The Impersonal Funeral

I hope I would have several “partial” funerals. Since for now I’ve lived on two continents I’ve told my loved ones my ashes to be dispersed in my country of birth as well as in my current country, on top of them some of it to be returned to the sea (since I am a diver).

Just small symbolic gesture and few words from family and friends should suffice. I hope I’ve changed their lives in a positive way throughout my life and they will have something nice to say. (Well if I turn out to be mean old man when I get older, oh well some choice words are ok too. Not that I will hear them 😉

I hope to have a non religious funeral where people who cared about me can share memories, songs I liked can get played, and nobody has to pretend I am in some celestial petting zoo…

I think that sermon was disgusting, but like mikespeir said not at all out of character for religion.

You’ve been tagged in the Atheist Alphabet Meme!

Definitely an inappropriate tactic by that minister. I know some that are like this – believe every opportunity (funeral, wedding, etc.) is a chance to “present the gospel”.

I’ve even been to one or two, and feel awkwardly uncomfortable for the sake of…well…anyone who actually came to honor the deceased, or celebrate with those getting married.

Why would a service director think that it was a good idea to preach about hell and damnation at a funeral? I can understand them talking about the peace and comfort of heaven. Even though others may not see it that way we can see the comfort that it provides and can excuse it as well meaning. To talk about hell though must just upset people whether they are believers or not. I know it upset and angered me when the vicar preached at the funeral of my mother.

Not a good way to win converts.

I wouldn’t really want a funeral.

I have an organ donor card which also states that after they’ve harvested all possible organs for use in others, the rest of me can be used for medical research.
Most likely, I’ll end up on a dissection table where medical students can get to cut me open, which is fine. Why be buried or cremated when you can be of some use, even if it’s only to be dissected by a group of first-year medical students?

“while the family wasn’t religious, they had a minister speak at the funeral” I shuddered just to read the words. If like this in life, well, let the funeral reflect it — if not, I have to think it’s a little late now 😉

My boyfriend had a similar experience lately at his kindergarden teacher’s funeral- he described it as “Ten minutes about this fantastic, wonderful lady and fifty about some God.” It angered him significantly, and would do the same to me.

When you say it is unethical, what standard of ethics are you referring to?

The ethics of the particular ministers particular version of Christianity? I doubt very much that this minister violated those ethical standards.

The ethics of us atheists? Wouldn’t any preaching about things that aren’t true in any context violate those ethical standards? I think so, but I’m not expecting to convince very many ministers to accept that ethical standard any time soon.

To get to the conclusion that this was more unethical than any other preaching, it seems to me you have to be expecting a funeral to be some kind of interfaith lets-comfort-everyone-without-really-dealing-with-the-theology kind of thing, and I don’t believe that any more than the foundamentalist christians do. I’m sure there are liberal clergy in the world who would be happy to participate in that kind of a funeral, but those are the sort of people who failed basic critical thinking classes when they were in college, who think that all religion can somehow be true at the same time, and so really don’t believe in any truth or any religion. And on an intellectual level I find them far more pathetic than real christians, and I’m not sure I would prefer a funeral run by one of them to a funeral run by a fire and brimstone minister. At least the fire and brimstone guy actually believes something.

Basically, as others have put it, if you invite a tiger into your home…

Ok, sounds like the minister lacked some tact, but honestly, if they wanted an irreligious funeral why didn’t they ask a celebrant to do it? Sounds a bit lame to say, OMG the Christian minister was too Christian, we didn’t expect that.

This is why I want a secular funeral. I don’t know if I’d call the minister’s behavior unethical, but it was completely inappropriate and disrespectful to the feelings of the grieving people attending the funeral.

I also don’t really see the point of having a minister (or anyone) who knows nothing about the deceased speak at a funeral. It’s one thing if the person was religious and the pastor of the church they attended their entire life is speaking at the funeral, but some random hellfire-and-damnation preacher is completely inappropriate.

I don’t think the pastor was unethical from his point of view, but I do think that he acted unethically from an outsider’s POV. I think that any pastor who preaches hellfire at a funeral (especially with kids there) is acting unethically, unless every single person at that funeral wants it that way. It’s taking advantage of people during a vulnerable time, and it’s sick.

