Thread: Why does a positive view of the afterlife not seem to prevent deep grief?

Interesting question, Steph... though I hope you haven't already asked and answered it in your OP!

In my experience (I'm old and come from a very large extended family -- mostly Catholic, but also including a good brushing of other religions, and no religion at all -- have been to a substantial number of funerals, and have personally endured -- and seen endured -- the loss of many close friends and relatives), I've found that true believers, folks who hold their beliefs in their hearts rather than on their sleeves, actually do tend to have very short periods of grieving.

Yes, the things you already talked about, like survival instinct and personal loss, are certainly immediately present, and grieving can be profound, but people who hold deep faith in an afterlife tend to become, well, comfortable, in the loss of their loved ones. True believers really do come around pretty quickly to the confident understanding that their loss was the deceased person's gain, and they will indeed be with them again in person one day, and can communicate to them through prayer during that wait. Yes, those instincts and sense of personal loss will well up on occasion for years (or life), but they are quickly salved by that confidence.

The only exception I've seen in this is a parent's loss of a young child, to which there is no recovery.

tl;dr: In my experience, a positive view of the afterlife does seem to prevent deep grief, at least after the initial shock wears off.

Ah - the thought struck me, I've been editing something in to that effect, Sageous!
There we go - it might be something evolutionarily useful in religion, and I got it completely wrong.
Weell. I guess I did, meanwhile.

Right - like healthy optimism in general - afterlife does qualify. But as by my example - if the only expected afterlife-variant is a positive one*, then there are going to be parties.
Just saying...

Edit: *not sophisticated enough for a religion to hold power for thousands of years, though.
Steph off for now - watching House of Cards...

Originally Posted by StephL

Right - like healthy optimism in general - afterlife does qualify. But as by my example - if the only expected afterlife-variant is a positive one*, then there are going to be parties.

There already are... ever been to, or read about, an Irish funeral?

I think there may be a small corollary to your edits, Steph: I've never noticed much grief among true-believers over the death of a person of acknowledged or generally perceived evil. Suicides too, for some reason (probably a mix of anger or inevitability). I think that there is usually no question among true believers that their loved ones are going to heaven, or will have an afterlife.

Also, for what its worth, aside from the fundamentalists (who, ironically, I do not include with true believers), there really doesn't seem to be much concern about "going to hell" these days among actual believers -- if there ever was. But I don't think true-believers really put much energy into grieving bad people, or rather people they have judged as bad people.

Grieving isn't something people have conscious control over. Even if they literally believe the deceased is in a better place where they'll one day meet again, they still suffer the emotional loss of separation from a person who has been tightly woven into their life for many years or decades.

Try putting yourself in their shoes so to speak - imagine your husband moves to another country where you'll be joining him in a year - would you be overjoyed or still feel the emotional loss, even knowing the separation is temporary?

Just because you say you believe in a religion doesn't mean you really believe it. I think people almost instinctually know that when a person dies, that they will probably never see them again. So even though they believe a religion they know deep down that the person is gone.

Respectfully, this makes little sense. How can you say that when no one really knows what comes next? Of course there are beliefs, but no one has a certain fact about it. The person that died is obviously gone from this "realm", but since we have no other consciousness except for that of this 3 Dimensional plane, of course we would expect not to see them again because we have no idea at all. Your view seems like that of a pessimistic one, saying that just because we don't know, means that we should automatically never expect to see them again.
Also, as a former devout Christian, (I still do believe in God, but I dont practice anything) I can tell you from experience that even when someone in my family died, I knew for sure deep down that they went somewhere, whether it be Heaven or Hell. So I think your last statement isn't really valid at all, it seems more biased to your general opinion about the afterlife all together.

Given the size of the universe, even if you did go some where when you died, the chances of meeting a person you seen before seems pretty slim. Unless you believe in a spirit and think that spirit is effected by gravity and remains on earth or near earth, how are you going to find another person? It seems odd to think that everyone on earth who dies goes to the same reception area in a tiny little afterlife.

