Here’s a common complaint from Christians: death is largely avoided in our culture. People are uncomfortable with it, because they have no hope of heaven. Enter Christianity. Christians can face death without fear, because they have confidence in resurrection. They know that death isn’t the end, that they’ll see their loved ones again, that in heaven they will experience the presence of God which is far better than life. They will live “forever and ever”. Have I got it right?
I used to believe those things too, and they comforted me. It made death easier to fathom, easier to think about. But isn’t it just a big mind game? Christians in no way accept the reality of death, which is that death is actually the end.
Facing death takes much more courage that simply consoling yourself with an afterlife. It means acceptance that there really is an end– something that Christians never acknowledge. Grief isn’t supposed to be easy. I’m suddenly concerned about the psychological effects of never accepting loss, never going through the proper stages of grief, and never undergoing the self-analysis and growth required for coming to terms with one’s own mortality.
Christians don’t really face anything. Being comforted is not the same thing as facing reality. That should be obvious, but it seems like a universal characteristic for Christians to think that they face reality more than the rest of us simply because they’re comforted.
The Christian doctrine of resurrection of the dead is based on a philosophy of reward for good behavior. Children need the bribe of dessert before they will finish their vegetables. But if Christianity is as good as it’s purported to be, there wouldn’t be so many Christians hanging onto eternal life as vital to their faith.
For me, Christianity would be much more compelling if it had no afterlife. I would be much more attracted to God and to Christ if all of the hundreds of millions of Christians, in the face of mortality, believed that He was a God worth serving with their limited years on Earth, the only years they would ever be given. Of course, that wouldn’t be my only condition for belief, but it would make Christianity much more worthy of respect if Christians were willing to give up everything they had without receiving eternity in return.
“Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:29-30, 32)
Why, indeed, do we eat our vegetables? Because we have been promised dessert.
LE –
This barely scratches the surface of it. Most religions, it’s true, are constructed to actively hide from the reality of death, akin to a child plugging her ears with her fingers and shouting “LALALALALA! I can’t hear you!” in order to avoid an unpleasant truth.
I would argue, though, that death is not the only unpleasant truth being his in this manner. Others include:
– Avoiding the need to actively help your fellow man in times of distress; if you pray for the injured or those in peril, you feel you have done something to help them (when you have not) and can look away from the problem with little remorse.
– Avoiding the truth that sometimes, things don’t have a purpose. Sometimes, someone dies tragicly for the stupidest of reasons or your house burns down or a tree falls on your car. Religion affords the believer the luxury of saying “Oh, it must be part of God’s plan” and move on, rather than having to accept that, well…..”shit happens”.
– Sparing people the need to think about matters of morality and ethics, therefore allowing them to avoid uncomfortable moral ambiguity. When is it moral to kill another human being? The believer is apt to answer “Never! The Good Book says ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’!”…until faced with “Even if that person is going to rape your daughter?” While not sparing them from moral ambiguity in practice, it certainly makes it easier to judge other’s behavior from an absolutist standpoint (for many, anyway).
The list goes on and on, each reason underscoring why religion is so hard for most to let go of, each adding another fluffy blanket to hide one’s head under and pretend life is easier than it is.
Take care!