The family of the woman is very non-religious. Sure, they’ll say they believe in God/Jesus in a very vague way, but they don’t even attend a church on Christmas and Easter. One great-aunt goes to a Baptist church, and since she was the only one who knew a minister, she got to pick him. I agree with those who say that bringing a minister into the mix at all was a bad idea, but the family had no idea that he was going to go off like that, given that they don’t know much about pastors.

They honestly seemed much more upset that he didn’t spend time talking about her life than about the hellfire thing. It was more like, “Instead of honoring her memory, he served his own agenda” from their POV.

Something very similar happened at my grandmother’s funeral; being an evangelical Christian, I’m quite sure it was exactly what she would have wanted (the minister was a friend of the family and visited with her often during her illness); otherwise, I would have been very upset indeed.

If an Christian minister is doing a service for a deceased Christian, something along these lines is, I think, to be expected. If anyone who I knew for a fact was non-religious had their service hijacked in a similar way, I’d probably be tempted to interrupt the service.

I’d like my funeral to be something more upbeat: a nice party, with my carcass converted into a pinata.

Something similar happened at my grandfather’s funeral. The priest was awful — he gave an incredibly inappropriate sermon about school prayer and yelled at me and my cousins in the middle of the service for not performing the rituals correctly (he had not bothered to instruct us on correct procedure beforehand). I was brought up Catholic but became an atheist a few years ago and left the church. I couldn’t help but feel that including that jackass priest in our family’s grief was obscene.

At least that priest didn’t assault anyone, though. At my great aunt’s funeral, the priest ran down the aisle during communion, seized my mother by the hair, and started screaming at her because he thought she had pocketed a consecrated host.

I don’t miss church.

Some Catholic churches don’t allow for a eulogy at the funeral any more. My Uncle (oldest kid) and I (oldest grandkid) gave the eulogy for my grandfather at the burial site after the funeral. At least the priest knew my grandfather and much of the family, so the service was much more personal that most people usually get.

I’ve thankfully never been to a funeral like that. Most of the ones I’ve been to (that I can remember anyway) were pretty straightforward. The priest knew the deceased and the family, and/or met with the family beforehand to try to decide what to say.

I’ve heard third-hand of a funeral where the priest railed about the deceased being a lapsed Catholic, and burning in hell for his lukewarm faith. And it was universally agreed that it was in poor taste.

If you’re paying for a service, like a mass as part of a funeral, it is the responsibility of the person providing that service to fulfill the customer’s wishes. If the customer wants a scathing diatribe, then such fire and brimstone might be appropriate. If, however, the customer wants a solemn eulogy, then the priest who delivers flaming vitriol instead shouldn’t get a pay check.

And if I’m not the one footing the bill, I’d just walk out. And they’d probably notice.

i’m pretty sure funerals like this are par for the course for some sects of christianity. some view it as their duty to use the funeral to reach out and save lost souls. any excuse is permissible as long as they are using it to try and save souls.

my grandmother’s funeral was like this to some extant, thought it was still fairly personal as it took place in a small church and led by people who’d known her all her life. i know this is what my grandma would’ve wanted, so i had no problems with it. also, it was far less focused on fire and brimstone than i imagine if my parent’s baptist pastor was speaking.

however, last fall my ex’s aunt and uncle died in a tragic car accident. for the most part, his family is deeply religious, though his doesn’t recall his aunt and uncle being so. their funeral was also used as an opportunity to preach, and he was rather upset by this, along with his cousins.

i think if it was the wish of the deceased, preaching at the funeral is okay, though i still find preying on people in distress pretty low. what’s upsetting is when the funeral is hijacked by religion if the deceased had no obvious wishes for this to be so.

A bit of a topic tangent, but I’d urge anyone who’s considering cremation to look into a new (new being a relative term) technique I’d been reading up on… hopefully it’ll become more popular before any of us kick the bucket lol (see article here).

Of course that particular article on the subject may be worth it’s own discusson on this site, but I’ll leave that up to the Moderator Gods 🙂

Also, to the commenter above that mentioned that they’re an organ donor and the rest will be left to science (Wim, I believe), make sure that whatever organization your body is going to will accept donations that have had the organs removed. It was my recent experience with my father’s death where I learned that most educational and medical facilities that accept cadaver donations will only accept those that are completely intact. There may be many that will accept any, but that was definitely my not experience.

Tanya said:

Talking about Jesus and how to get saved at a religious funeral – tacky but not what I would consider unethical. Talking about how the deceased is burning in hell and how you can avoid joining him in torment – THAT’S unethical.