The universe has a radius of 46 billion light years, why would you think we would all end up in an afterlife that is the size of earth? Even if the afterlife was the size of earth, you could travel earth for a long time and never run into another specific person. Even if everyone who ever lived on earth ended up in the same afterlife that was the size of earth, there would be billions and billions of people, it would be insanely difficult to find a specific person with those numbers involved.

If a person moves across country to live some place else, there is a a chance you might never see that person ever again. So why would you think that you are going to easily meet up with someone who died?

Seems pretty reasonable to me to think that you are not very likely to meet a person who has died.

Originally Posted by Alric

Given the size of the universe, even if you did go some where when you died, the chances of meeting a person you seen before seems pretty slim. Unless you believe in a spirit and think that spirit is effected by gravity and remains on earth or near earth, how are you going to find another person? It seems odd to think that everyone on earth who dies goes to the same reception area in a tiny little afterlife.

The universe has a radius of 46 billion light years, why would you think we would all end up in an afterlife that is the size of earth? Even if the afterlife was the size of earth, you could travel earth for a long time and never run into another specific person. Even if everyone who ever lived on earth ended up in the same afterlife that was the size of earth, there would be billions and billions of people, it would be insanely difficult to find a specific person with those numbers involved.

If a person moves across country to live some place else, there is a a chance you might never see that person ever again. So why would you think that you are going to easily meet up with someone who died?

Seems pretty reasonable to me to think that you are not very likely to meet a person who has died.

But again, you don't have any facts on the after life. Who's to say we aren't limitless there? So traveling distances could be done in the blink of an eye, and we could even all be connected in some way or fashion. None of us know what abilities we will have once we get over there, so it doesn't seem reasonable to speculate much at all on this subject unless you somehow went into the after life realm and came back. I really don't think factors such as distance would matter there though, why would we be bound by the same things we are on Earth? Things have to make sense here because of the fact that this plane is governed by laws.

Originally Posted by Sageous

There already are... ever been to, or read about, an Irish funeral?

I think there may be a small corollary to your edits, Steph: I've never noticed much grief among true-believers over the death of a person of acknowledged or generally perceived evil. Suicides too, for some reason (probably a mix of anger or inevitability). I think that there is usually no question among true believers that their loved ones are going to heaven, or will have an afterlife.

Also, for what its worth, aside from the fundamentalists (who, ironically, I do not include with true believers), there really doesn't seem to be much concern about "going to hell" these days among actual believers -- if there ever was. But I don't think true-believers really put much energy into grieving bad people, or rather people they have judged as bad people.

Really? Irish funerals are like this? Catholic ones I suppose - I find that nice, I really do, and unexpected.
Not so often I make a 180° turnaround in a discussion, but I guess, I'm quite convinced, that deeply religious people can indeed draw on this solace, and also thus grieve less.
But I still think, there are moments in people's minds, where they do find a dissonance as well, where they come to reconsider how deeply rooted and sincere their belief in the afterlife actually is.
And - sorry to hear, you had so much first-hand experience with losing people. I'm pretty "lucky" there, my grandmother died, but she's been suffering so much in the end, that I've actually really been thinking of it as salvation from pain and isolation. A stroke made her incommunicado on top of many other ailments, I imagine this to be horrible...

Originally Posted by Alric

Given the size of the universe, even if you did go some where when you died, the chances of meeting a person you seen before seems pretty slim. Unless you believe in a spirit and think that spirit is effected by gravity and remains on earth or near earth, how are you going to find another person? It seems odd to think that everyone on earth who dies goes to the same reception area in a tiny little afterlife.

The universe has a radius of 46 billion light years, why would you think we would all end up in an afterlife that is the size of earth? Even if the afterlife was the size of earth, you could travel earth for a long time and never run into another specific person. Even if everyone who ever lived on earth ended up in the same afterlife that was the size of earth, there would be billions and billions of people, it would be insanely difficult to find a specific person with those numbers involved.

