I was born into the cradle of the Christian faith. My parents were theologians. I was the product of a Christian home, church, and school. And my faith culture talked a LOT about Heaven.
Heaven was a place where all wrongs would be made right, where pain was a myth, where every Christian we’d ever known and loved would greet us with open arms. It was told/sold as a happy ending to the often unhappy struggle of this fragile, human existence, but while it sounded like a great thing in theory, the notion of Heaven did little to alleviate my own fears about death. Adding to the problem was the reality that my fellow Christians were often the victims of premature or even violent death, and reminding myself that they were “in a better place” wasn’t the balm I knew it was supposed to be.
Perhaps most tragically was the suffering that preceded death, as Christians resisted any pro-action on behalf of the mortally suffering. A terminally ill grandmother would moan in agony with no hope of reprieve, a brain-dead coma patient would breathe only through machines, an MS sufferer would lose all quality of life as his body disintegrated from within…yet the faithful did nothing but medicate the symptoms and stare at the clock, because the life/death decision was God’s alone.
We’d been indoctrinated to believe that meaningful intervention which sided with death was “playing God,” an act of human arrogance that also interrupted any potential pie-in-the-sky miracles that might come along. Mostly, it was a cop-out…a fairy tale which only seemed to increase the physical, emotional, and financial suffering of both the ill and their families and friends.
I’m no longer a Christian, and I’ve discovered a few things about myself in my apostasy:
1. I’m more at peace with death today than I ever was when I believed in a Heaven.
2. I’m hugely convinced that the (almost always religious) opposition to Physician Assisted Dying must be overcome…for the benefit of our fellow human beings.
Our lives are temporary. As the late Christopher Hitchens once said, “No one beats these odds.” But the stigma surrounding death – especially in the United States – so often keeps us from healthy approaches to our own mortality. Even our beloved pets are given an end to their suffering through a decision and action, while our fellow human beings are told they must suffer, languish, ebb, and burden.
Worse yet, the restrictions upon the terminally ill rob them of their own bodily autonomy, so as they’ve lost control of their health and wellness, they also lose control of the decisions which might ease their suffering and allow them to exit this life with a greater measure of dignity. In a recent survey of patients in Oregon and Washington, those who pursued medical aid-in-dying report that loss of autonomy, impaired quality of life and loss of dignity are the most common challenges facing them.
This must end.
Life is a beautiful, wonderful, precious, and temporary thing. The realization and acceptance of a mortal life makes our moments all the more precious, as there’s no proof anywhere for a Heaven, Nirvana, Valhalla, Xanadu, reincarnation, etc. No…the life before us is the one we should live, to the fullest, and when the end comes, we should provide the models of respect, dignity, human rights, and commitment to end suffering that are applied to so many other areas of our lives.
There’s a peace that comes with knowing that our lives won’t descend into a strained and vapid “existence.” Life should be lived. It must be lived. And when the final moments come, it must be punctuated on our own terms, for our own reasons, without the meddling of the state or the church, and with the desire to say “Goodbye” before cruel fate or circumstances rob us of ourselves.
If we can die with the respect and dignity by which we live, this world is a much more beautiful place.
###################
Seth Andrews is a broadcaster, storyteller, author, activist, and public speaker best known as host of the popular website, podcast, and online community at The Thinking Atheist. He maintains a separate website here.
Originally the product of Christian fundamentalism, today Seth is an advocate, not for religion, but for people, and while he – as a storyteller – loves the distraction of supernatural fiction, he ultimately encourages everyone to root their pursuit of the truth in reason and evidence, and to pursue a Personal Relationship With Reality.
Seth lives in Oklahoma with his wife Natalie and his unofficial mascots, Rat Dog, Henry, and Kat. He enjoys movies, sushi (no tentacles), tennis, referencing “Hitchhiker’s Guide,” casual gaming, 80s music, piano by ear, and constantly flipping his pillow to the cool side.
Stated so well. Thank you. I often wonder why those who claim heaven to be such a wonderful place to go tend to lead the fight for making it difficult/painful to get there.
As an avowed atheist for 60 of my 85 years I have long been interested in my religious friends beliefs, and religious beliefs in general on the subject of death. When I point out that a recent study showed that the more religious a person is the more likely they are to try to fight off death with every extreme measure known to modern medicine, they usually say life is sacred and only God can decide. The Catholic Church, the richest and most organized opponent of MAID laws that legalize hastening a terminally ill persons inevitable death, says that every death must be “natural”. But what is natural about a respirator , or a defibulater, or IV feeding for that matter? The answer of course is nothing since none of things come from “nature” but are man made. I think what the Church really means is that no one can “hasten” their death. Their argument there is that only God can decide when a person dies. What utter nonsense, which, even if true, would mean that man is playing God when he intervenes in a normal death with extreme measures that delay and prolong death. As a doctor at the Conference in Boston in 2002 of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies said, “why am I playing God when I disconnect the respirator but not when I hook it up and turn it on”?
The College of Catholic Bishops, in their November 2009 document on rules for Catholic hospitals, says a Catholic hospital shall not meet the requirements of a patient`s Advance Directive if it conflicts with church dogma. In this document they, out of the blue, claim “everyone deserves to be conscious when they die.” Where the hell that comes from God only knows (pun intended) ! At any rate they go on to say that if patient cannot be relived of their pain without rendering them unconscious then they must be kept awake and “taught the power of Christian redemption.” Good grief !! What cruel insanity ! What ever happened to the “do no harm” in the doctors oath?
Anyway, I remain intrigued by religious beliefs around death and dying. If anyone is interested the aforementioned document can be found on line for your reading pleasure.
Thank you both, author Seth Andrews, and Bernie Klein, who left a most considered reply . I have struggled with this through a lifetime of faith and not faith and spiritual experiences of..the other side?… or, just my creative, imaginative brain, firing off images to challenge me or comfort me, whichever I needed at the time. I had a near death experience that was profoundly joyful, and I had a sweat lodge-fueled visit to the spirit world that felt hyper-real, as some dreams do. And I had an ayahuasca experience 40 years ago that permanently rid me of a painful calcified disc of arthritis. Were these all the result of a direct connection from the Divine (some Infinite Intelligence), or just my brain making shit up? Is there a Spirit World, or is Death IT, the End, nada no more, fini? After almost 70 years of searching and risking, and then finding the courage from somewhere down inside me to go on, opening myself to facing le Grande Abyss, I am laughing to find that, either way, as illions have before me, I’m gonna die. And there it is: there is, indeed, something. Or, there’s nothing. So, now, all my preparation for dying is to have everything completed here as much as possible, and be ready for anything. Maybe heaven is full of clowns running around tickling people and we’re all just laughing our way into infinity.
It’s good to know there are those like you, whose searches have led to similar places. And as lightweight as it sounds, I do suspect that it’s really only all about Love. That’s it, there is no more, whatever that looks like.They can argue and kill each other all they want, over what’s holy and what’s not. John Lennon hit it right on. Love is all there is….love is all there is….love is all there is………love is all there is……………love is all there is…………..love is all….