Death rituals and religious beliefs in human grieving

Surviving the Death Experience

Rituals in Human Life and Death

The loss of loved ones to death is one of the most emotionally traumatic experiences in human life. Nevertheless, death is an inevitable aspect of life and almost everyone does, unfortunately, experience the loss of a loved one several times in life. One of the ways that humans come to term with and recover emotionally from the loss of close relations is through rituals such as funerals and other organized commemoration of the life and death of the deceased.

Typically, funeral services in Western cultures and other types of organized social death rituals in other cultures feature the expression of grief by loved ones and close relations, as well as public acknowledgment of the contributions and value of the life of the deceased from the perspective of the community. Funerals and death rituals provide an opportunity for loved ones to experience closure and to express their grief fully; they also allow members of the community to demonstrate their respect for and appreciation of the deceased in a manner that is often helpful to the family in coping with their loss.

The Role of Religion

Naturally, religious cultures and rituals dominate the manner in which people conceptualize and respond to death. That is largely because to the extent people maintain religious beliefs, those beliefs generally lay out the fundamental beliefs shared within the community about human life and death, as well as about specific beliefs about what happens to the deceased individual "after" death. These specific beliefs inevitably play in important role in how we view human death: in some cultures, religious beliefs teach that death is not permanent but only a phase of existence within an endless cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth in other forms. By contrast, Western Judea-Christian religious views of death regard death as a permanent end to the physical life of the individual but not necessarily of the person's eternal spirit. Certain Western religious traditions (such as Christianity in particular) go much further and presuppose very specific beliefs about the nature and quality of the supposed "afterlife" and even the manner in which the nature of the afterlife is specifically determined by choices made by the individual during life.

Regardless, of the different beliefs taught by various religious traditions, virtually all human religions provide a means of understanding death and putting it into perspective, generally, in relation to the larger notion of an eternal divine being they call "God." The presumed belief that God has a comprehensive plan for all human beings and that the human "soul" continues to share a relationship with "God" brings many people a measure of psychological comfort in connection with the loss of loved ones. Similarly, it may play an equally important role in helping individuals accept the fact that they too will eventually die. That is, understandably, a very troubling thought to many people; the belief in gods, eternal spiritual life, and the prospect of reconnection with lost loved ones in death enables many people to cope with the idea of death much better than they might if they believed that death is genuinely the end of any existence. This particular notion of reconnection with lost loved ones helps many people recover from the loss of loved ones. On the other hand, those who do not believe in religion or in any gods might argue that such beliefs are delusional and actually interfere with a more realistic acceptance of death for what it actually is. Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue that religion provides a valuable coping mechanism for many people in connection with death, irrespective of whether or not it is actually an accurate representation of reality.

The Community at Large

Finally, the community at large also plays an important role in the way that individuals cope with and recover from losses. In that regard, it is helpful psychologically just to know that others understand our pain. The fact that other people can "mirror" our grief and that they can relate to us with their experiences in similar situations is very helpful. Likewise, the ritual of paying respects to the deceased (such as at funerals and memorial services) is also helpful to the survivors because it helps them understand how much their loved ones were appreciated by others in the community. Ultimately, sharing emotions (especially grief) with others is an important benefit of community support and it provides considerable assistance toward recovery from the grief associated with the loss of loved ones to death.