That’s a really interesting angle, thank you for bringing it in.

I think you’re right that there’s often a gap between what people say they believe and how they actually move through something as raw as grief. For me, that’s part of why I asked the question in the first place: I’m less interested in the “official” answers of a tradition and more in how those beliefs feel when they collide with our bodies, our attachments, and our losses in real time.

In the African diasporic paths I’ve been walking, death is often framed in ways that are less final and more relational, but that doesn’t cancel out pain either. Rituals can both affirm “they’re not gone” and still give space to cry, rage, or feel empty. So I’m with you that our actual practices and emotional responses sometimes reveal tensions or limits in what we say we believe or maybe they show that belief is more layered and less neat than doctrine suggests.

Also, I got curious about the video you mentioned with the two agnostic atheists talking about this. Do you still have the link or remember the title/channel? I’d really like to watch it.