This strikes me as similar to the absurdity that atheists really do believe in god they just are too afraid to admit it.  The anger caused by the murder of a loved one is the base instinct taking over and dominating the feelings. Pretty much how anybody would respond.

Man, I'm really starting to get a kick out of these biased questions.  This is about as absurd and blindly dichotomous as Pascal's Wager.  Any sane human being would be upset if a loved one was murdered.  That shit goes beyond what you believe about an afterlife.  Murder is injustice, period.  And as human beings, we react accordingly.  Just because a Christian believes that the loved one is in heaven doesn't take any of the shock and anger away.  We're all bound to this earth for now, and it's all we know.  So of course it's going to be hard to deal with when you know that you'll never see a loved one again in the only context you've ever known (or at least the only one you remember). 

So atheists can make stupid arguements by Theists can't?

The answer to the OP is simple. Because we are human.

Let's turn it around. How can an atheist get so angry when they lose a loved one?  After all, there is no point to life, so how can they care if someone died? 

See how stupid that is? I used your logic. The egocentric can be over ruled by dening importance to the loss.

Huh? Who's angry? 

Not too condescending now, are we? 

A question was asked, I responded. It's pretty simple. Death is emotionally painful, for whatever the reasons. It would be unusual for anybody not to feel some anger when losing a loved one.

Nota bene the reactions of your fellow theists, Wavefreak.  As for the the condescending tone, the note was addressed to Iruka.  I doubt she found me to be condescending to her views.  If your feelings got stepped on, allow me to express my deepest sympthies and my hopes that they will not be in the way when I next take a step.

No, it is not Pascal's wager. Iruka asked a reasonable question and struck a nerve.  I was merely pointing out that we both experience the loss, but theists add a special layer of bullshit to make themselves feel better.  It is merely observation.  Anyone who has been to enough funerals has seen this veneer of self-indulgent offal.

I understand your desire to maintain it.  The truth of human nature can be unsettling. 

Now, unfortunately, I am done with this thread.  I have other absurdity to battle.  Good eve.

LOL. You give yourself too much credit. Even your sarcasm is weak. I've been pwned by much better than you.

Bwahahahaha. 

In my opinion, any of us - theist or atheist - grieve because we shall miss having that person (in my case, kitties) in our lives.

In the case of murder or even terrible illness, we might be angry at the injustice.  But I don't think there's a one of us that would begrudge the dearly departed a relief from suffering.

I've always thought that grief is somewhat of a selfish emotion because we're sorry that person (cat/dog/pet) is no longer around us to give us emotional support.

I saw a quote once that said:  Grief is the purest evidence that we have loved and loved well.

I cannot find a source for the author, but I think it's very true.

Why exactly is it an illegimate explanation to use a concept of "natural emotion" or "natural response" in response to a question regarding an "emotional response"?

I don't see exactly how one would expect a rationale answer for an irrationale thing.. unless emotions are rational-- I never considered them so.

They always seemed pretty spontaneous and uncontrollable to me.

Heh. If you rationalize you're emotions before you have them, then you're crazy. If you rationalize you're emotions after-the-fact, then.. great.. normal stuff.

But his question is suggestion that it's rational not to feel a certain way.

And that's fine. I will admit it.

Of course... like I said before.. emotions are not rational-- they are reactions

They are based on "reasons," as most things are, but not based on "reason." IMO.

I think there are distinct differences in the case of emotions.

Of course.. that's just me. Crazy ole me. 

I don't recall making any claims of sanity.  

[EDIT - DOUBLE POST]

Because it's after life... and, well, this is life.

It's similar to this, IMO: 

Q: Why are you getting drunk now as opposed to the after party when theres going to be A-1 beer?

A: Because this is now and that's after.

Yes, I realize this. But I certainly didn't make it very clear in my original post.

I'm not trying to deal in absurdities. The theist's speculation about atheist belief is just that: speculation. However, when someone collapses from grief and rage at the murder of a loved one, that's real. It's tangible. You can see it. To me the reaction does not seem to "fit" with a belief in an eternity in paradise. The obvious emotional pain is in direct opposition to a belief in an afterlife.

Yes, indeed. It's the "natural" way to respond and it doesn't seem to fit with the "supernatural" idea of heaven.

Even as a Christian I could not conceptualize heaven very well. I tried. When I was young, my parents told me it would be more beautiful than any garden on earth and that I would have everything my heart desired. When my father was dying of cancer, he told me heaven would put the holodeck on the Enterprise to shame. By that time, I no longer believed in heaven. The image of my father's wasted body was certainly more tangible than any heaven I could imagine.

Now as I think of the friends and family of the murdered in the Middle East, I realize the horribly maimed bodies of their loved ones must also overshadow any visualization of heaven. Heaven doesn't seem real in the face of death.

We have no proof it is real. None at all. I think we make up pretty stories so we don't have to deal with reality. I know that when the perfect realization of my own mortality hit me, I freaked. I'd been told I'd walk streets of gold, live in a mansion, have access to beauty beyond comprehension.

