esp if you’re one of the devout ones who think they’ve been really good
Some of them are
I’ve been bedside at more deaths than I can accurately recall. Most of them followed some religion or another, and there were a dozen or so that expressed peace and/or joy at the thought of the afterlife promised to them. Some of the others hoped it would be there, but expressed it with some degree of fear or doubt. The rest were honestly either not in their mind at all, or were otherwise unable to communicate towards the very end.
Christians, most of them, for what that matters. Three Muslims that I recall because you don’t find many here in the rural south. All of them were awake and alert towards the end, and expresses still having faith, though they seemed to focus more on making their last days be about saying goodbye. No clue if that was them as individuals, or a facet of Islam in their lives.
The ones that were the most outright joyous were what you might call a bit obsessed with their religion, but it didn’t seem to stay along denomination lines with the caveat that Catholics aren’t much better represented here than Muslims, so protestants made up the majority of my religious patients, period.
Only ever had one Hindu patient that was dying, and he never mentioned it at all. He just wanted to cuddle with his wife and enjoy good food.
But shit, one the happiest people I ever sat with as they were dying was a secular humanist. Dude was all about going out with a smile. Kept himself just high enough to feel no pain, and was otherwise essentially partying until the cancer made that impossible. Then it was just enough medication to keep pain minimized while allowing him to be aware and able to talk. But he said he was happy with his life, and expected death to be a welcome cessation of the bullshit that comes with a body.
I think the most “impressive” Christian I sat with was an retired evangelical preacher. Despite his religion, the guy was very zen about it. “The Lord will reach down for me when it is time. I’m just going to enjoy what I have until then, and praise his name with my last breath.” But it wasn’t some kind of crazy thing, it was said very calmly, very matter-of-fact. He shrugged a little when he said it, like it was no big deal when he went.
That guy was of one of my favorite patients tbh. We’d go walking, and just chat about whatever our minds brought up. Wasn’t always deep stuff, sometimes it would just be swapping stories about ourselves. Never preached at me, not once, and I had let him know I was essentially atheist, but also Buddhist despite that. You’d think a retired preacher from the kind of church he was in would be all up my ass, but he never even hinted at that kind of thinking.
I came late to when he was passing. It was late at night, and he was a morning patient for me. He was pretty much non verbal the last two days, but he would reach out to people you hold their hands, and smile.
Some people really, truly believe. They can believe so deeply that death is either a momentary inconvenience between them and their afterlife, or is a very welcome gift from god. There’s no doubt in them, no fear, but also no desire to accelerate it.
Anyway, it’s obvious that nobody can speak for the billions of religious people in the world totally. Even as many deaths as I saw are a drop in an ocean of death. But it’s certain that religion can bring about what you’re asking.
I don’t really have anything to add, but thanks for writing this. It’s quite insightful.
That’s the reason the prohibition against suicide was introduced by the Catholic Church: people were killing themselves to go to Paradise. Why wait?
buddhism has that too. if people were offing themselves in hopes of somehow reaching enlightenment thru killing, i’ve never heard of it. lol. the buddhist reasoning is that killing in general is bad but killing oneself is the worst of all because the one being that can choose to become enlightened (or at least try) and that you have control over is yourself. “so get crackin’” being the idea there.
Careful that’s how you end up drinking the blue Kool aid.
The ending of life is a sad thing, it can be frightening to imagine losing that control.
Faith is one form of trying to capture that control. Please try to cherish the life you have here and make the most of it. For most I suspect there’s no need to rush it.
It was actually her obsession with the afterlife and the coming of the end times that led to me cutting off contact with my mother in 2014 and me renouncing my faith.
My mom was a devout Christian my whole life, but she went full-on fire-and-brimstone Bible thumper during her divorce from my dad. My dad had cheated on her multiple times and she’d finally had enough of it.
She hated my dad for walking out, but vehemently denied that fact and instead projected her hatred onto God himself. She would always say my dad (and anyone who supported him on his side of the family) would be judged harshly for his actions in the next life. By the way, she said this about basically anyone she didn’t like, including people she disagreed with politically or morally; it might not surprise you to learn that she was quite a bigot as well.
In the last few years I knew her, she started to obsess over the prophecies in Revelations. She’d constantly send me chain emails about how the various conflicts in the middle east were a sign that Jesus Christ was about to return, or a misquoted article about the US government looking into identity microchips was Obama (the Antichrist, obviously) giving his followers the Mark of the Beast. The last time I spoke to her was in 2014 so I never got to ask her what she thought of Trump and his MAGA hats, but I have a strong feeling the irony would have been lost on her; I once had to explain to her that an article she showed me from The Onion was satire and her response was, “they shouldn’t be allowed to say those things.”