If a person moves across country to live some place else, there is a a chance you might never see that person ever again. So why would you think that you are going to easily meet up with someone who died?

Seems pretty reasonable to me to think that you are not very likely to meet a person who has died.

Not quite. It's so exotic - in my eyes at least - to believe in an afterlife at all, you can just as well go on and expect special powers at work, enabling you to find your deceased loved ones and other miraculous things. Soul-radio, what have you...

Originally Posted by OneUp

But again, you don't have any facts on the after life. Who's to say we aren't limitless there? So traveling distances could be done in the blink of an eye, and we could even all be connected in some way or fashion. None of us know what abilities we will have once we get over there, so it doesn't seem reasonable to speculate much at all on this subject unless you somehow went into the after life realm and came back. I really don't think factors such as distance would matter there though, why would we be bound by the same things we are on Earth? Things have to make sense here because of the fact that this plane is governed by laws.

Even while I absolutely don't believe in an afterlife - this argumentation makes sense to me.
Assuming there is such a thing, I guess all bets are off.

You can make up any crazy superpowers you want and say we might get them in the afterlife. That doesn't mean it is true. I am not saying what is a fact, I am saying what is likely. If there is an afterlife and it isn't logical or bound by physics or anything, then there is no point in even really thinking about it because it could be anything.

However, what ever is left of "you" is probably not going to be you anymore. If logic and physics no longer applies then all your human thought patterns and memories, created in your brain may not even exist. So even if some part of you went to this strange chaotic world when you die, it probably wouldn't be you.

It would be like if someone killed you then cut off your hand, then carried it around with them. Then they said that you are still with them. Yeah, technically your hand is a part of you and you are with them, but not in a meaningful sense since you would be totally incapable of thinking and are dead, and just a hand.

^^ Isn't this thread about the way people who believe in an afterlife react to death, and not about the actual existence of an afterlife? They seem to me to be two very different things...

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Isn't this thread about the way people who believe in an afterlife react to death, and not about the actual existence of an afterlife? They seem to me to be two very different things...

Well my point was that no matter how much you believe in the afterlife, all those factors I listed are going to still nag at you. There is always going to be some level of doubt that you will never see the person ever again.

It depends on the person and the people who have died. I personally feel nothing when I am at funerals, but none of the people that matter to me have died yet. When they do, I imagine I might be sad at first, but shortly afterward I will feel like I should celebrate the life they had and the memories we created, and give them a good good-bye. I might even skip the sad part, because of what I think I believe about death, and even if I am wrong, I was still happy I got to experience what I did with them. It really depends on your perspective.

edit: That being said, I don't fear my own death and really look forward to it. Either I am going to wink out of existence and not be able to regret the fact I was wrong about what I believe or I will be right or at least quasi-right and then it won;t matter. Life to me is a meaningful game to be played, and I feel like I should make the most of it. In short, death does not bring me grief, but joy for what was.

Well my point was that no matter how much you believe in the afterlife, all those factors I listed are going to still nag at you. There is always going to be some level of doubt that you will never see the person ever again.

Oh. Okay.

From my experience, true believers don't have a lot of nagging going on.

Doubt is a fairly foreign experience for them, and one that is quickly cleansed by an almost innate confidence in what they hold as true (and have held as true since very early childhood, which is important here). That confidence washes over thoughts about the things you listed, rinsing them away, as it did the unavoidable initial grief. A rinse of happy delusion, maybe, but still a rinse. And yes, moments of grief will recur pretty much for life, but they too will be brief, thanks to the believer's confidence that their loss is only temporary (or even that their loved one is still with them).

In other words: No, I don't think that people who have true faith in an afterlife spend much time ruminating about the possibility of its non-existence, and if they do, those thoughts pass quickly...as does their deeper grief.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Oh. Okay.

