Thoughts After Another Loss

My dad died very suddenly and unexpectedly a little over a month ago. My relationship with my dad was a very special one. This loss was devastating. 

As I have been moving through my grief process I have thought about how different my perspective on all of this is as an agnostic atheist. I guess I don't really know how I would process close losses as a Christian because both of the ones I have experienced have been since de-converting. This is not something I have shared with anyone. It's just my thoughts on it. If I did discuss it, I have an idea the kinds of questions I would be asked by someone who is a Christian. I know what kinds of things I would have asked, when I was a believer. I have pondered on those and also thought about how I might answer those questions. 

The kinds of questions I would expect to be asked are things like:

Isn't the idea of your dad's death terrifying without the belief in heaven and an afterlife?

No. As a matter of fact, it is less terrifying. It makes more sense. It feels less performative. The grief more genuine. With the biblical God out of the equation it feels more real. I am much more satisfied with life being natural, with a beginning and an end, us coming from the earth and returning to her; than I was comforted by the idea of heaven. I am not closed to the possibility there could be some sort of after life, but I don't BELIEVE there is and I certainly hold no belief in if there is some version of an after life it is the one taught based on the Christian Bible. In fact, I feel like of all the possibilities, that one is probably the least likely. And that is totally okay with me. When looking at the concepts taught about heaven and hell,  heaven sounds pretty terrible. The criteria to get in means some pretty gross people can get in and the notion of everything being perfect sounds boring. Not to mention I am not interested in spending eternity with the evil deity depicted in the Bible. No thank you. 

But, isn't is sad to think you will never see your loved ones again?

Yes, it is sad. But wanting it to be different doesn't change anything and just because people want to believe they will be reunited doesn't mean it is the truth. I think it is a way for people to try to comfort themselves by just convincing themselves they will see their loved one again someday. It is a coping mechanism and that's okay. It's just not mine. As far as I am concerned, you are reunited in the sense that you are all simultaneously no longer living on the planet. It doesn't have to be taken literally. 

As I have read the Bible from an objective point of view and not through the lens of religion I have come to the conclusion that the God character of the Bible is an evil God. As I came to terms with that I became really angry for having been misled all my life. As I started to learn about the history of the Bible and of the Canaanite people and pantheon and how the stories were compiled and manipulated over time the only logical conclusion I could arrive at is that there never was a God of the Bible. It was a deity (group of deities) invented by an ancient civilization and it is no different than any other pantheon invented by any other ancient civilization. It is just something that stuck and spread due to colonization and winners of wars. It was never any more true than any other religion with made up gods. When you look into it, this becomes pretty clear. 

I was amazed to learn just how much I had been taught about God wasn't even biblically accurate. How much I was taught was truth that was just an interpretation or something agreed upon in the past that can't even be substantiated by scripture. 

I have never been more convinced that the God of the Bible was created by men and it was in no way shape or form the other way around. So, does this leave me devoid of hope? If there is nothing else and when we die everything is done, does that mean everything is meaningless? 

I would argue that it is even more meaningful. If this is all we have, it means so much more. It's so amazing we are even here at all. It's magical. My thoughts on life can be summed up by a quote from Forrest Gump. He said, "I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happenin' at the same time."

That's how I feel. It's both, but we decide what we do with it.