bigger trauma? You don't.