From my experience, true believers don't have a lot of nagging going on.

Doubt is a fairly foreign experience for them, and one that is quickly cleansed by an almost innate confidence in what they hold as true (and have held as true since very early childhood, which is important here). That confidence washes over thoughts about the things you listed, rinsing them away, as it did the unavoidable initial grief. A rinse of happy delusion, maybe, but still a rinse. And yes, moments of grief will recur pretty much for life, but they too will be brief, thanks to the believer's confidence that their loss is only temporary (or even that their loved one is still with them).

In other words: No, I don't think that people who have true faith in an afterlife spend much time ruminating about the possibility of its non-existence, and if they do, those thoughts pass quickly...as does their deeper grief.

I agree with that for the most part. In their daily life their confidence is probably absolute and they give it little to no thought. However, when a loved one suddenly dies you slam in the brick wall of reality, and you start thinking about things you may not usually think about. This is especially true if the death was unexpected in nature.

In time, everyone is going to accept the loss and move on, and faith may help you in the moving on part. However, in that time right after the loss when grief is at it's highest, it is hard to just shrug off a death and say "Well they are better off."

^^ Yes, that initial moment of grief and loss is unavoidable, but people of deep faith in an afterlife almost immediately embrace the understanding that their loved one is "In a better place." Remember that this faith is not an affectation, but an integral facet of their lives, of their being; they really never question that their deceased loved one does not still exist. Yes, grief will initially reign, and true believers will occasionally feel anger at God for taking their loved ones, but true believers will also understand that their loss is only temporary, and that their grief is unnecessary, if not a bit selfish.

Right or wrong, true belief is a powerful force, and one that seems to defy nature, psychology, and common sense... but those who have it are able to rise above the pain and shock of death, and the inevitable grief, quickly and with a mind-settling explanation (i.e., "Well, she is better off"). Who knows? Maybe to lessen the pain of grief is why a positive view of the afterlife exists in the first place...

This is something I have wondered about too, specifically with mainstream religious people. It seems like good news to me when you know that there is a positive afterlife awaiting you, then again it might depend on things like Hell and sins. But the grieving seems like something no one is really ready for and we all react to it differently. I'd say it is natural to feel sad for a loss simply because they are no longer in this world. So its a issue of attachment that can only be dealt with personally and that's tough. I just want to make this distinction between grieving because they are no longer with you, and grieving for them for their sake. ie where they may reside in the beyond. I totally get the first type of grieving, but worrying and grieving for where and what situations the dearly departed are in seems a little nonsensical. Especially if it is assumed that it is a positive view of the afterlife.

Maybe this is where "faith" comes in? Assuming that none of us can be sure of what the afterlife is, if it actually exists, its fair to say that some people can have their belief systems shaken. Things like personal feelings, doubt, and our own humanity can make us question the loss of people and if they are really gone forever. I think it comes down to personal belief systems and grieving for the loss of their presence in the world (the attachment issue) which is what gets to people. Even if its a supposedly happy place where there's no pain and you can reunite with passed on loved ones, their departure from our world isn't enough to make up for that. And again I sympathize with this. But yes, I think it would be reasonable to say that we instinctively go to that "they are in a better place" mindset, since it is assuming they are ascending to a non-corporeal/nonphysical reality. Just something about being freed from our physical bodies automatically makes the afterlife seem like a better place.

Conversely, what if its not a better place? This may sound cold-hearted, but grieving still won't do them any good. In both cases, I think things like prayer, singing, or any type of music-making (classical Requiem pieces come to mind) might be the ways of getting messages over to the other side, but really all bets are off. We've got some info on the afterlife, as given to us through religion and spiritual texts, but it only gives us a fraction of what lies in the beyond.

