Dealing with Death, Part 2

A few months ago I wrote a post about Dealing with Death. It was inspired by another blog I had read that suggested not telling small children that there is an afterlife was tantamount to abuse, even if the parents are atheists or agnostics and do not believe heaven is a real place. I questioned whether heaven actually provided real comfort or not, suggesting that death is always incredibly painful, no matter your worldview. I also questioned whether heaven could be considered a healthy delusion, considering the fact that believing in heaven almost always means believe in hell, and there is no real way to be sure that your loved ones are suffering eternal torment. Now another negative aspect of belief in heaven has come to my attention: it can make it very difficult for grieving people to accept the loss of a loved one.

I was listening to the This American Life podcast today, and episode called “Return to the Scene of the Crime.” The last story was told by Daniel Savage, an author best known for his sex-advice column Savage Love. He shared a very emotional story about his upbringing as a young Catholic interested in the Priesthood who realized in high school that he was gay. Around the same time he also realized he did not believe in God. Despite the fact that his mother was a “good Catholic,” she embraced his sexuality and new worldview immediately and supported him in every possible way. When she died suddenly in Tuscon several years later during a visit to her sisters, Savage found himself drawn back to the old comforts of religious ritual and delusion in an unhealthy way. I’ll quote the last part of his narrative and let it speak for itself:

Being brought up in a faith built around a guy jumping out of his tomb, that makes it difficult to reconcile onesself to the permanence of death. Who knew? The afterlife – it’s cruel really, when you think about it – criminal – telling children that the people they love don’t die, that there’s some other life, some better place, a place without pulmonary fibrosis or Tuscon, Arizona. And maybe that lie is a comfort for some, but it’s made death more painful for me, not less, which is the opposite of religion’s intended effect, is it not? The voice of unreason in my head, the voice of nuns back at St. Ignatius says, “She lives! She is in heaven.” And the voice of reason, which sounds a lot like Christopher Hitchens, barks back, “No she doesn’t. She’s dead. Get over it already.” This inability to reconcile myself to death has not been good for me. I visit St. James like an addict drops by a crack house. For a fix. To deaden the pain by losing myself momentarily in the fantasy that she lives and that we will be together again…If I were the kind of person who could believe, I would believe. But I’m not that kind of person. Shit.