# Secular eulogies? Atheist funeral on Thursday **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 7, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141 "2007-05-07T19:21:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/1 "2007-05-07T19:21:03Z")
My grandfather died recently and I’ve been asked to do a reading at his funeral. He wasn’t a religious man, and requested a secular ceremony. My father is giving a personal eulogy, and I have been asked to give something more generic. I had initially thought of [On Death](http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran27.html) from _The Prophet_ by Kahlil Gibran, but I have a few misgivings - it’s a little long, a little deity-oriented, and a little portentous, so I’m looking for an alternative. Does anyone know of anything that isn’t tremendously religious that might be appropriate? It needn’t be _rabidly_ atheist - e.g. it may be derived from a religious text - but shouldn’t be overtly religious. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/2 "2007-05-07T19:28:35Z")
There is the poem, used in Four Weddings and a Funeral called Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/3 "2007-05-07T19:32:49Z")
Ah yes, that’s my wife’s favourite poem - we have it framed on the wall. He lived a very long life, and at 95 and very ill, it was properly time for him to shuffle off this coil, so I don’t think the tragedy of Funeral Blues is necessarily appropriate in this case. Thanks though! ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/4 "2007-05-07T19:35:27Z")
Maybe just something about enjoying lilfe? Does it have to be a poem or a speech? Couldn’t you just tell a story about something you did with him, or something he enjoyed, or something he said? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/5 "2007-05-07T19:35:35Z")
First, sorry for your loss. Second, [here](http://www.vonnegutweb.com/archives/arc_nice.html)’s Kurt Vonnegut (famous atheist) discussing his eulogy for (famous atheist) Isaac Asimov: > [@](#): > > Do you know what a Humanist is? I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. > > We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ‘‘Isaac is up in Heaven now.’’ It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ‘‘Kurt is up in Heaven now.’’ That’s my favorite joke. If you don’t want to do that, I would say just give a eulogy about things you’ll remember, miss, loved, liked, etc., about him, and don’t mention religion one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/6 "2007-05-07T19:38:50Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] If you don’t want to do that, I would say just give a eulogy about things you’ll remember, miss, loved, liked, etc., about him, and don’t mention religion one way or the other. [/QUOTE] I agree with this; your grandfather’s religion, or lack thereof, doesn’t need to be the centerpiece of the day. Focus on the other 95% of what made him unique, whatever that may have been. And, condolences. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/7 "2007-05-07T19:41:01Z")
As I said, my father is doing the “personal” bit. I’ve been specifically asked to do a generic piece on death. ETA: …or other appropriate generic piece. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/8 "2007-05-07T19:42:53Z")
There’s always Zelazny’s [prayer](http://sonic.net/~roelofs/humor/zelazny_agnostic.html)… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/9 "2007-05-07T19:50:52Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] First, sorry for your loss. [/quote] Thanks. I ain’t picking on you, **Sampiro** , but it seems that my OP isn’t conveying what I’m looking for - as in the following fragment is 180 degrees from what I’m looking for: > [@](#): > > and don’t mention religion one way or the other. That’s the whole point: I’m asking for help with _not_ mentioning religion while making a general, hopefully thought-provoking reading about dying. See if I were a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, they’ve all got big set texts to choose from. We atheists don’t have such a ready store of appropriate verses, and the catchment area is a little larger - I’m looking for some pointers in the right direction. The Auden would have been good if appropriate to the situation, or maybe something from Shakespeare, or some other poet, etc. Something that talks wisely about death but doesn’t bang on about heaven or god and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/10 "2007-05-07T19:53:14Z")
“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson ([link](http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/stop.html) ) “Death be not Proud” by John Donne ([link](http://www.bartleby.com/105/72.html) ) ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/11 "2007-05-07T20:06:46Z")
Corliss Lamont’s \*A Humanist Funeral Service \* uses portions of George Santayana’s \*To W.P \*, the full text of which can be found [here.](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175272) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/12 "2007-05-07T20:44:26Z")
