I see you have the same understanding of atheism that you’ve always had.
Pretending, that is.
Czarcasm,
If Amber goes through with the atheist version, what would happen as a result?
[ul]
[li]What impact would it have on the departed Mitch?[/li][li]What impact would it have on the Pentecostal family audience?[/li][li]What impact would it have on Amber?[/li][li]What impact would it have on the greater atheist movement?[/li][/ul]
(If there are other people impacted by this that I couldn’t think of, feel free to include those too.)
hoping against hope that you will answer my questions in turn, and that this is not just a diversion:
- None.
- It would let them know how she was impacted by his life, and how he lived his life.
- She would leave knowing she had been true to herself and to him, and that any memory she had of him would not be corrupted by a false story made up by her father.
- What the fuck are you babbling about? What “greater atheist movement”??
Disagree. “The highest good” is a concept. An important one, a useful one, but still, just a concept. We can as easily and as rationally define what it is - for ourselves, for a family, a community, or for society as a whole - if there is a God, as if there is not.
Czarcasm, I have a question that I hope is not too personal. Why do you keep asserting/assuming that Mitch & Amber’s father was the one behind the misleading statements in the funeral program? The OP doesn’t say that, but rather implies (or at least meant to imply) that it is the Grey siblings (or one of them) who is behind the misleading statements in an attempt to assuage the parents’ grief. Perhaps I should have been more explicit in blaming the siblings – but there is jack-diggly in the OP that says the father, specifically, is responsible. I know you are not a stupid person or a bad reader, and your repeated statements that the father specifically (and not the siblings or mother) is the one whitewashing the truth troubles me.
So what’s up with that?
If the question is too personal, do not feel obliged to answer and please forgive me for intruding.
This demonstrates level of not comprehending atheism or philosophy that truly offends the intellect.
If that is what is going on, then I misread the situation, and apologize. In that case, she should go straight to the father with both the heavily massaged speech and her own unadulterated speech, and see what he says. If he approves of the of the former, then she should leave. If he approves the latter, then he figures his(and his family’s) Christian strength could certainly hold up under such a “horrific onslaught”.
You can define it as being whatever you want - you just can’t justify it. It’s faith-based.
That’s not “rationally defining” it. One has to take it on faith.
Which is what drives people like Czarcasm crazy - all atheist morality is faith-based, just like theism, and I don’t fall for the usual dodge of trying to shift tyhe burden of proof. You notice that he isn’t even trying to counter anything I said.
[QUOTE=Knorf]
This demonstrates level of not comprehending atheism or philosophy that truly offends the intellect.
[/QUOTE]
No, as a matter of fact it is right on the money. The basics of any atheist morality must be assumed. It is exactly equivalent to “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”
Regards,
Shodan
Atheist movement = atheist advocates who want us all to come out. I brought it up because your comments in the thread made me wonder if there were bigger issues at play beyond the people in the room at the funeral. I’m making a concerted effort to understand your viewpoint and would love it if we can engage one another civilly. I’m not your adversary.
Anyway, based on #2, those are certainly appropriate things for a eulogy, but by my reading, it seems like those things revolved around recovery and didn’t involve god at all so it seems like it would be easy to leave it out of the eulogy entirely without diminishing the impact Mitch had on Amber’s life.
As for #3, I don’t see how saying bringing up Mitch’s atheism in a eulogy has any impact on a corrupted memory of Mitch. Either Amber was swayed by the father’s lies or she isn’t (and I would guess that she isn’t). Your point about being true to herself and Mitch does hit home with me. But when I think it through, any victories that would come from the pushback would be for Amber’s benefit only (as we both agree that Mitch wouldn’t be impacted, being dead and all). By definition then, that’s Amber making it about herself. Okay, what’s the cost of doing so? Additional grief for the rest of the attendees. They’re not your garden variety vanilla Christians, they’re Pentacostals. “Salvation” is everything to these people. If Amber is unsuccessful in convincing this particular crowd that Mitch is an atheist, she would be seen as trying to sully the character of a loved one. If she is successful in convincing this crowd that Mitch is an atheist, she has effectively yanked Mitch from Heaven and into the lake of fire in these people’s minds. That’s an act of aggression.
If I were Amber, I might take lying father to task after the funeral/burial/wake is over (out of respect for Mitch), but even as I type this, I doubt anything I say would penetrate a Pentecostal’s head. The thing I would definitely do is to set aside some private time with a photo of Mitch and have a separate personal eulogy for myself and (my memory of) Mitch. Since the dead are no longer with us, these are all symbolic rituals in the first place, and being able to have a heartfelt eulogy without the Pentecostals in my vicinity would make it that much better.
I do think it’s shitty to have religious a-holes run roughshod over us non-believers. It’s selfish, disrespectful, callous, and just plain unjust. In the face of that kind of aggression, I would definitely feel the impulse to throw it back in their face and set the record straight. But the thing that stops me is a pragmatic realization real-world costs of doing so would greatly outweigh the symbolic gains of doing so.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–I’m not at all convinced it’d make the family happy. They gotta know it’s a lie. It’s just the closest they can get to an answer to the question of “where is Mitch now?” that’s not absolutely horrifying.