Reality is a bitter pill to swallow. 

Cpt_Pineapple, I really don't see how my question relates to good and evil. Perhaps you inferred something different from what I meant because my original post wasn't very clear. If you do understand what I meant, could you please show me how this relates to good and evil? Anyone who loses a loved one through violence (whether it's driven by religion, greed, bigotry, etc.) is going to be angry and grief-stricken. The fact that I was thinking of Middle East violence when I wrote the original post probably complicated the issue.

Of course it's a biased question. We're not pretending to be anything other than what we are. I am an atheist. As a theist, your questions and answers will also be biased. That's what debates are about: opinion backed by arguments. If I wanted to throw out a comment about today's weather, I would have posted in General Conversation.

Unless you misinterpreted my initial, poorly-written post (understandable), I really don't follow you here.

Why not?

If you truly believed your loved one is in paradise, wouldn't it bring comfort? If I could believe my father was really in heaven having a wonderful time with the ultimate holodeck, I'd be comforted. It would take away some of the horror of the senseless suffering he endured as the cancer slowly devoured his body.

The day he died my father looked like a holocaust victim. When the end was near, he knew it and panicked. He could no longer speak, but it was clear he wanted--needed--to get out of bed. It was like he was trying to run away. His stick legs would no longer support him, so we put him in his wheelchair and took him into the living room where a documentary about leopards played on the television.

My father was still desperate. He wanted to get away. He had to get away. He tried to get up, but he was too weak.

My mother asked him to imagine being with his long-deceased dog in the woods, but he shook his head frantically, meaning, "No! No! NO!" He didn't want to imagine a better time.

I don't know why he didn't want to imagine being somewhere else, but I guessed, sensed, my father knew he would never walk in the woods with his dog again.  There was no ultimate holodeck beyond the veil of pain. It broke my heart and I started sobbing as I realized just how precious the good times are.

He started gasping for breath. We brought in two tanks of oxygen and put the plastic tubes under his nose. He calmed down. Maybe he didn't have a choice because his once-strong body had been ravaged by cancer.

After that it didn't take long. He sat with his head bowed. His breaths grew more and more shallow. My family whispered stories about heaven and how happy he would be there. My mouth came open and I started mouthing words I didn't believe.

"Let go," I said. "You don't have to fight anymore. If you're worried about us, go up to heaven and be a liaison for us there."

His head bowed lower. His breaths were barely discernible.

And then they stopped.

Death is ugly, jmm. You know it and I know it. As a species, we fear it. All species fear it. Why? What is there to fear?

Precisely. And what guarantee do we have that there is another context? A few words scribbled in ancient texts? The word of preachers, priests, imams and rabbis? Urban legends? Cold readers? A gut feeling? I believe. I believe. I believe. I believe. I believe...oh Lord, help Thou my unbelief?

What good are ancient texts, holy men, urban legends, cold readers and a gut feeling in the face of what is known? We are born and we die, becoming once again the stuff of the stars. Do we have any memory of what preceded birth? No. Not unless you believe urban legends. Will we have any memory of what proceeds after death? I very much doubt it.

The truth is we have no good reason to believe in an afterlife.

I agree that there is a selfish component to grief. It's interesting that fundamentalist Christians, who are really down on human nature, don't seem to catch onto this. Or rather, they don't spend time lambasting each other at funerals...unless you count Fred Phelps.

However, I don't think grief is entirely selfish. The sense of loss may reflect the bond shared between the deceased and his or her survivor. As for my father, I felt badly for him when he was in pain. Because my relationship with him was otherwise strained, most of what I feel really is pain on his behalf. I have shed few tears since the night he died because his pain was over.

I did strike some nerves. Maybe part of it is the "selfish" component of grief. The biggest nerve, though, is the one we don't like to talk about: FEAR OF DEATH.

A very huge chunk of religion is built upon and exploits that very natural fear, giving it truly eternal dimensions. The fundamentalists carry the ultimate carrot and stick: eternal life in heaven or hell.

Religion simultaneously inflates and comforts the fear. This is the ultimate manipulation, the ultimate mind-fuck.

That's why I dragged death itself, kicking and screaming, out of the dark into the light of day. I described how my father died. Yes, it was frightening and painful. It was also natural...NOT supernatural. My father did not go to heaven and the ultimate holodeck in the sky, but he didn't go to hell either.

Religion keeps us from confronting death as it actually is. It keeps us from learning how to grieve by giving us empty promises of life eternal while threatening us with hellfire.

*pulls the No true scotsman*

LOL, just kidding, Iruka, mostly..... I mean it does seem if you belief in the eternal soul you shouldn't have a marred view of death. But in all seriousness, it's not quite so simple in practice.

