Heartland

I mean literally death, when someone close to you dies?
No, it's not my case, but it's close enough.
What to say to that person except "he/she went to heaven"? Especially if this person is not a believer?

it depends on how they died, and what their life was like.

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at least they aren't in pain/sorrow/suffering anymore

whatever is on the other side, they are the sort of person that will make the most of it

they are with their loved ones again (even if that only means they're buried in the ground!)

don't be sad for them - they wouldn't want you to be unhappy and mourning their death
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obviously, they would all need "dressing up" and making a good deal more subtle, but you get the idea...

its never easy to comfort someone who's lost a loved one, but if you know that person well you can usually get a feel for what is the right thing to say by talking with them...

often though, the best thing you can do is just listen to them - they may want to talk, they may not. they may want to cry, shout, scream, swear, whatever - its very important that they are given time to grieve in whatever way then need. its a very personal process and unique to the individual.

i would say the best thing would just to be a shoulder for them to cry on, and an ear for them to talk to. just let them talk through their feelings...

good luck

I don't normally like to be serious but...


As an atheist I can't do the other side bit.

In the past, in my own life, I've learnt that the important thing (for me) has been to treasure the love that doesn't end just because they're gone.

At the time it's all just pain but as long as you have friends to see you through the worst - not doing anything, just being around- eventually you can think of that person & laugh & cry (whatever seems right)and know that in a way they are still with you.

OK back to the trivia

M

I learnt a long time ago that no matter what you say...say something.

A dear friend of mine lost her boyfriend in a motorbike smash and I felt that I couldn't say what she needed to hear (also I didn't want to confront it myself either) with the result that I said nothing...avoided her in an attempt to avoid the issue.

I was working away at the time so it was easier for me to avoid her.....When I finally did meet up with her, I just blurted out everything that I felt and how sorry I was...we cried (which is what I think I was trying to avoid at the time....) but she said that no matter how much she was in pain at the time it was then that she needed me to cry with her

Can you imagine how I felt then? We are still friends and she does tease me about it 20 years or so later.

So just say something or hug.

Debaser

I lost many persons (include family), but I don't care about it (except all thing they can do for me, if they still alive). I believe in another life (energy transform or whatever). They still alive in some other forms so we should still wish them all the best (or worse) sic Death it's award for all this torment.

Thank you all for your replies. You know it's serious.
My biggest problem is how do you console someone who doesn't believe in life after death. For me, a believer, it's very hard.
The best I can come up to is "no matter what, that person isn't suffering anymore; the ones still alive are the ones to suffer".
But then people wonder and ask why and it becomes even more difficult.

That's why my question was "how do you deal with death?". Acceptance or denial?
Some people aren't ready for death (theirs or others) because they avoid thinking about it all their lives so when it knocks at their door they absolutely crash. I fear to seem insensitive, you know?

Quiff Boy wrote:it depends on how they died, and what their life was like.

No it does not. It doesn't matter if the lost one was young or old, man or woman, a winner or a loser. What's important is that he/she was loved and now it's gone and there's a need to console the ones behind.
And that's the most difficult.

lachert wrote:Death it's award for all this torment.

I believe in reincarnation. Honestly, what I fear the most WHEN I DIE is the approach of some white spirit of light telling me: "Sorry, you haven't learnt your lesson. You have to go back and go through everything again".
I swear I'd prefer to disappear in dust and ashes. I can't stand the idea of coming back here. I'll rebel.

Odd question to ask at this time - Death - in particular my own - has been on my mind much in the last year (2002!) - i dont quite know why - since i turned 30 (32 in fact) i guess!.

I have become increasingly convinced that there is "nothing" after this 'life' - I not a Atheist or Agnostic - I guess "lapsed pagan" would be close to the mark - at the moment anyway! I just dont know what to believe - i am considering do some serious "research" in to the "After Life" - I guess for some 'proof'!

My last grandparent - my fathers mother - died in september 2002 - ok she was (is) 87 - a long life I was sad - as you expect someone to be but not as much as i thought i would be - which is a very odd feeling !

In October of 2000 - my very close friend/fiend and fellow maniac - and obssessed "Sisters" /goth/industrial/alchohol fan - drinking partner - died of stomach cancer. He had Cystic Fibrosis - and was 33 - a very good score for a CF patient! The CF did not get him - the cancer came from a Liver transplant 2 years earlier - oh the irony (hahahahah!)

I still think of him everyday - I do miss him very much! I owe him for developing my very sick/black sense of humour!

Im rambling - sorry- anyway - in my ideal world - when i die - i want to find myself in a rough "rawk" bar with Carl (for that was his name) sat on a bar stool - with a double JD waiting for me for a night of "s**t and Giggles" - BTW i did not cry at his Funeral/Cremation (which was very "upsetting") - I was and still am to "angry"!

