true comfort by telling me they are dead?

by rockmehardplace 7 Replies latest jw experiences

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  rockmehardplace

  i was at work over the weekend finishing up a project with my boss. we needed the weekend because he had to take off a few days during the week for a funeral. on saturday, he asked me what jw's believe about death. i explained the jw thoughts on the dead being aware of nothing at all and basically asleep. he said that after the funeral, he talked with his one relative who is a jw and she said the same thing. he then said he preferred to view the person in heaven looking down. knowing that the person is not there is actually not a comfort as she said it would be. my boss felt like the only thing that brought comfort was knowing this person looked down on him and now, knowing what he was told, he feels cheated.

  i never really gave it much thought over all those years, but i think my boss was right. jws rip away the comfort of knowing someone still is there in spirit.
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  mindmelda

  The idea of something that survives death is as old as Homo sapiens, so I do think there is some innate need to believe that.

  But even Stone Age graves have offerings in them that seem to suggest that the earliest modern humans had some belief that death was not the end of things.

  Regardless of whether you think it's denial or a a trick of the mind or whatever, people have been thinking that for a long long time.

  It's interesting that anthropologists seem to concur that religion or spiritual transcendence began about the same time that man developed art and music.

  They seem to come from the same needs and parts of the brain, from what we can tell. Language had to come first, but there's some evidence in the genetic sequence that language ability increased dramatically in early humans when they began to think imaginatively, in other words, visualizing beyond mundane existence. To express that, music and art developed. It's not an accident that some of the worlds most reknowned art and music express spirituality. Of course music also is a huge factor in sexual attraction and pair bonding too...nature doesn't do anything without a driving biological reason. The side effect of needing to "romance" our mates as we became more and more socially and emotionally complex was apparently the need to express ourselves creatively. Spirituality is an offshoot of that.

  So, if we weren't so horny we wouldn't have religion. LOL Oh, god, is that ironic or what, seeing as how religion (that bastard offshoot of spirituality) often seeks to control sexual behavior, either promiscuously or restrictively. But, that may also be because they're connected somehow in our brain meats.
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  rockmehardplace

  So, if we weren't so horny we wouldn't have religion. LOL Oh, god, is that ironic or what, seeing as how religion (that bastard offshoot of spirituality) often seeks to control sexual behavior, either promiscuously or restrictively. But, that may also be because they're connected somehow in our brain meats.

  interesting. so if we did not have religion due to our desires, we would not have anyone to call out to. OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!
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  cult classic

  The bible does say that we return to dust. However, I think the belief that our family and friends have disintegrated into nothing is very painful.

  The bible also says that our spirit goes back to god after we die. I have always thought it more comforting to believe that our loved ones have passed on to another level of existence and are awaiting our arrival. I don't know if that is true but it is more comforting.

  Cult Classic
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  Mary

  I remember being out in Serve-Us one day a couple of months after my brother died. The sister I was working with asked how I was doing, talked about the resurrection hope and I said "You know, I'd find it far more comforting if we believed he was in heaven. There's absolutely no comfort in believing he's simply dead in the ground." She acknowledged that it would be more comforting, but then warned me about wanting to have my "ears tickled" by listening to "false reasoning" like that.

  The Witlesses view on death is about as stimulating as their pathetic Memorial talks. There's absolutely nothing comforting about it.
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  talesin

  I had a similar conversation w/ mother a few years back, after a 'worldly' relative died. I asked her why she was not comforted, since she would NOW see him in the 'new world' when he is resurrected. If he had lived till Harmaggedon, he would have been destroyed. Response? Blank stare, and the usual "don't be like that". Like what?
  
  Oh, right - LOGICAL.

  Oy!

  t
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  mindmelda

  Returning to dust is what our bodies do...I'm sure people have observed that from the beginning of time.

  What happens to our consciousness is another story. Humans are so self aware they can't really conceive of not being conscious of anything at all, because we never are. Even under deep anesthesia, you get some very vague imput. That's why some doctors won't let anyone in an operating room talk negatively about the procedure...patients actually respond in minute ways to that.
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  miseryloveselders

  I guess it would be comforting to someone who's a hardcore believer in a burning hell or Purgatory, and the loved one in question had lived a questionable lifestyle. But I agree with the general sentiments in this thread, it is more comforting to think of a loved one in the heavens than simply asleep as Ecclesiastes indicates. It just sounds and feels better to think of them as being in a better place than us, looking down on us and awaiting the day when we'll join them. Lately I don't know what to believe, but that sounds better than believing shortly everyone but JWs will be destroyed, and those who never heard the JW message will be brought back to life for a millenium long bible study, occasionally gardening and playing with animals.