Religion Dishonors The Dead

As a non-religious person, tragedies in general are kind of annoying to me. Not only is the tragedy itself upsetting, but it is nearly impossible to avoid comments about God and religion. It makes me feel like an outsider, a misfit. Not only do I find this to be annoying, but recently I have come to the conclusion that it is disrespectful to the victims to invoke religion.

People use religion, in part, to make themselves feel better about death. It is a way for them to ease the anxiety they feel when thinking about death. Religion minimizes death by telling us that we will “go to a better place” when we die. But how can we properly honor the victims when we try to convince ourselves that their death doesn't matter?

In minimizing death, religion also minimizes life. After all, this life pails in comparison to the promise of heaven, so why care about it? Why care if your loved ones are killed? They're in a better place, right?

The way you honor someone's death is by acknowledging that it was a great loss, not by parroting comfortable lies that tell us that it wasn't much of a loss at all.