Also, it could be someone's own fear of death which intensifies their grieving. Morning the loss of a loved one and fearing for your own mortality could make things worse, despite the viewpoint that it is a positive afterlife. I think its hard enough for people to conceptualize physical death, let along going through it. These can be scary thoughts, but for the spiritually/religiously inclined I'd think that these fears would be lessened. Along with atheists too I would suppose.

There will be those, I am meanwhile quite sure they are majority of sincerely religious people, who wouldn't ever have any doubts cross their minds in such a crucial situation, this being one of the main positive effects of the whole religious delusion in the first place, and at the deep root of it all. No - they won't start implicitly questioning their own immortality, having the alternative of framing the personal loss as impermanent. Why should anybody do this to themselves on their own initiative? And we all have seen, how otherwise normally functioning people come to ignore or deny or rail against any amount of valid evidence and exhaustive explanation and argumentation one cares to throw their way, if it contravenes their delusions.
Anybody remember about how fruit flies wouldn't really be animals, because they've been observed evolving?

And then there will be those, who are religious on the surface, and as long as it doesn't interfere with their life, they believe that they believe in it. Daniel Dennet coined this expression - belief in belief, and I'm sure it's not only a thing, but also widespread. And some of these people might come to reconsider what they actually do believe in, might lose belief in that they believe in the afterlife, when deep down they never really did.

I think some people have a basic misunderstanding of what grief is. It's not sadness for what the dead might be experiencing now, it's an uncontrollable sense of loss for the survivors who had a close relationship with the deceased, like an integral part of your life has been torn from you. It's the same kind of feeling you experience when a person you're deeply in love with leaves you. It doesn't matter where they went, or what's happening to them now - it's about what you're experiencing.

Yes Darkmatters - there's no question about this, I was just interested in how a belief in a positive afterlife might affect grieving and if grieving can affect some people's religious beliefs in return.
Strong religious belief must be extremely helpful in bringing relief for grieving people, people who basically grieve for their own loss, as you say, but it's consolation nonetheless.
And yet other people will realize in grief, that the way they used to believe in an afterlife wasn't the same sort of rational belief as in predicting, to one's best ability, if something will actually happen, say if you had to bet on it.

A positive view of the afterlife isn't limited to mainstream religious belief. I think the issue here with believing that you must feel grief no matter your beliefs is people projecting their own feelings onto other people. This is a natural thing to do, so it's understandable, but it isn't logical. You cannot use that as proof that we will all react this way. Some people legitimately have a different connection with their emotions and feelings than that, be it from mental illness, syndromes, disorders, brain injuries, etc., a different understanding of "reality", or even just different perspectives. Myself for instance, I have a strange connection with my emotions that most people could not relate to. I am not directly linked to them, per se. I feel them, but they do not determine how I feel in any straight forward sense. I choose how they affect me, they must go through this process before becoming "whole". I view what I feel very neutrally, and I suspect I might have Asperger's Syndrome or at least be on some level mildly autistic. This accounts for my apparent "sociopathy" but capability of still feeling things, to a degree. I can be entirely cold and calculated if I choose to be, socially I am not intuitive, I have to logically think about how I behave in social situations and constantly analyze what I am doing. There's a level of disconnect between my mind, my body, and the natural signals both send to me, as the observer and decider of my conscious mind.

In short, just because you would feel grief regardless, it doesn't mean others will. It may seem entirely foreign to you and that fact makes you reject the possibility. This simply does not make it so.

Hmm - Snoop, I'm not sure if any of that was directed at me - but I just want to make it clear - I'm only saying that people with a strong emotional connection to someone will feel grief regardless of religion on losing them.

