I am sad and angry that a young man had to die
From Linda W
Tomorrow is the funeral of a young man. He died at age 21 in Iraq. He was a childhood friend of my daughter.
The funeral will be at a church, of course. His parents were very religious.
I am very saddened and yes, angry that a young man had to die.
The funeral will have the usual messages of how great and good God/Jesus are, how this young man was called home, how he now is in the loving arms of Jesus, etc.
I think to myself of how I would cope with the death of one of my children. I know that regardless of the depths of my despair, I have come too far in my rational, logical worldview to resort to the supernatural for comfort. Knowing that the deceased is not suffering and honoring the life he had here on earth would bring me peace.
I understand the comfort it brings people to believe the dead are in a better place, but with that belief comes the belief in hell. How many people suffer needlessly wondering if loved ones passed on are in hell?
The funeral will be mostly about how wonderful God is, how God helps the bereaved, how the Lord is with all of us, etc. Only in the privacy of one's home will anybody be calling out to his or her God, angrily demanding to know why and how a loving God could let such a thing happen. And this most likely will then be accompanied by guilt and then an emotional surrender to "God's will."
If you can separate yourself from the sadness of the situation, you can see the madness in the belief that such a great power is now your comfort, but that power did nothing to save your loved one, nor did anything to stop the suffering of millions of other loved ones.
And it made no difference whether they were believers or not.
tag: death, hell, Iraq War, rational thought, mourning, , reason, skeptic, Bible, agnostic, atheist
Tomorrow is the funeral of a young man. He died at age 21 in Iraq. He was a childhood friend of my daughter.
The funeral will be at a church, of course. His parents were very religious.
I am very saddened and yes, angry that a young man had to die.
The funeral will have the usual messages of how great and good God/Jesus are, how this young man was called home, how he now is in the loving arms of Jesus, etc.
I think to myself of how I would cope with the death of one of my children. I know that regardless of the depths of my despair, I have come too far in my rational, logical worldview to resort to the supernatural for comfort. Knowing that the deceased is not suffering and honoring the life he had here on earth would bring me peace.
I understand the comfort it brings people to believe the dead are in a better place, but with that belief comes the belief in hell. How many people suffer needlessly wondering if loved ones passed on are in hell?
The funeral will be mostly about how wonderful God is, how God helps the bereaved, how the Lord is with all of us, etc. Only in the privacy of one's home will anybody be calling out to his or her God, angrily demanding to know why and how a loving God could let such a thing happen. And this most likely will then be accompanied by guilt and then an emotional surrender to "God's will."
If you can separate yourself from the sadness of the situation, you can see the madness in the belief that such a great power is now your comfort, but that power did nothing to save your loved one, nor did anything to stop the suffering of millions of other loved ones.
And it made no difference whether they were believers or not.
tag: death, hell, Iraq War, rational thought, mourning, , reason, skeptic, Bible, agnostic, atheist