Helping a theist deal with death
Today at work a really close friend of mine who happens to be a Christian got a call saying that a close friend of hers died. She's 19 and she seemed to have a rough time dealing with the fact that a friend younger than her died in his sleep. During the first stage when she was crying quite uncontrollably she shouted "There is no God anymore." Now she has always been a strongly religious person (although she agrees with me that the Bible holds no validity, so I don't know what makes her think Christianity is the way to go) and I figured this was simply the anger stage of death, and I'm sure this was in no way a true denouncement of her faith, so I just kept quiet. I didn't say anything else along the lines of religion the rest of the day, not wanting to put her through all that at this point. My question is do you think I should have said anything and give her a little push, or would that be a little too theist of me? What would you have done in that situation?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on -
i absolutely think you did the right thing. furthermore, i think you shoudn't even discuss her having said it until an appropriate interval has passed.
she's not in a rational frame of mind right now and so she shouldn't be making decisions like that.
to play to her anger at her god over the death of her friend would be the same as a religious person proselytizing to critically ill people.
let her grieve and when you think it's appropriate you might tell offer a kind ear for when she wants to talk about anything at all but surely about her having made that statement.
you did the right thing.
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Permalink Reply by elaine kilshaw on -
Listen to Nelson a caring and reasonable person is what I have gleamed from this site.
Compassion is a great comforter and we all have to find out for ourselves the truth.
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Permalink Reply by Dave G on -
Nelson's dead on. Just be a compassionate, caring friend, it's probably what she needs the most right now.
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Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on -
Just be there for her as a friend.. not as an atheist, not as an elder.. just a person. I think you did great.
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