Showing them that Mitch was a wonderful person because of his atheism (or because of his secular humanism, if you prefer), may upset them. Or it may give them a different answer to the question. They may start thinking about the possibility that God would never condemn a wonderful person to hell, they may start thinking that his atheism, rather than being a Satanic flaw in his character, was something that led ultimately to the same path their Pentecostalism will lead.
There are no guarantees, of course. They may just be humiliated. But I’m deeply skeptical that their “Maybe he had a deathbed conversion!” explanation will be satisfying to them, either. I think the possibilities offered by the truth are significant enough to outweigh the possible harm of any humiliation they’d experience.
Especially since an honest recounting of his life–an accounting that doesn’t whitewash the atheism–does not preclude the possibility of a deathbed conversion. If the family needs that lame sop, nothing in an honest eulogy can take it away.
No, it isn’t. “The Bible believes it,” etc., frees the believer all all responsibility and indeed all control over his or her own morality. Atheist morality, lacking any credal foundation or supernatural pretensions, tends to be reason based. I think of it as being like geometry. The atheist ethicist first chooses a set of axioms (preferably as few as possible) and then reasons from them a larger set of postulates. This is not a matter of faith
I’ve started a thread in Great Debates on this issue, if anyone cares.
Any family willing to to disown a child merely for mentioning a sibling’s ethical worldview is not a family in any meaningful sense.
Sure we love you…up to a point. And that point is apparently a heartfelt and honest eulogy that touches on what made her brother what he was. This is a test for the family and the church. If they can’t listen to want she wants to say and accept it for what it is then their (obviously conditional) love and support isn’t worth anything.
I think she should say what she feels she needs to, She doesn’t have to labour the point, doesn’t have to rub anyone’s nose in it, she has no need to insult or belittle and nor does it sound like she wants to. But nor should she skirt it to the point of evasion or taking the power away from her points. There is nothing worse than the lies we tell ourselves and I’m sure some of the family must hate the fact he was an atheist and hate having to lie about it when they know deep down what the truth is. Having his sister wax lyrical about his goodness in spite of non-belief and everyone seeing her acceptance of him could be cathartic for many others not able to speak up.
If, after that, she is going to be shunned then so be it. If such a minor thing is enough to fracture the family then it is only going to be a matter of time anyway.
Who would even want to be in a family like that? How can one even look them in the eye?
Left Hand, my experience of Pentacostals tells me that yes, they DO find tales of deathbed conversions highly satisfying and no, their minds are not open enough to have a “conversion” of their own that one can be moral and an atheist and that atheism can be a positive feature of a person rather than a deep and fatal flaw. OK, maybe one in couple hundred or so, some do leave the fold, but most are going to react with hostility.
I have virtually no experience with Pentecostals, so I’ll mostly bow to your judgment, but ultimately I’ll bow to the judgment of the fictional Amber. If she decides that it’ll do no good and a lot of harm to speak the truth, I won’t condemn her for that. If she decides the family could use a dose of honesty, that’s fine, too.
Keep in mind, though, that the tale of deathbed conversion in this case is a tale of a conversion that nobody saw happen. It’s not like someone’s gonna pop up and say, “Mitch begged forgiveness from jesus on his hospital bed, and the last thing he did was pray with me!” Their tale, in this case, is, “After Mitch stopped being able to speak, I sure betcha this lifelong atheist converted then!” Is this the sort of deathbed conversion tale that your experience tells you Pentecostals love?
Fortunately for Amber, the vibrant and largely non-judgemental 12-Step community ensured that there was a meeting available when she needed it.
That’s what a lot of them want to hear. If none of them saw it, well, maybe a nurse did. Or someone. These are, after all, people who believe in divine revelations and miracles.
I’ve also seen a situation where the family held a deathbed vigil, begging the dying to accept Jesus (on their terms, of course) and when that didn’t happen many of them were inconsolable, one-upping their predictions of eternal torment, lake of fire, etc. for the deceased and sobbing over how they would never see them, and so on.
My take was to point out that God, with His infinite forgiveness, might have forgiven said deceased and he’ll be in heaven.
Oh, lord, two hour lecture on being saved by faith alone, good works not doing squat, Mother Teresa is burning in hell forever (Catholics, apparently, weren’t Christian enough for them), honestly, you’d think I’d suggested something horrific like, I dunno, torturing puppies or something. If you don’t accept Jesus in life you burn in hell forever, period. Anything else is Satan speaking.
Sure, some few leave the Pentacostal system but I don’t see where being completely honest at a Pentacostal funeral in a Pentacostal church with an overwhelmingly Pentacostal audience is going to benefit anyone. These aren’t Unitarians, they don’t question dogma, and their minds are not open on the subject.
Some 12-steppers do go overboard and it becomes another sort of dogmatic religion for them. I suppose if it keeps them sober it’s better than them staying drunk, but not by much. Other 12-steppers are, let us say, a lot more rational.
It didn’t say “12-Step based meeting”, but if that kind of “gotcha” makes you feel better, go for it.
I suppose it could be considered a “gotcha,” but the casual stereotyping of the million or so members of AA and other 12-step programs gets on my nerves sometimes.
If Amber makes the same calculus you make, again, I won’t mind if she stays mum for mum’s sake. But if she thinks she can be eloquent enough to show her parents an alternative narrative, I’ll be pretty happy.