Then perhaps a discussion of the history and mystery of the afterlife. > [@](#): > > Every culture and every civilization that has ever existed taught of an afterlife. In Shanidar Cave in what is now Iraq a grave was unearthed in which a Neanderthal woman was found buried in the fetal position, surrounded by flowers and grave goods, all suggesting a belief that death was a rebirth, and this from a a human-like creatures so primitive that their name is an insult and popular GEICO commercial, and this from 60,000 years ago. Literacy was born in that same land tens of thousands of years later, and among the first things they wrote about was the afterlife. In Gilgamesh, almost 5000 years ago, the desire to know more of the life after death sends the hero on a great quest. In Egypt in 1500 BC the Book of the Dead created an afterlife of chimeral gods and bureaucracies and rewards. Christ was asked by the Sadducees to teach about the life beyond, and he described a strange place where there is no marriage and no sex, and yet Christianity teaches we shall all be reunited with our wives and husbands there, and the religion spread far among the slaves and underclasses of Rome for its teaching of an Earthly paradise after a hellacious life of suffering. Two thousand years later men died crashing into the World Trade Center for belief that 72 virgins awaited them on the life beyond (and may they all look like Della Reese). > > Every culture and every civilization that has ever existed taught of an afterlife, and its citizens took comfort from the teachings. And the only consistency was the inconsistency, for seldom did the teachings agree with those of the other cultures. Seldom did the teachings of a particular sect agree with the teachings of other sects in the same religion. Seldom did the teachings of a single sect agree with the teachings of that same sect when 500 years had passed. The teachings always varied, and they cannot all be true. > > Read of all the afterlives that are theorized, that are possible, that are believed in, and ultimately Shakespeare seems most right when in Hamlet he describes death as _The undiscover’d country from whose bourn/No traveller returns_ (Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1, lines 77-78), or Robert Heinlein’s Lazarus Long who remarks in his Notebooks _There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is not evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know. So why fret about it?_ > > But the words of the ancients are not without merit. For in addition to tales of Bulls from Heaven and dragons and sea monsters and worms devouring the wicked, listen to what else Gilgamesh was told when his story was told before a pyramid was ever a thought and thousands of years before any outside of what is now Jerusalem thought it remotely holy. On his quest Gilgamesh is told this of his desire to know what comes after life or else to live forever: > > O Might King, remember now that only gods stay in eternal watch > Humans come then go, that is the way fate decreed on the Tablets of Destiny. > So someday you will depart, but till that distant day > Sing, and dance > Eat your fill of warm cooked food and cool jugs of beer. > Cherish the children your love gave life. > Bathe away life’s dirt in warm drawn waters. > Pass the time in joy with your chosen wife." > On the Tablets of Destiny it is decreed > For you to enjoy short pleasures for your short days. > > Few tremble at the notions of Tiamat and the other Sumerian gods and goddesses, zigurrats must now pass zoning laws and have steel beams, and the mighty walls of Uruk turned to dust thousands of years ago and the land of Gilgamesh is the world’s most famous wartorn nightmare. But these words, put on clay with a reed by a naked scribe using what to us are only scratches almost fifty centuries ago, are as relevant in the world of satellites and clones and nanotechnology as they were in the world of reed boats and clay gods and Inanna’s priestesses. Death is a door and we can believe and postulate all we wish about what if anything is on the other side and if it opens from within and that door has been studied for thousands of years in every culture and we can’t even agree on what color the hinges are, so let us instead devote our attention to the room we stand in. Here I’d seg into the preciousness of life, the cherishing of the non supernatural memories and essence fo the beloved. Perhaps close with a particularly poetic notion of the afterlife that you’d like to see filled. For my mother I used the following in a very rough draft of a eulogy I never delievered (or something like it, for I don’t have the original handy): > [@](#): > > The Creek Indians occupied the lands where my mother lived her entire life, their belief systems dominant for thousands of years before the Christian churches that have dotted the landscape for only the last 200. The Creeks believed that the soul of a dead person would remain on this Earth until all who loved her were dead, for to love is to have a piece of that person’s soul. It was, I am sure, a way of encouraging people to stop mourning and get on with their lives. For the sake of my mother I hope the Creeks were wrong, for if they were right- and they certainly had seniority here- my mother will not climb the Milky Way to the paradise of the rivers for many many years, for her sould had many owners. And I know that I will not let go. and would have closed with a playing of [They Live in You](http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/33510/LION_KING/They_Live_In_You) from THE LION KING (which I played instead at her vistitation, sort of- imbeciles started the CD too early). Anyway, all of the above is off the cuff (save for where I looked up exact quotes) and with no knowledge of your grandfather so feel free to totally disregard, but just a suggestion. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/13 "2007-05-07T20:51:36Z")