Separation is suffering. :/

Darkmatters, it was directed in general toward anybody sharing the opinion I was addressing. Separation isn't suffering, the fear of separation and loss is. Catharsis is the reconciliation of those feelings. Do you not agree that if you experience something enough, it is possible to bypass the intermediate steps? It might sound unlikely to you, because it is part of a process, but that is also a result of linear thinking. Try thinking laterally, Einstein would approve. You are not forced to do anything, it is all a conscious decision, even if it doesn't feel like it. Fears manifest themselves in all kinds of ways, not the least of which are some very strange mental illnesses and disorders. Just because you are not schizophrenic or suffer a brain injury yourself does not mean you are above this. People tend to look at psychology from a standpoint like it is meant to look at total loonies. That you are some how above how the mind functions. Again, this is natural, it is all part of what goes into delusional thinking, denial, repression, etc. Once you finally understand this, and are able to resolve your emotional and mental issues on your own, you are able to think laterally and control your mind and emotions in ways you didn't recognize was possible, let alone that you were capable of doing it.

For instance. When you must part ways with somebody, the sadness and grief, the insecurity and negativities you once felt as a result of an unconscious fear becomes entirely controllable once the fear becomes conscious. Meaning, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. The problem in this case is feeling grief or sadness at the loss of a loved one. Now, if you find the process beautiful and spiritually healing, there is nothing wrong with that, it is what helps you move on. But if you wish to move past this, you can do this too. Simply ask yourself why you feel bad because someone is being lost. Because you cannot create any more memories with them present. Is this bad? No, you had a great time with them, and you can celebrate that.

If you answer toward the negative answer at any time, ask yourself why. So, "no." Because them being gone feels bad. Is it wrong or even "bad" to feel bad? No, it is natural, and you can even stop yourself from feeling this way if you wish.

If you answer yes, then why? Because you don't like to feel bad. Why don't you like to feel bad? Because it doesn't feel good? Then you start to get to the core of the issue. You want to feel good, you want to be accepted by others, and you want to be loved. So, why then do you feel grief? Were you loved? Did you love them? Did they make you feel good? If at any time things were not ideal, could you forgive yourself and could they forgive you? Could you forgive them? If there is nothing left troubling you, then emotional pain ceases.

So, basically, the grief is not necessarily from the loss of a loved one, but an unresolved issue from within yourself. If you resolve this issue, then healing occurs. Once you are healed, you remember how you healed yourself, and after a while it becomes second nature, it becomes a process you don't even need to think about.

I suppose what I am saying is, the male way of solving issues, by running away or pretending they don't exist at all isn't healthy and will lead to neurosis. As Jung liked to put it, it starts to develop a complex. Neurosis feeds upon negativity, and neurosis itself is negativity. So, it needs to create more of itself to sustain itself. When you merely accept that something is human nature, like you will have to feel grief if a loved one dies, is just running away from the core issue. Now, acceptance is important, and this is where semantics become a bit tricky. The intention for doing something, the reason you do something, is just as important as the end result, because it is the motivational factor that drives your behavior. It affects reality as much as the outcome did. Cause and effect. So, when simply just trying to pat someone on the back to make them feel better, we are being a bit selfish because we are merely enabling them to run away from their issues and let them pile up on themselves. The more issues pile up, the more you get random aches and pains, really strange disorders (Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dissociative Fugue, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Disorders on the Autism spectrum), and generally your mind is trying to show you in a very roundabout way that you really, really need help. That something is terribly wrong. The answer isn't to run, even though misery is addictive. You like to feel bad sometimes. The answer is to either, by yourself, or with the help of a guide, help you get to the bottom of the issues, because the way they cropped up are just as convoluted and twisted as the issues themselves. Once you can recognize what it is, you get peace. Ever see the movie The Machinist? If not, at least read the synopsis. This is exactly what I am talking about.

edit: I suppose another thing I am trying to say is, the brain is surprisingly plastic. It is capable of deprogramming, of unlearning learned behaviors. The inherited behaviors we receive from genetics are very difficult behaviors to unlearn, but the fact is they did have to be learned in the first place, by someone, at sometime. The mind can literally erase, repress, simply not use, whatever, all of it's original start up code, so long as it is already running, why does it still need boot up instructions?