When her dad died of cancer in 2004, Devon, an actor and artist, received a lot of platitudes along the lines of, “He’s in a better place.”
Growing up in the Bible Belt, Devon, then 21, knew that these heaven-centric condolences were well-intentioned. And regardless of geography, Americans are generally pretty ill-equipped with what to say in the wake of a death. Devon knew that “in a better place” was a common, expected go-to.
But as a young woman who still very much needed her dad, hearing that he was in a “better place” just made her feel more alone.
As she saw it, that simple phrase packed a heavy, unspoken assumption: If her dad was a believer, then he was in a better place. If she, too, followed Jesus, then she could look forward to being reunited with her dad someday.
It all felt pretty presumptuous, even if Devon had grown up Christian.
“I was just in the beginning stages of gaining the bravery to truly question my faith,” said Devon, who now identifies as a spiritual Atheist and doesn’t believe in the concept of heaven.
“Watching my father die a relatively slow and painful death, my questioning began to deepen, and I was becoming more critical of a religion that for years I desperately wanted to stick within me,” she said.
Suddenly, “in a better place” felt more “predatory” than helpful or hopeful, she said. “At the time, all I really wanted to hear was ‘I’m here for you.’”
Devon, who asked to use her first name only for privacy, is hardly the only mourner who has felt uneasy about the rush to usher loved ones into “a better place” after death.
While many no doubt feel comforted by the phrase ― according to a Pew Research Center study, nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say they believe in heaven ― it can feel prescriptive for Atheists and agnostics who don’t believe in an afterlife.
Plus, not all religions have a Christian-esque (or more broadly, Abrahamic) conception of the afterlife; some believe in the…
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