In the shadow of a terrible loss, when knowledge was more painful than consoling, Thomas Huxley wrote a testament to intellectual integrity.
death
Posted inDeath & Dying
Imagine there’s no heaven. Is it always easy if you try?
Reading Time: 4 minutes I have my own convictions about what happens after we die. As a person with a terminal illness, I’ve had good reason to explore the topic. But do I have to insist that others join me in that conviction?
Posted inDeath & Dying
Death: Every year, the probability increases
Reading Time: 4 minutes I was fortunate enough to swan through most of my life only rarely coming into contact with death. My grandparents, eventually (while I was away from home, either abroad or at university), one work colleague…but I think that was about it. Over the last few years, that has changed, and particularly over the last few […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Can we handle the truth?
Reading Time: 4 minutes “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). That’s good news to anyone who wants to be free, which is probably everyone. But what does truth have to do with freedom? And I guess a more pertinent question is the one Pilate supposedly asked later in the same […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
Reconnecting with the Earth upon my demise
Reading Time: 6 minutes OnlySky · Reconnecting with the Earth upon my demise | Becky Garrison As a child of an Episcopal priest, I grew up hearing the phrase “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” at more Ash Wednesday services and funerals than I care to count. I was too busy either squirming out of boredom or trying to […]
Posted inRaising Freethinkers
The first really hard goodbye
“Daddy!! Something’s wrong with Max!!” Erin’s face was a mask of anguish. “He’s making sounds I’ve never heard before…and he’s laying wrong!” Erin’s guinea pig Max, the first pet that was all her own, was clearly not okay. The vet confirmed an upper respiratory infection the next morning, dispensing a little medicine and not much hope. […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
On the deaths of Catherine and Noel, age three
Reading Time: 9 minutes In the middle of a trip to England, in the middle of a Lake District hike, I found myself in the village of Grasmere, “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found,” according to the poet William Wordsworth, who lived there. It wasn’t as small as I’d thought it would be. I looked up the […]
Posted inDeath & Dying
One life: Imagining a radical acceptance of death
Reading Time: 6 minutes A few radical thinkers, scattered across the centuries, have seen death as a frame that illuminates life and an ultimately beautiful promise.
Posted inDeath & Dying
Secular grief: How I learned to cope without heaven
Reading Time: 4 minutes Shortly before my mother went in for surgery to correct an issue with her bowels, I drove up to her rural northern California home to help her prepare. I sat on the piano bench in her living room and waited for her to retrieve something she just had to show me. She returned from her […]
Posted inParenting & Family
Why thanking those who offer their prayers isn’t always the best idea
Reading Time: 4 minutes Earlier this week, OnlySky contributor Kristen Chase offered her take on how we should respond when well-meaning religious people offer their blessings and prayers to atheists. She suggested nonbelievers such as myself respond with one simple phrase: Thank you. I partially agree, while pointing out Kristen’s essential qualifier: well-meaning. Yes, when well-meaning, not passive-aggressive, people […]