From the critically acclaimed BBC Two and iPlayer series Pilgrimage follows well known personalities of differing faiths and beliefs on a personal journey of discovery as they tackle some of the most famous walking routes across the UK and Europe. In this series the Pilgrims go to Wales in Pilgrimage The Road Through North Wales.
Jay and Helen have a chat about what it means to be atheist or agnostic, and how the death of a loved one can affect a person’s belief in the afterlife. Does anything survive after we’re dead?
Transcript
Pilgrimage Moments: Life after Death?
Narrator: After a hard day. Helen is having a drink with Jay.
Helen: Do you wanna sip?
Jay: Yeah go on babes, thank you.
Narrator: Raised Catholic. Jay became an atheist in his teenage years, but recently has realised he's more agnostic.
Helen: What I want to know with you is because we talk about atheism and we talk about agnostic being agnostic.
Jay: There could be a lot more than meets the eye in this world and beyond and beyond.
Helen: So you are saying there's something else, right? And because I believe in God, there is something else.
Jay: You do believe in God.
Helen: I do believe in God when we die. What happens to our soul? I don't think life just ends. I'm just thinking that we. We live on in who we've touched. Don't you ever get a sense of something or.
Jay: I'm tempted to think that, but no, I think that I want to think that.
Helen: I know that when like when my mother died, for instance, when you're having to face grief, then that person is still with you. I get a sense of her being with me. Um.
Jay: One second. Just going to have a little cry in the toilet.
Helen: Okay do that.
Jay: I'll be right back love.
Helen: Right. Got it. No. Do the cry.
Narrator: In 2022, Jay lost his close friend and bandmate Tom Parker, who died from cancer aged just 33.
Helen: All right.
Jay: Okay, I'll probably go again, but don't panic.
Helen: Yeah, I'm not panicking because I was great. Great to see you back. No, but no, but it's interesting because I said that about my mother. Only because being the one left behind. Um, you have to think about it. So I know your close friend Tom died. Did you know that he was dying?
Jay: Yeah. Um. So they knew it was serious quite quickly. And, um, there's not really lots you can do.
Helen: Did it make you think a person is here? And what happens to you, um, when that person's not there? Oh, totally.
Jay: Um, I think it felt. Really senseless.
Helen: Did that make you believe less than God? I mean, it's so painful to think of the end of a human. Yeah. All the joy, all the little micro cells that made that in him. Then you just go, well. Is that it? What was it all for?
Jay: I think as much as you can be. I'm agnostic. I'm really open to the idea that there's something. But I haven't got a clue. I haven't got a clue.
Helen: But you have got a clue. You've got loads of clues. That's why you're agnostic. If you're an atheist. It would be like, yeah.
Jay: You've got loads of clues.
Helen: Yeah.
Jay: I'm missing something I think.
Helen: Yeah, but we need to work on it, don't we?
Jay: Yeah, probably. But knowing that someone that I really respect and really love believes in God is a big comfort to me. Thank you. I just don't know if I'm exactly there yet, but.
Helen: And you don't have to be. I'm going to drink some wine now.
Jay: Yeah, maybe I'll get one.