I've thought about this a lot... call me what you will for it, but I have always innately been unemotional about death itself. What is good about that is I have given the gamut of bereavement the most ludicrously objective once over on more than one occasion. What I find I believe about emotional reactions to death is that they aren't about the death itself so much as the assault on the persons senses that death represents. I don't mean the question of afterlife here, either, I feel this has much more to do with life than soul. What death represents to a person is quite individual, but to generalise, I think that the emotion felt is personal loss, personal injury, as opposed empathy for the loss of life. Forgive me, but I personally find it hard to believe there is a real empathy to be felt, I've looked pretty hard for it too, but found nothing.

So grief and emotion for lost loved ones, I think, and forgive my boldness please, is not about afterlife and has nothing to do with afterlife, or what happens after to the one we have lost. It is life and an instance of life injuring our own personal values and expectations which brings about the emotion and humans, of all creeds, then, are simply reacting to life, not death.

JMHO

I think the perception of hostility is a bit over-wrought. I'm sure as heck not upset. Regarding the framing of the question, perhaps it was unclear enough to warrant some clarification.  Meh.

 THe answer is really quite simple. Theists are not perfect. On some high level of abstraction, belief in the afterlife as a better place  should trump any feelings of grief. But I think it is a rare person so in tune with their beliefs that they can set aside grief in an emotionally healthy manner. We are human. It hurts to lose a loved one. And anger is a natural response, especially in situations like a murder.

Unfortunately, there are probably theists that have this attitude. Sort of "they're in heaven so don't worry, be happy". But that is such a gross simplification of human feelings that I can't accept it. Even if a loved on is in a place of bliss we are not and an important part of our lives is no longer there. Is it selfish to feel this way? Maybe partly. But I think it is far more complex. Human emotions are rich and varied. The simplifications of dogmatic thiesm doesn't really do justice to them.   IMHO, that is.

Dan Barker is a very cool bloke.  I've corresponded with him a bit.  He became an ordained minister in my very insular little county.

He's a wizard of a pianist and I rather like his freethought folk music.  I have his two-CD compilation, Friendly Neighborhood Atheist. 

I'm a little jealous that he got his parents to follow him out of theism.  I wish I knew his secret! 

Okay, I really think some clarification is needed here.

There is a huge difference between belief and knowledge.  I believe that my loved ones (the Christian ones) will go to heaven when they die, but I do not know this to be a fact.  If I knew that a blissful afterlife was an irrefutable fact, then I would have killed myself a long time ago.  

Plus, like wavefreak said, we're human too, just as much as the atheist.  A life of faith is a work in progress.  You don't just suddenly arrive one day with all of the tools necessary to live a perfect life.  That idea is just another example in the long line of straw men you guys love to set up here.  

 That said, I certainly have my doubts, even as a Christian.  The afterlife seems absurd, as well as most everything else about my spirituality.  But that's just the problem:  I have the tendency to try and process my spirituality with the logical side of myself, and that never works.  Spirituality is not born from logic, so it is therefore rendered senseless when viewed logically.  

You know, my uncle is dying right now.  He has stage 4 (metastatic) lung cancer which has also spread to his kidneys and adrenal glands.  He's smoked 2 packs a day for probably 40+ years, so I guess it was inevitable.  The thing is, my uncle isn't a Christian.  He's the only person in my family who is not a Christian (aside from the fact that my family considers me a non-Christian, simply because my faith is weak and my beliefs so incredibly different than theirs).  His daughter (my cousin) is really starting to piss me off about the whole thing.  She's very actively involved in her local church, and she's taken this really pious attidude about the whole thing, saying shit like, "I'll miss having dad around, but what really bothers me is the thought of him going to hell."  

I mean, I sympathize with my uncle, definitely moreso than anyone else in the family.  I understand what it's like to simply be unable to believe.  I imagine that many of my family members have had the same nagging doubts, but ultimately lacked the courage to actually voice those doubts.  I'm just afraid that they're really going to start hounding him and pressuring him about "making a decision" in his final months, and that's fucking bullshit.  They need to cherish the time they have with him, and make sure he's able to die comfortably and peacefully, not scream and cry like a bunch of maniacs about heaven and hell.  He's a grown man, and if he doesn't believe, then he just doesn't believe, and it should be left at that.  The thing is, "just leaving it at that" is not part of the whole Christianity thing.  You never leave anything at that - you push it and force it until people break and "make decisions" out of guilt and pressure, or simply just to get you off of their back.  

I swear to God, if my dad or anyone else gets the bright idea to start talking about how "he's in hell" at the funeral, I'll kick their asses. 

So yeah, I'm probably not your standard Christian, but these are just my candid thoughts on the matter.  We have no knowledge of any of this, just these inner beliefs, so it doesn't really make any sense to act like a fool about shit you don't even know about.   

I'm terribly sorry about your uncle.  Sometimes life sucks.  But just because he's a smoker and non-believer doesn't make someone who does horrible things.  Sounds to me like your cousin is judging in a very non xian way.  

I hope they give the man some peace and don't start giving him a hard time.

You not only have my permission, but my encouragement to verbally kick their asses.  Feel free to point out something about casting the first stone.