I really would like there to be "something else" after this life - and if i find some proof - ill let you all know!

Andy

Odd question to ask at this time - Death - in particular my own - has been on my mind much in the last year (2002!) - i dont quite know why - since i turned 30 (32 in fact) i guess!.

I have become increasingly convinced that there is "nothing" after this 'life' - I not a Atheist or Agnostic - I guess "lapsed pagan" would be close to the mark - at the moment anyway! I just dont know what to believe - i am considering do some serious "research" in to the "After Life" - I guess for some 'proof'!

My last grandparent - my fathers mother - died in september 2002 - ok she was (is) 87 - a long life I was sad - as you expect someone to be but not as much as i thought i would be - which is a very odd feeling !

In October of 2000 - my very close friend/fiend and fellow maniac - and obssessed "Sisters" /goth/industrial/alchohol fan - drinking partner - died of stomach cancer. He had Cystic Fibrosis - and was 33 - a very good score for a CF patient! The CF did not get him - the cancer came from a Liver transplant 2 years earlier - oh the irony (hahahahah!)

I still think of him everyday - I do miss him very much! I owe him for developing my very sick/black sense of humour!

Im rambling - sorry- anyway - in my ideal world - when i die - i want to find myself in a rough "rawk" bar with Carl (for that was his name) sat on a bar stool - with a double JD waiting for me for a night of "s**t and Giggles" - BTW i did not cry at his Funeral/Cremation (which was very "upsetting") - I was and still am to "angry"!

I really would like there to be "something else" after this life - and if i find some proof - ill let you all know!

Andy

Whoops - Bollocks - Sorry I posted twice - IE was plying up :-(

AndyTheGoth wrote:Odd question to ask at this time - Death

Yeah, people shouldn't die in this time of year. - Sorry, stupid joke.

I really would like there to be "something else" after this life - and if i find some proof - ill let you all know!

Andy

Are you sure you'd like to? What if it's just a succession of this life, with all the people, all the problems, all the so well known misunderstandings?
I may seem twisted in reasoning, but wouldn't it be conforting to know there's nothing beyond and we can finally get rid of each other?
Is this why so many people refuse to believe in after life?
I feel tempted, oh so tempted!, and in my years of atheism that was a reassuring thought.

No one yet has proven in a science basis what happens beyond. Is there a reason why?
Why do I ask? I know what both sides will say.

What I really mean is that is very difficult for a believer to comfort someone who is not while trying not to preach one's beliefs.

@ Dead Inside - are you a believer because you want to be or are you because is it is expected of you! i am NOT trying to cause offense or insult you - i just ask out of interest

as for "preaching" i am sure your friend will not take it the wrong way!

It appears that you have picked a very "hot" topic - and yes if i do find "proof" i will announce it !

BTW i used to work with a very commited "Born Again Christian" - a captain in the Salavtion Army no less - who also had a degree in Astro Physics - so he knew - from a scientific basis - how the "universe" was formed and how - in theory - it all works!

Hes a great guy in fact - a little "confused" but then - in matters of life and death - whos not a little "confused"!

When i was younger i was sure of everything, now i am becoming more and more confused as i age. It's one of the few things i obsess about , and no, i don't sleep in coffins or stay in the dark woeing and feeling miserable, but i'm pretty obssessed by it i must say, after all, what else do we have to be obssessed about?
Sorry, i don't know how to help, i'm just very cold about it.

I don't thik another life is a quesion of faith. Don't know how to say in english but it's just physics. You have ordinary matter and subtel matter. So, when your o. metter will be used for good (in adge 80 for good luck) you have to change 'old mobil' for something new. What you get is a question of of your wishes and your 'money' for it (bla, bla, please don't kill me, I like my present body). When death comes quicker than you suppos it may be not so bad. You have some plans for future anytime, but you can not be in two different places the same time, so you have to throw off one of you alternate future. When you die, you leave your friends, family etc, but another version of future apperas before you. Soul (the most subtel 'matter') is eternal, so you can meet your 'friend souls' anyway. I belive in heaven and hell. Our planet is closer to hell. So burn out all our bad-karma and let's go drink some soma-rasa on the Moon.

AndyTheGoth wrote:@ Dead Inside - are you a believer because you want to be or are you because is it is expected of you! i am NOT trying to cause offense or insult you - i just ask out of interest

No offense whatsoever.
Of course I'm a believer because of things in the past that made me believe. "Things" tooooooooo extense to relate here.

as for "preaching" i am sure your friend will not take it the wrong way!

I'm not so sure. When we're feeling bad everybody keeps selling us their notions of life. You know what I mean.

