What are atheist funerals like?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Our church just lost another good man the other day, but at least he lived 'til 84, and had a happy life and loving family. The poem “Gone from My Sight” by Henry Van Dyke was listed in his funeral’s bulletin; here it is for your enjoyment:

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, “There, she is gone.”

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me – not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, “There, she is gone,”
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

==

All the funerals at my church are thought of as “celebrations of life”. “We will surely miss this person, but we would not call them back to this world of pain. Instead, we look ahead to the glorious day that we’ll be with them again in the kingdom of Heaven.”

And this particular funeral got me thinking:

What are atheist funerals like? I imagine they vary considerably from Christian funerals, because atheists have no hope that there’s an afterlife. Is there more sorrow?

2

There are no atheist funerals. There are atheist burials, there can be atheist wakes. But no funerals.

3

I’m having a little fun imagining they celebrate the life of the person, talk about the fond memories and then remind everyone that they don’t matter anymore, they’re worm food rotting in the ground, then they throw the body in the garbage.

4

There certainly are atheist funerals: I’ve been to many, including those of my parents. They aren’t that different from the Christian funerals that I’ve been to, except that they are not held in a church, they are not conducted by a priest or minister, and the religious parts such as prayers are left out. So the essential part is that friends and relations get up and say what they remember about the deceased.

5

I’ve been to “Christian funerals” where the Christian aspect wasn’t much more than a generic minister (who didn’t know the deceased) wafting through and saying some words. So, cut out that part and you have an “atheist funeral.”

6

Indeed. They are often called Memorial Services.

7

I have recently become a humanist celebrant, and so far I’ve done two memorials and two weddings. The first memorial was for a veteran, was held in a funeral home, and ended with a 21 gun salute. I met with the husband, who both gave me information for my reflection on her life and told me the elements he wanted included. I opened with thanking everyone for being there, introduced the two people who were speaking, then talked about her life and the person she was, and finished with a poem. There were two recorded songs in there somewhere. The second was in a hotel banquet room, and was similar.

I think you might be, at least in part, asking a deeper question: How do atheists comfort themselves in the face of death? Oddly enough, I am writing this while sitting beside someone who is only hours from death. I’ve lost a husband to an early, tragic death, and both of my parents have died, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about this. From my perspective as an atheist and secular humanist, believing in an afterlife is comforting myself with denial. It would feel as fake and hollow to me as believing that man beside me might just recover. Life is valuable because of death, not despite it.

8

I went to a Catholic funeral once. What a miserable bunch of misanthropes, crying fire and brimstone and dreadful imagery, ruining our day while we were all trying to remember the happy times. Fuck that noise.

I haven’t been to a strictly atheist funeral, most of them have some kind of god-bothering in amongst it to appease the pious, but I also live in a country where generally religion is low key and isn’t that big a deal for most of us, leaving us largely alone to our own beliefs.

9

My grandfather’s funeral was conducted by a Minister, despite all of us being atheists, because he was cheaper than the celebrant who conducts atheist funerals. My family are a practical, thrifty people. We just nodded along silently during the religious bits.

Generally speaking, I haven’t noticed a huge difference between atheist and religious funerals, minus the expressly religious stuff. Atheist funerals tend to concentrate on the celebration of life, too. After all, that’s all there is. You can’t change it by crying about it. You accept the inevitability of death and you focus on good memories for comfort.

10

A couple of my heathen friends have died, and we’ve had wondrous parties, lacking only the guest of honor. Drinking, drugging, story telling, hugging, crying, laughing, etc.

11

All dressed up and no place to go.

12

Most atheist funerals are like Christian funerals minus the talk of god, heaven, or an afterlife.

The thing to keep in mind is that funerals are not conducted for the benefit of the deceased, but rather those who knew the deceased and their families. A funeral to an atheist is not needed to ‘send the deceased off’ but rather to provide friends and family a chance to grieve, recollect, and bring closure.

13

Why would there be more sorrow? We rejoice in the fact that our lifespan is finite and unique.

14

I guess I am always puzzled by questions that assume Christianity is the center, origin, essential element of fairly basic human/social needs, and that without it, those needs cannot be fulfilled or are only filled with the equivalent of social masturbation. It indicates a thought process that has never gone beyond early indoctrination.

15

Or Celebration of Life services, a term I prefer. Just like religious services except without the sermonizing, but centered on sharing reminiscences.

Funerals are for the living, remember.

16

I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but I agree.

I also think it’s quite often an opportunity for the “questioner” to either feel superior to someone else while they’re in a low place (my beloved is dead, I feel like shit, but HEY, I must feel better than those poor saps who don’t even have any hope!) OR to make a subtle dig at a group that they feel is “less than” just in the abstract (the “is there more sorrow” phrasing seems particularly suspect to me).

Neither of which is a particularly good look on a person, no matter which direction the attitude is pointing.

17

Just wondering as I read these comments…from an atheist point of view, is there something *wrong *with the word “funeral?”

18

First I’ve heard of it.

Actually, the term that strikes a note of religiosity to me is “service.” But certainly I’ve heard of or attended events, of and for atheists, that used all of the above.

19

Nope. According to the dictionary:
1.
the ceremonies for a dead person prior to burial or cremation; obsequies.

Now those ceremonies can range from the invocation of some supernatural entity to a loud, raucous party at Buffalo Wild Wings and all points in between. Personally, I would prefer the latter, but I’ll be dead so it won’t really matter.

20

Conversely I think it is the life that gives significance to the death.