Having just returned from another funeral with the same drivel about going to be with God, and being in a better place, live your life to avoid eternal torture, etc., etc., I’ve done a search for a text of an atheist funeral, but have found nothing. Amazingly enough, not even in GQ of Straight Dope.
I'd like to set things up so that there is no misunderstanding about what ** my ** service will be like. I did like some of the words in Carl Sagan's "Billions and Billions". Ann Druyan said that there was no fear or deathbed conversion just before he kicked, just awareness that this was the end.
Has anybody been to an atheist funeral, or know of a good way to handle it?
My father was raised Catholic, but fell away from it after high school. At his funeral, his sister (the rest of his family kept the faith) read Psalm 23, and that was the extent of the religious services. The rest of the eulogy was about my father the man and his life, not God and an afterlife.
Well… my father’s funeral was a religious service in a church, but the proceedings wouldn’t be crippled if you deleted the hymns, bible passage, prayers, and homily. It was mostly about him, not about Christianity.
While I’ve never attended one nor do I have any association with the organisation, the British Humanist Association have a good reputation in the UK for arranging such ceremonies. They appear to have a booklet available addressing this exact question of suitable readings and music.
As for a personal suggestion, you might have a look at Bertrand Russell’s A Free Man’s Worship. I find the overall tone excessively bleak, but there are some beautiful passages within it.
I don’t know of a good script, but I’d say focus on the person’s life, what they did, and what mattered to them. Those who need to take comfort in the idea of an afterlife will find a way to do so. Those who don’t will probably be busy missing the person as well. Here’s an idea for a line to include (stolen shamelessly from some English dude;)) : “The good that men do is oft buried with their bones. The evil lives after them.” Take that line and explain how in this case the opposite is true. (Sorry if I screwed up Julius Caesar – it’s been a while.)
I remembered a friend saying that at his grandfather’s (I believe. Someone’s in any case, whose isn’t critical) they had a Speaker for the Dead kind of thing. As in the method from Ender’s Game where someone speaks candidly about the deceased life, as the deceased would about themselves
A disclaimer: I’m a Christian, and when I kick the bucket you can say the G-word all you want.
But I see no reason why a funeral eulogy has to mention a deity, or religion, or the afterlife if the deceased was not into that. How about just saying what a great guy the deceased was, giving some examples of why we loved him, and saying how we’re better for knowing him and how much we’ll all miss him?
Of course, if it’s YOUR funeral you’re planning, you must enlist the help of a friend, and tell him/her that if you should croak you would like him/her to deliver a eulogy along the guidelines listed above. I think that such a eulogy would be tasteful, to the point, and meaningful.
i have used this on several occasions at the passing of friends:
Now I am experiencing the Clear Light of objective reality. Nothing is happening, nothing ever has happened or ever will happen.
My present sense of self, the voyager, is in reality the void itself, having no qualities or characteristics. I remember myself as the voyager, whose deepest nature is the Clear Light itself; I am one; there is no other.
I am the voidness of the void, the eternal unborn, the uncreated, neither real nor unreal.
All that I have been conscious of is my own play of consciousness, a dance of light, the swirling patterns of light in infinite extension, endless endlessness, the Absolute beyond change, existence, reality.
Now I am experiencing the Clear Light of objective reality. Nothing is happening, nothing ever has happened or ever will happen.
My present sense of self, the voyager, is in reality the void itself, having no qualities or characteristics. I remember myself as the voyager, whose deepest nature is the Clear Light itself; I am one; there is no other.
I am the voidness of the void, the eternal unborn, the uncreated, neither real nor unreal.
All that I have been conscious of is my own play of consciousness, a dance of light, the swirling patterns of light in infinite extension, endless endlessness, the Absolute beyond change, existence, reality.
I, the voyager, am inseparable from the Clear Light; I cannot be born, die, exist, or change. I know now that this is my true nature.