Recently I started to feel why belief in a religion could be useful, at least on a personal level. As far as I can tell it all comes down to death: of others and of oneself.

My father's aunt died two days ago. She was his aunt, but she was also symbolically important in our family. I don't know why exactly, but all of the larger family's focus seemed to center around her in some way. Not that she asked for it and expected it. I think that because she never married, and lived in my great-grandparent's house, she sort of assumed a "matriarch of the family" role. Although I doubt she would've described herself as such. To my generation, she was like a grandmother to all. And she was very nice. She was so important in our family that her name became synomous with going to visit the entire family that lived there. Sort of like "Band Aid". Or maybe not.

Her death seemed sudden to me, and somehow completely unexpected. She was in her eighties, but I never thought of her as mortal I guess. That is probably very childlike thinking on my part. I just never thought she'd die. It seemed impossible.

As I thought about it last night, it was very upsetting. Then I began to think about what some people believe about death. Obviously, the popular Christian way of thinking was foremost in my mind. I took my sadness, and tried to imagine that instead of an absolute death, she went to heaven, and was reunited with her brothers, parents, friends, etc... and that she wasn't really gone, and that everyone would see her again someday. That thought was very soothing and reassuring. She wasn't really gone. She still exists, even though she's merely not present on Earth.

Hmm... but I don't believe those things. They felt nice when I tried them on, but I don't think its real. So, for me, she is simply gone. I'm sure that for others in my family, the scenario I described above is very much how they are coping with her death.

The utility of such beliefs seems obvious. Its purely to ease emotional pain. When I then remember that along with those soothing beliefs are all of the terrible inhumanities, hypocrisies, baseness, and stupidity of so many religious people, I wonder why it has to be(?). My entirely unresearched guess is that the solace those beliefs offer for the pain and fear of death is so important, that without realizing it consciously, people fight tooth and nail to convince others of the rightness of their religion, in order to not have to face the pain of death. Certainly the more people who believe the religion to be true, the more likely it IS to be true. And any possible "attack" on the religion opens the possibility that death is final. So, better fight as hard as possible, if only to maintain the foundation upon which we can be in denial.

But is that the reason why gay people can't marry? Yes, I think it is. Sort of.

At any rate, I'm sad about my aunt's death, and I don't have religious fantasy beliefs to get me through. All I have is time.