this is going to sound like a bullshit ramble....
 

for the last 3 nights, my 11-year-old son has come into my room crying after he's gone to bed with questions about death. i decided a couple of nights ago after talking to him that he was at a disadvantage because he wasn't raised with any sort of religion (because most kids are. they know that when they die they go to heaven where they will meet their other dead loved ones which is a sort of comfort to them). i don't feel wrong or bad for not raising him like that.. but when a kid who isn't raised like that can't sleep because he's worried that when we die "we're dead like scientists say" and he'll "never see the people he loves again"... i'm not sure what to say. he wants answers and i can't give them to him. i reminded him that i was agnostic.. but i definitely believe that everything has a soul or life force or energy... and that i believe death is only hard for the ones left behind (because they miss the deceased) and not for the one who dies.

last night i had a dream that someone tapped me on the shoulder while i was having a conversation with another person. i turned around and looked at him. i knew him, but i couldn't figure out who he was. then i realized it was my uncle (my mom's younger brother/only sibling). the reason i didn't recognize him was because he looked like he did when i was very little and he was very young. he said "i just wanted to say hi" and i said "hello!" ... and that's all i remember or all that happened.

my sister called me this morning to tell me my uncle died last night. i wasn't terribly close to him, but needless to say i was very freaked out about the dream. and also found it very odd that i had been having these conversations with my boy for the last few nights (and of course i feel terrible for my mom and grandmother).

i'm really weirded out. anyone had a similar experience? i have heard a million similar stories in the past, but i never took them too seriously. sorry for the length of this post.

I had some weird dreams about my grandfather before he passed away....there is a certain synchonicity between "dream" life and "real" life, I feel...

My friend had a dream that her music teacher was absent because she had foot surgery and it actually happened the next day!

Maybe not on the same level as your story but still a weird coincidence.

She also dreamed that she got ran over, but that's not happened yet.

yeah? did anything happen to you on the night of his death?

I dreamed that my grandpa is dead. one week before he died in real life. but I not only dreamed it I felt it all the time, but wasnt aware of it, till he died. it was strange. but managed to share a lot time with him the last days.

girlgun - A usual case of insomnia, but 2 nights before he died, I dreamt me and him were chatting outside his house (he had a massive stroke in 2000, so was in a nursing home - I hadn't had a proper convo w/him since 2000) - I awoke, puzzled, couldn't get back to sleep, and then he passed on.....weird....

You might just tell your son that death is a mystery, even to scientists and clerics, because nobody can know what really happens until they die. Maybe also tell him that for many people the reality of death can make life seem richer and fuller--knowing we'll die means we must live fully and in a meaningful way with the time we have. Or maybe that's too heavy for an 11-year-old?

that's actually very lucky.

i don't mind the length but those solid paragraphs get me cross-eyed.

anyway, sounds like you were in some kind of twilight zone-- in any case, the question is how to explain death to the kid, no?

i dont know what to say, but i'm sure there's some kind of book on the matter-- the atheist parent manual or something of that sort.

that's so weird. why? why does it happen?

gmku... that's what i told him, but that doesn't really alleviate his fears.

yes, it was. but It just made sense afterwards. i think I was sharing that time because I knew that there wont be much left. I acted like that without knowing really why, till he died

the strange thing is that at that point I thought he will get sane again, cause it was his 8th heart attack and I thought when he dies hen NOT by a heart attack cause he survived them all

every sentence needs to be separated by a space? cannot accomodate.

There might not be much else you can do then. Like the rest of us, he'll have to deal with it. But watch him to see that it doesn't become overwhelming.

girlgun - I wish I knew, me matey, I really do...

If he starts going all Goth on you, don't over react. It's just a phase.

i told him that he needs to figure out what he thinks/feels, but before bed isn't the proper time if he's going to get so worked up. i told him that everyone has to find their own way of dealing with it and it's a very personal thing, but we can talk about it all he wants.

although he heard me tell my dream story to my sis this morning and therefore feels a lot more confident that we aren't just organic "machines". on the other hand, i don't want him to think that my opinions on the matter are necessarily the right ones. i want him to decide for himself.