It appears that you have picked a very "hot" topic - and yes if i do find "proof" i will announce it !

Please do! I'm most interested. All the books I've read with the "evidence" there is haven't convinced the rational in me. I believe for a matter of faith - no proof, just faith. Which is what faith is all about...

I dont have "faith" as such - I just dont feel like that inside! But I dont consider myself "Dead Inside" hahahah! (sorry!)

I live opposite a Spiritualist Church - and I do mean across the road kind of opposite - about 20 metres away! I will have to pop in for a chat or something!

I intend to research more about "Death" as I mentioned in my first post - its been on my mind much in the last 18 months!

When I get some proof I will let you all know1

Again. Life after death is a fact. But the trick is how to get out of this f***kin birth-death circle

"...but i'm pretty obssessed by it i must say..."

Ditto. Back in my "darker" days (many years ago), I "romanticized" it and wished for it. Observing cancer's hideous toll on my extended family over the past 15 years, however, I've decided that wishing away my life was perhaps not such a good idea...and now I'm actually a bit worried (superstitious?) that my teenage "lust" for death may eventually come back to haunt me. I think about the subject constantly - both the myriad ways in which to die (the ones I obsess about are generally utterly horrific), and the concept of simply *not being*, which I just can't wrap my brain around. For example, if there's nothing after life as we know it, what happens to a person's consciousness? Where does it "go?" Is it simply extinguished, like a candle flame? This idea terrifies me, yet I can't bring myself to believe in an afterlife... Oh, well - shiny, happy people I ain't!

SINsister wrote:For example, if there's nothing after life as we know it, what happens to a person's consciousness? Where does it "go?" Is it simply extinguished, like a candle flame? This idea terrifies me, yet I can't bring myself to believe in an afterlife... Oh, well - shiny, happy people I ain't!

Apparently, yes, according to that line of thought consciousness simply extinguishes. But think about it: better to extinguish than to continue in some kind of suffering out there in the void, alone, forever. That's my notion of hell. *shivers*

lachert wrote:Again. Life after death is a fact. But the trick is how to get out of this f***kin birth-death circle

Don't you know that?!
According to the budists and spiritits and a lot other reincarnation-based philosofies, you live and relive until your consciousness is ready to advance to higher states of existence. Then you get rid of this valley of tears called Earth because you don't have to reborn HERE again. But nothing guarantees you won't have to reborn SOMEWHERE ELSE. - I just don't believe in Heaven, I really don't.
Especially because it can take you millenniuns before you reach the ultimate enlightment and hapiness state: Nirvana.

All i know, is that i am going to die, and be forgotten, as we all will. Even the memory of humanity will be lost. But, i will do good before i leave, it is my gift to give.

First reaction: denial.

OK. I may know what happens, but it just doesn't sink in.

Then despair.

And then the nice armor I wear against the world gets a little bit thicker, the pain is buried deep inside, and not even myself can reach it (most of the time).

And no, I don't believe in an afterlife in any way. Once is over, it's over. Why should there be anything else? Because life has little meaning if not? Who told you life HAD to have a meaning, anyway?

Ganith

dead inside wrote:

lachert wrote:Again. Life after death is a fact. But the trick is how to get out of this f***kin birth-death circle

Don't you know that?!
According to the budists and spiritits and a lot other reincarnation-based philosofies, you live and relive until your consciousness is ready to advance to higher states of existence. Then you get rid of this valley of tears called Earth because you don't have to reborn HERE again. But nothing guarantees you won't have to reborn SOMEWHERE ELSE. - I just don't believe in Heaven, I really don't.
Especially because it can take you millenniuns before you reach the ultimate enlightment and hapiness state: Nirvana.

Nirvana and all budists s**t is totally boring. I want some fun after death but with different matter or anti-matter.

Like I said to a friend the other day, death is not a big thing to me. We all die, everybody dies. It's a fact of life.
Maybe because since childhood I've been exposed to the death of pets, family, neighbours... Because I was not protected (and I'm glad I wasn't) soon I realised what death meant to the living - that someone had gone never to come back - and started to wonder what it meant to the DEAD.
In other words, where did they go? I knew where babies came from, but where did the dead go?
So I've started my research.
Bottom line is that by now I'm prepared to deal with it, including my own death. So it's not a problem I share with the rest of mankind.
What makes me wonder, now, is why so many people prefer to deny there's something called death and death is treated in the same way sex was in the 19th century: it's a taboo. It's forbidden to talk about it, it's forbidden to mention it; it's even forbidden to express the whole of your pain in the presence of society.
People act like death doesn't exist. I find it a bigger mystery than death itself.
A poetress from my country called Natália Correia once said: "the 20th century will be about breaking the taboo of sex; the 21th will be about breaking the taboo of death".