finding solace without faith

LegacyUser

Hi all, am a regular poster but going anon for this. I'm just wondering if other people are having a similar experience to me or have had. I used to have a strong faith and believed in heaven and God etc and that we'd all meet again but in the last 4 years I slowly lost my faith. My Dad died a couple of months ago and I find that alot of irish people still have a firm believe in heaven and that their loved ones are ''looking down on them'' even people who don't go to mass etc, they still have this strong belief. I was talking to a woman at the weekend who had lost her mother years ago, she was saying that her sister got pregnant shortly afterwards and had a boy, let's call him John. She said ''The way we see it is that Mam sent John to her'' she said to me ''you have to look at things like that to cope and get through it'' and I was thinking (although of course I didn't say it!) em...no it's just a coincidence your sister happened to get pregnant after your Mam died.
I find it hard when people say stuff like that coz I can't find that kind of solace. I'm not 100% sure about what happens to people after they die of course, as none of us know. But in my heart of hearts do I think I'll ever meet my Dad again? No.
Do I think he's somewhere looking down on me and able to influence my life and ''see'' me? No.
I wouldn't share these thoughts with my family as some of them do believe this and it's helping them, and I'd do anything to lessen my sibling's pain, I certainly wouldn't add to it by questioning their faith or beliefs if it's helping them. I'm kind of jealous of people that believe these things actually, as it seems to be what gets people over this kind of loss.

So my question - to those who like me, don't believe that stuff, is in the absence of thinking we'll meet them again or that they're looking over us, how do we get over it?

mud

Grief is so different from person to person, faithful or faithless. I found a website called: "Grief Beyond Belief" to be most helpful.

This is the website http://www.griefbeyondbelief.org/

I actually found them through FB. Their page is a comforting and safe space.

All the best and I hope you can make some sense of it all.

NIMAN

I'd be a bit like you OP, as I consider myself agnostic.

I would love to think I will be reunited with my family in some magical afterlife, but I simply don't believe that's going to happen. Again I would never say this to my family as I wouldn't want to annoy any of them, and I know that a few of them do have a faith. I too have said those lines "sure they are looking down on you now", or "thats so and so who sent them along to help you", but I don't believe it. Sometimes you have to say whats needed at a specific time.

I miss my Dad since he died. I would love to have him around or see him again, but he's gone and you ask how do you accept that or get over it? Well you simply have to? What else would you do? No point wallowing in self-pity and thinking your own life has no meaning and there's no point going on. Since he has died I have become a father myself. That's the circle of life I guess, and some day I will only be a memory, my kids will be old with their own kids and grandkids who I will never meet or know.....

I hope I'm wrong of course!

farmchoice

ya I'm the same, no belief in any sort of afterlife. we had a very sudden and heartbreaking loss very recently, some of my family are quite religious and have a strong belief in an afterlife.
as far as i can see their grief is much the same as mine really, while they say they will meet again and that our lost love is looking down on us it doesn't seem to ease the pain much now, they are heartbroken and distraught with grief, same as me.

maybe in time it will stand to them and give them something that i wont have but for now it seems to be all the same, the loss is the same, the absence is the same the finality is the same.

A.Partridge

Hi Op,

What you have written in your opening post is almost word-for-word how I feel about life and the after-life.

I too had a strong faith when I was younger but this has now changed. Btw, it hasn't changed because of any negative reason (e.g. clerical abuse etc) but rather it is just because I have changed as a person in how I view things.

Like NIMAN, I suppose I am agnostic. While it would be nice to know if there is something out there after we die it just seems to me that the likelihood that I will ever meet my parents or other relatives and friends is, well, non-existant. I feel that this life is the only one we are going to have. We are no different from any other animal in creation. We are not special or set-apart from any other creature or organism. Although that is no bad thing.

While this realisation has been gradual I confess that at first I found the idea to be uncomfortable, but now I feel more at peace with my place in the cycle of the universe. I don't have any axe to grind with those who have faith in a divine being and would never criticise anyone for believing or feeling the need to believe. I think in time that you will also reach that position in your mind and heart and when you do you will be filled with peace.

Best to you,
A.P.