I'm sorry for your loss :(

That's pretty fucked up Girl Gun, I've never had anything like that happen to me before. I've only ever lost one person though.

As for your son, I don't know what I would tell him. I wasn't raised with any kind of religion either, but I've never been really fearful of death. I guess I would just tell him that he's not going to die for a long time, so there's no need to worry. How a kid would take that (if he took it at all) I'm not sure.

i told him that too, emmah. i told him that we were all still very young. i was scolded by my BFF though. he told me that it's bad to tell him that because anyone can die at anytime for no fucking reason at all. and it's true. i told him i just wanted my boy to be able to sleep.

better!

anyway i found you some crap. some might be helpful, some might not:

http://atheistnewsandviews.com/Athei..._His_Children/

http://www.ethicalatheist.com/forum/...pic.php?t=1817

this requires registration:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/view...php?f=52&t=636

insane

^^^Oh , piss off, newbie.

Post something constructive or don't bother posting at all...

freakin harsh:(

he's only 11

Harsh, but fair. the SY Gossip group hug effect has to be earned.

damn I missed him here

but i'm not an atheist. at all. i don't believe the stuff that says, although i appreciate your google skillz like mad.

Or you could simply tell him that Jesus died so that your son could be saved.

daddy's conspicuous by his absence

so ok so what are you telling him in terms of such shit as "the soul"?

i know the dad is a robot, but are you a voodoo priestess?

splainnn.

i agree

i told him that some believe that and it's okay if HE wants to believe that....it's for him to determine.

yes, insane. totally insane.

symbol guy... i said earlier that i believe we have a soul or life force or energy, but i don't know which. i just feel we aren't machines.

must have been one of those things buried in thick paragraphs.

anyway, how do you cope with the idea of death? you can feed the same bullshit to your son.

im kinda coping the opposite way-- there is no soul, there is no me, so what the fuck do i have to worry about?

This sort of reminds me of when my wife and I went and checked out a psychologist to possibly see one of our kids about a problem. We emphasized that we didn't want anything that was based in religion. The guy said, No problem, he understood, and then about halfway through our screening interview, he pops up with this gem: "So have you ever thought about asking him/her about honoring thy father and mother?"

I seriously wanted to stand up and punch the guy in the face.

you should have. what a fucking cunt.

No shit. I was so angry. Pompous ass.

Needless to say, this occured in good old South Carolina.

I wasn't raised with religion either, just encouraged to read and think.
That's all you can do; you have a sensitive kid and he's gonna dive into the deep end where it's uncomfortable. I guess there are some things you can't really make any easier for him, much as you'd like to. He'll get there.

I have had one weird experience.
I had a friend who was an interesting, mercurial type artist/musician/plunderphonics guy who I occasionally collaborated with, but wasn't terribly close to. He was the kind of guy who would up and move across the country on a whim, that sort of thing.
Anyway, my wife and I were on a cross-country road trip to one of the Terrastock fests one year, and we got to talking about this guy, who we hadn't seen in a while. She said to me, "You know, I wouldn't be surprised if sometime we heard that he had died some kind of mysterious, sudden death."
When we got to the fest, we met up with some other friends from Mpls, and the first thing they said to us was "Did you hear about "...?" He just dropped dead suddently yesterday (the day we were talking about him)."

It turned out to be from having an enlarged heart, but it was a mystery for a while afterward.

that's weird, clone. ick. weird shit. weird weird.

again... sorry for the ramble. i guess i was venting.

You should tell him that if he cries again you'll tell all his classmates

well i'm probably not the best person to be giving advice about children or anything, but
i would encourage him to believe in whatever he wants to believe in. spirituality and religion are two different things.

A thousand times yes. And they have nothing to do with each other, at least I feel. My beliefs spiritually can differ almost wholly from my religious affiliation.

Glad somebody else agrees w/this - me and T&B discussed this on a previous thread - his point was that religion contains sprituality, so what's the difference? My point was that "religion" is a political racket, which uses the concept of spirituality to sucker people in (the "eternal life in heaven" bullshit). To me, religion (espesh monotheism) is simply a way of controlling people - much like captalism/communism etc etc.