But from the POV of an evangelical, it’s even *more* ethical in a way. Nothing is more important than making sure that people don’t end up in Hell, and the ends justify the means, to them.

What’s important to learn from these experiences is, as others have said, to *not* let pastors preside over funeral services. Don’t give them a chance to destroy the ceremony that’s supposed to be about remembering a loved one.

(And yes, he did do an “altar call” although he had people remain seated while he prayed the Sinner’s Prayer and invited them to pray along if they wanted to avoid the fiery pit.)

I think I could make some good money selling rotten tomatoes at the beginning of these funerals.

These people are vultures.

We just had a great funeral for a loved one in the family. It was honest… even pointing out some of the decedents faults.. It was loving, and it was a celebration of the life of the man. It was very much to his taste and his personality, and the entire family enjoyed it.

It was presided over by Reverend Cheryl Walrath-Duran, who officiated my wedding. And the interesting thing is this: I don’t really know HER religious beliefs. It is clear that she has some, being a reverend. But both in my wedding and in this memorial service, she was far, far more interested in asking us what WE would like the service to be like.

My wife and I were both atheists when we got married. We allowed for her to offer her blessings and a bit of inclusive “prayer or silent reflection” ceremonial deism in our wedding. She referred to God once or twice, but when she did it it didn’t seem like she was defining the term in any way that was anything other than referencing her own concept of that.

And again in the funeral there were moments for prayer or silent reflection that were always introduced with the phrase “because we come from many different traditions, beliefs and life-paths, I invite you all to pray or meditate with me in your own tradition…”

Wonderful. Inclusive. Not in any way pushy.

I firmly believe in having funerals. But I do wish that there were more place to have them that were secular, and that secular people had more options.

When my uncle passed away a few months ago, the funeral service was held by a Catholic priest who was also a close friend of our family.

He kept the service short and simple – instead of trying to press us on and on about my uncle’s death or his probable destination in the afterlife, he asserted that the best way to honor my uncle’s memory was to live life to the fullest.

The grieving turned into a rather cordial reunion of sorts for my mom’s side of the family, and I noticed many of my uncles and aunts shared funny stories of how my late uncle lived. Partly thanks to the padre’s sermon.

It’s because of events like these that I believe that having a religious service done isn’t necessarily going to cause a disaster like the example shown above.

I hope that at my funeral everyone remembers something funny I said during my life and laughs. Then I want everyone to go have a few drinks and hook up with somebody.

“Dear friends and loved ones of the dearly departed… we are gathered to honor the memory of someone who passed from us. He was a very good man and a loving husband and father.

“But enough about him. What I really want to tell you about today is the Sham-WOW! Have you ever seen a car so clean as with the Sham-WOW?!?

“But that’s not all, act in the next ten minutes, and we’ll throw in the Slap-Chop, a pair of his-and-hers Snuggies and a set of genuine Ginsu Steak Knives. NOW, how much would you pay to escape Eternal Damnation?

“Many other religions would charge upwards of a hundred dollars for all this. But if you convert to Jeezus in the next ten minutes, you won’t pay $99.99, or $89.99 or even $59.99. Act now and you’ll get all this, eternal salvation, the Sham-WOW!, the Slap-Chop, the Snuggies and the genuine Ginsu steak-knives for an Amazing 29.95!!!”

Of course that falls into the fallacy that if you believe something is true, you must act on it.

For example, if I honestly and truly believe that you are satan, I really SHOULD try to harm you.

This is a mindset that cannot be excused. I notice it a lot in Ray Comfort-style evangelism.

He starts with the premise “what if I’m right?”, and then starts to prescribe a course of action based on that. He neglects the first step, which is actually *testing whether or not you’re right*.

And really, that IS your first responsibility. If you think faith healing will cure your child, and the child dies, the fault IS YOURS, and the sincerity with which you held a false conviction will not excuse you, nor bring back a life.

People who cause pain, trauma or push their crap on everyone else *because they neglect or fail to check their ideas about reality against reality* cause harm *of their own fault*.

Almost nobody actually MEANS to hurt anyone’s feelings or traumatize them. But it doesn’t make them blameless for their insensitivity and their own fantasyland bullshit they inflict on others.

But on the other hand, all listeners to these sermons should also grow a thick skin and recognize bullshit when they see it. Don’t be traumatized by being told by a preacher you’re going to hell. Call bullshit on him. Laugh at him. Drive him out.