PS- I used [this translation](http://www.mythome.org/gilgamesh10.html) of Gilgamesh. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/14 "2007-05-07T22:33:14Z")
> **[Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_stand_at_my_grave_and_weep)** > > "Do not stand by my grave and weep" is the first line and popular title of the bereavement poem "Immortality", written by Clare Harner in 1934. Often now used is a slight variant: "Do not stand at my grave and weep". > Kansas native Clare Harner (1909–1977) first published "Immortality" in the December 1934 issue of poetry magazine The Gypsy. It was written shortly after the sudden death of her brother. Harner's poem quickly gained traction as a eulogy and was read at funerals in Kansas and Miss... This is a popular one. Religious people can read into it as much religion as they want. Non-religious people can simply enjoy the imagery. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/15 "2007-05-08T14:41:18Z")
Couldn’t the eulogist simply relate what sort of person his grandfather was, including some of the family’s lore and funny stories? But if you want something more formal and staid and yet poetic and life-affirming, I’d turn first to the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Somewhere – perhaps in the tomes of the Stoics, the Hedonists, or the humanist odes and epistles of Horace, or the contemplations of Marcus Aurelius – is a passage you can use. I’ll do a bit of searching later this evening and post back, how’s that? ---
**Author:** ![Surok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@Surok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surok)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/16 "2007-05-08T14:47:54Z")
My condolences, jjimm. This may not be atheist enough, but to continue the poetry suggestions: [Uphill](http://www.bartleby.com/101/783.html) by Christina Rossetti. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/17 "2007-05-08T14:51:22Z")
It’s always a nice thing for a eulogist to encourage the assembled to appreciate the beauty of their own lives, and the people around them. That needn’t be religious in nature, but it is not necessarily atheist, either. We all have our earthly lives in common. I’ve never tracked down Bowles’ work for the source, but the following always resonated with me. From the Wikipedia page for [Brandon Lee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee): > [@](#): > > In an interview just prior to his death, Brandon quoted a passage from Paul Bowles’ book The Sheltering Sky that he had chosen for his wedding invitations; it is now inscribed on his tombstone: > > “Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you cannot conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless…” > > The Interview can be seen on VHS and DVD of the The Crow. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/18 "2007-05-08T15:31:55Z")
Hand puppets… just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/19 "2007-05-08T15:42:03Z")
I heard this on NPR, and loved it so much, I ordered the transcript, so it could be used at my funeral (or non-funeral remembrance gathering, if my wishes reign). You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen. - Aaron Freeman ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2007, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141/20 "2007-05-08T19:45:18Z")
Perhaps not appropriate for the funeral of a 95 year old man, but I’ll mention it just because I like it: a scene from ZORBA THE GREEK. If you’ve never seen the movie: Zorba (Anthony Quinn) has gone from being morose to a near frantic dancing, Greek folk and dirvish in one, finally collapsing exhausted and smiling onto the beach. His unnamed Boss has watched this, concerned for the old peasant’s sanity and health, and when Zorba gets his wind back he speaks for the first time of a personal tragedy (Boss knows almost nothing of Zorba’s life). > [@](#): > > ZORBA: When my little boy Dimitri died, everybody was crying. Me… I got up and I danced. They said, ‘Zorba is mad’. But… no. It was the dancing. Only the dancing stopped the pain. Boss, you are a learned man…Why do the young die? Why does anybody die? Tell me? > > BOSS: I don’t know. > > ZORBA: Then what’s the use of all your damn books? If they don’t tell you that, what the hell do they tell you? > > BOSS (reflectively): They tell me about the agony of men who can’t answer questions like yours. > > ZORBA: I spit on their agony. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secular-eulogies-atheist-funeral-on-thursday/403141.md?page=2)