She died in 2020, but not from COVID. Two years earlier, she had let a kidney stone get infected which then progressed to full-on sepsis. It responded to the treatment at the time but the infection damaged her heart, which ended up killing her. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why she didn’t see a doctor because a kidney stone would have hurt like hell, but then I realized she probably felt that it was just God calling her home.
So yes, anecdotally speaking there are religious people out there who are obsessed with the afterlife. I think people are still inherently afraid of death, though, so they’re not exactly in a hurry to die. But for a religious person who’s ready to die, it’s likely nearly all they can think about.
No matter how good the afterlife is, it’s not going anywhere. Life, however, is unique and finite and so should be savored.
Just like my peepee
If you watch the testimonies of Near Death Experiences on YouTube, a general theme is that the sensation of dying, once you have passed over is one of a great relief like a great weight has been lifted from your soldiers. And those that get sent back often have regrets after returning to their body to complete their earthly missions, as the physical body is so heavy and uncomfortable. But there is usually a great sense of purpose attached to being here, even though most of the time these things are hidden from us. Maybe the reason these things are shrouded in mystery is so people don’t off themselves to get back to paradise. I have also seen some testimonies of suicide NDE’s and past-life regression hypnosis accounts in which people whose lives were prematurely cut short were reincarnated very soon after dying in order to learn the lessons or complete the missions/purpose of the life that was cut short.
My dad suffered a heart attack and died suddenly about a year ago. I’ve never been religious or very spiritual, but after his death I became a lot more open to peoples’ various ideas on the afterlife. There was such an unfair finality to losing him. I always feel as though he’s right there on speed dial, even at this moment, but when I go to reach out to him I’m reminded that he isn’t ever going to pick up even though he still feels close. It’s like he’s always on the tip of my tongue.
Of all the things I’ve read and heard in my exploration of the topic since, NDEs are hands-down the most comforting and convincing of them all. Even if it’s all some kind of grand and miraculous illusion that we endure across all cultures, with or without any physical brain activity, the thought of him finding peace and comfort in that moment of death and choosing not to return to his body is very beautiful to me. My dad lived a life or immense chronic pain. His leg was obliterated as a young man and reassembled with rods. He had degenerative disks in his spine, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. So many memories are of him whincing and breathing through pain. Of course he wouldn’t return to that battered and broken body.
So while it still feels shitty, and still feels unfair, I take solace in the thought of him shedding that shit, seeing his dad (suicide) and mom (cancer) with him again, and choosing to return to the ether, knowing full well that my mom, my brother, and myself will heal, and be okay, and reunite with him eventually too on the other side.
And when I die, even if it’s all a last-minute illusion, I hope it gives me the peace I need to let go too.
Yeah. As someone who really likes thinking about metaphysics I’m really excited to die and see what it feels like. That being said I also really enjoy living and I’m not in a rush to die. It’ll happen eventually and I want to try to do as much as I can while I can.
Everyone should be excited to die, not just religious people. Being excited to die means you lived a good life that you’re satisfied with.
Being excited to die means you lived a good life
The problem is, most of the current generation is well aware they haven’t lived good lives. Not to mention, the conundrum of living longer implies a chance for an accumulation of more misdeeds. Personally, the most likely scenario is almost everyone becomes aware there is likely nothing afterwards at some point. Religion is more there like the bumpers for kids cosmic bowling, ensuring zero gutter balls. Keeping you playing, until the day you’re old enough to remove them and pay taxes, revealing life is a subscription, and childhood was a free trial all along.
Read the comment but laughed when I saw your user name.
Not everyone can live a “good” life by your definition of good, but they can live a good life by their definition of good.
Current generations realize that what older people are trying to sell them is a scam, and they’re working on building a new better reality based on their fresh perspective on what reality is.
You can look at religion through many lenses, but at the end of the day religion is just an unprovable fiction we choose to believe because it’s how we want the world to work. My belief that if you want to live a good life you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you is religious. Game theory and my life experiences support my belief, but it is ultimately an unprovable belief because of Hume’s Guillotine and the fact that my definition of “good life” is subjective.
It’s 100% possible that I’m just tricking myself into thinking helping other people is good and makes me happy, but I will still choose to believe.