They’ve got some fucking chutzpah to fleece the flock, take the money of the bereaved *and* put on a snake-oil show in the middle of a mourning. Let them know that they’re not wanted, and they can take their two-bit thimble-rigging back to the carny sideshow where it belongs.

I would prefer to not have a funeral as they are, IMO, a waste of money. But if my loved ones feel the need for one I’d want a strictly non-religious one. Thankfully my wife, my mother and my sisters (should any of them be alive a the time) would ensure no religious individuals led the proceedings and would put a stop to any shenanigans such as you described. Though my mom and one sister are devout Christians they understand I am no longer a believer and would never dream of foisting religion on me, whether I were living or dead.

I want a hog roast type party (my favorite kind of party for no particular reason). Grass skirts are optional. Look through old photos (possibly video) of times gone by–hopefully they would use this time to remember good things and think of what they have in life to be thankful for. Drinking alcohol would also be a good thing to do.

Basically, I want everyone to have a regular party instead of being sad because being sad won’t make me any less dead. Having a good time, however, will be a nice memory to look back on, especially since many of my family members are only able to travel for weddings and funerals. Heck–you get (sometimes paid) time off work for the shindig, and maybe even travel discounts. Everyone wins!

Ugh, I hate it when pastors (or whatever the clergy guy, and it’s almost always a man, is called) use a funeral, which I think should be an event for remembering the deceased, to prosetylize. This sort of thing happened at the funeral for a grandmother of mine nearly two years ago, and it really bugged me. I don’t know how religious she was, and hadn’t been around her when she might have gone to church, but even if she had been very religious it would still have bugged me that the pastor did what he did. In fact, technically I think the event might have been a memorial service, not a funeral, which makes that pastor’s prosetylizing at my dead grandmother’s service worse.

I haven’t written up a will or any plans for what I would like done for when I die, partly because I’m only 20 years old, but I know I wouldn’t want any priests saying any remarks about me at any sort of memorial for me when that time comes. I’d want a very non-religious, non-traditional sort of event. Not that I think my soul will exist to give a crap, but that’s what I’d prefer anyway.

In reality, I don’t care at all. I’ll be dead at that time.

I told my family that they could do what they wanted, that they should find a way to remember me but that they should also think of giving my body to science (I can’t give organs).

How horrible! Funerals are for comforting the living! Not for converting! I’ve gone to a few funerals (my family is Roman Catholic) and not once was that done! The Priest would talk about heaven, and how the person was safe and in a loving place, but never about hell. How disgusting that hell was even mentioned!

And yes, they say Jesus died for our sins, BUT you cannot go to heaven unless you ‘accept the word’. Or at least, that’s how I understood it…which to me, means, Jesus died for nothing ’cause their story sort of cancels itself out. Jesus dies – we go to heaven. Oops, we don’t believe, so it doesn’t matter if we are saved or not, we’re going to hell. Sorta funny in a weird sadistic way…

I’d like to be cremated and the ashes spread around a forest or something. And then a helluva party afterward! Loud music, drinks, food…too bad I won’t be there…

I am a genealogy freak and I think it is cool finding the graves of my ancestors (but then again it’s NOT about ME, is it?). As an American of African descent,it is sooo cool that I was able to find the gravesites of one great great grandmother and a ggggrandfather. But I digress…the worst funeral I ever attended was for a darling 18 month old baby boy that I had cared for in our PICU for his entire life. The nurses pretty much adopted him and we made sure he had a loving and enriched environment. When he died, we attended his Jehovah’s Witness funeral. It was the most disturbing funeral I have ever attended. The minster told the audience that the child was in purgatory waiting to see what choices that would be made by his parents during their lifetime. If they were good, he would join them in heaven, if they did wrong, he would join them in hell. What if one was good and the other bad?? What did the poor baby have to do with his parent’s behavior? What if his grandparents were bad and dragged everyone down to ‘hell’? I was an atheist attending the funeral but the other nurses were christian, and we consoled each other afterward. We all agreed that the ‘minister’ (doesn’t that mean COMFORT?), was full of shit and none of us believed a thing he said!!

While I acknowledge that once I’m dead, what my family chooses to do with the body is ultimately irrelevant to me (because I will have ceased to be, and therefore can’t really have an opinion on the matter), if I wind up with some religious funeral thing, I’m haunting their asses.

Wait, I should have worded that differently. But yeah, poltergeist time.