I Can’t Imagine – Part 2 (And the Ripple Effect)

This post is part 2 of how “I Can’t Imagine” how anybody who is atheist or otherwise doesn’t believe in the afterlife could get through the death of a child or other loved one.  I was curious what they told themselves about death and what self-talk or actions they could do to alleviate their suffering.  I found that there wasn’t too much out there.  The YouTube videos I saw were mostly about bashing Christians for their beliefs and the inappropriate behavior of some Christians when trying to comfort an atheist. Any other advice was the advice you’d give a believer or an atheist.

I had one more piece I wanted to write about and this one wasn’t so much about dealing with grief, but the woman, Elizabeth Entin, who wrote this book “Scientific Evidence of an afterlife that even convinced an atheist” (SIC)-her non-caps not mine) caught my attention and was quite appealing.  This was one atheist’s attempt to deal with her grief.

She began her journey when she lost her father, whom she was very close to.  She needed to check out if there was any valid way to possibly see her dad again.  She started with a friend who she identified as fairly religious, and asked her WHY she believed in God (she did not capitalize God).  She said the friend, “realizing she had no evidence, she finally stated it felt much better to believe.” Underline mine.

I truly wish atheists or people looking at Christianity, would understand the difference between cultural Christians, who honestly do not know much at all about what they believe or why they believe it, and people who love the Lord and try their best to live their life in a Christ-like manner.   It struck me as a little pathetic that she only asked one friend, but that is the “research” that some people call “research.”

If you claim to be a Christian and somebody asks you why you believe, would you have an answer for them that you could say in a short paragraph?  If you claim to be a Christian, do you live like one, or do you live like every other cultural person in your age group?  And by that, I merely mean, do you show love to the best of your ability and how?   I remember when Morgan was a sophomore in college and one of the new freshman on the beach volleyball team was a girl who identified herself as a born-again Christian.  But who was the least likely to be helpful on the team?  Yes, that girl.  The coach Morgan had that year also claimed to be born-again and talked about the giant church she attended and wanted everybody to go, but her behavior and demeanor did not reflect Christ in Morgan’s view.  This can be very confusing for anybody and it makes some people “hate” Christians.

Two other examples.  For a couple summers when I lived north of Cincinnati, I decided to work in the call center at King’s Island Amusement Park to kill some free time and make some extra spending money.  One of my friends worked there and it was just a way for us to have fun, get to ride rides if we wanted to etc.  You know what weekend King’s Island employees claimed to hate the most?  The “Spirit” weekend when like ten Christian bands would come play a concert and people got the rides with the concert ticket.  The employees saw a LOT of selfish/bad behavior.  This can make people call Christian “hypocrites.”

Second example is not my own or Morgan’s, but a story I heard of a girl who tried the Wicca “religion” in high school.  She was seeking Jesus and tried the church youth group, but once the talk was over, the girls were cliquey and not nice, and she felt the leaders just wanted to be seen as cool by the kids.  One of the girls was in a class at school and identified herself to everybody as born again, yet she and her friends were the “mean girls” in the lunchroom. When youth ask adults questions about faith, many times adults tell them it’s not good to question, or they give them answers that aren’t satisfying.  If you claim to be a Christian and somebody, especially a child, asks you anything, answer to the best of your ability and ask if they are satisfied with the answer.  If they’re not, then the two of you can research answers together!  This is the whole field of apologetics. I know many people turn to new-age churches because it is so ‘loving’ and ‘they don’t mind questions.’  They give answers alright, they just aren’t Biblical answers.

Okay, so on to the author’s reasons she now believes in the afterlife. I combined 2 and 3 so I only show 9.

1.       She found child psychiatrists who study kids with past-life memories.  I do not know much about this phenomenon, but it definitely implies reincarnation, which is not Biblical.  I don’t know what more to say about this right now.

2.       Scientific research of psychic mediums.  “These were not “woo-minded” people, talking about faith, belief, trust in the universe and other such “nonsense.”  They were logical science-minded people who were gathering data that demonstrated mediums were getting accurate results, under strict controls and beyond the odds of chance.”  Personally, that’s not an area I would play with.  She had her own medium reading and was entirely convinced spirits are out there.

3.       Signs from the other side. “Mind-blowing, absolutely inexplicable within the laws of the universe signs.  These signs were so statistically unlikely that I could not attribute them to coincidence.”  Yep!  That’s my God - God winks.

4.       Near-Death Experiences: “There is a consistency among NDE’s.  People see a light.  People experience a life review.  People experience intense joy and love.  People look down and see their body.  Time operates differently.  People see and often communicate with deceased loved ones.  People have even seen colors that we don’t see here on earth.  When these people come back, they are profoundly changed.  They lose interest in anything material.  They consistently state that love is the only thing now of meaning.

5.       Mind can affect matter: “This hints that our consciousness is not dependent upon a body to interact with the world.”  “Logical mainstream science and intelligent skeptics KNOW that spoon bending is impossible. I ‘knew’ the same thing until I did it.”

6.       Universities are seriously studying this: “If a university as prestigious as UVA has an entire department studying these topics, there must be something worth studying.”

7.       “I know these people”:  “I know they are not charlatans.”  She is talking about the mediums.  Well I know all the people I grew up with who led me to learn about Jesus and they are/were not charlatans either.

8.       The hard problem of consciousness. “I always assumed until researching this that it was a scientific known fact that our consciousness is created by a brain.  It is not.  All they have proven is correlation.  Our brains are correlated with consciousness.  That our brains create this consciousness is merely a theory.”

9.       When it all comes together:  “…the evidence is so vast, that I refer to it as a preponderance. No there is no proof (unfortunately)

It all just made me very very thankful that I grew up the way I did.  It has also made me want to try harder to be more and more loving to everybody.  People who know me would say that I usually am.  I had good role models, yes.  But believe me, there are plenty of times that I will be very embarrassed about when I have a life review.  Apparently when we see this, we will NOT feel judged, but we will get to see the ripple effect.  We will get to see the ripple effect of the good we did, and the bad we did.

Speaking of ripples!  On my Saturday walk, it was sunny and gorgeous.  The Flint River overflowed its banks as usual.  I had to walk along the side of a road instead of the park I intended because the river overflowed right over the walking path.  But I was treated to a light show!  I am putting these pictures in and believe me, they do not do justice.  It was sparkling!  It was flashing!  If I looked without focusing, I felt like I was in the middle of fireworks!  As I walked, my “deep” thoughts started right in when I saw so much flashing.  The angle I was at, the sparkling could only be seen straight across.  In other words, if I looked behind, it wasn’t sparkling and if I looked up ahead, it wasn’t sparkling.  It was only sparkling in the present.  That made me realize that we need to appreciate the day and not worry about the past or the future.  Then I saw that not only were the sparkles right next to me, but they were further out in water in the distance.  This said to me that our actions sparkle and affect others who sparkle and affect others and so on and so on and do on….the ripple effect!

I’m trying to upload a video using a link in google drive. I hope this works but pictures are below. If this video link works, try to look at the sunlight on the water without focusing to get the effect I’m intending.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ockC-YT0Ml77BZDEVPU-lRsmf3XqN022/view?usp=share_link