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I went to a funeral on Friday. A friend, younger than I, dead from cancer of the colon.
But you know, it was the best funeral I've attended in a very long time, possibly ever. It was a humanist ceremony, and it focused very clearly on the person it was about. Talked about her life, what she'd done, how she'd affected the people who knew her. Much more clearly than any of the all-too-many religious (specifically, Christian, but of different denominations) funerals I've been to in the last few years.
I've sat in too many churches, being told that the deceased is in heaven, in God's care, etc, and angrily but silently disbelieving it. I find that in Christian funerals, whether C of E, Catholic or Methodist, the service is mostly generic, by which I mean, it's the same service, whoever died. And perhaps that's comforting to those who believe, because it confirms the fellowship, or the fact that we're all going the same way... To me, it's not comforting. To me it's just formulaic.
I don't want to hear about the death (or, heck, the life) of someone other than the person I'm there for, and how that was way more meaningful. I don't want to hear all that stuff about the afterlife, because I don't believe it. Dead is dead, no survival of the 'soul', no reuniting with those who've died before. That's it. But once I'm inside a church, the assumption of the whole service is that I believe everything. It angers me. I don't. I'm there for a formal farewell to the person who died.
The humanist service made space for people's religious belief, if they had it - there were a few minutes during the service specifically for individuals to hold their own thoughts of the deceased, to pray if they wished to. In a religious ceremony there is no room allocated for my beliefs, no acknowledgment that there are any alternatives.
It seems to be a trend nowadays that people don't dress in sub-fusc for funerals, at least, not always. We wore bright things on Friday, and at my father's funeral, and at my grandma's. I like it.
But you know, it was the best funeral I've attended in a very long time, possibly ever. It was a humanist ceremony, and it focused very clearly on the person it was about. Talked about her life, what she'd done, how she'd affected the people who knew her. Much more clearly than any of the all-too-many religious (specifically, Christian, but of different denominations) funerals I've been to in the last few years.
I've sat in too many churches, being told that the deceased is in heaven, in God's care, etc, and angrily but silently disbelieving it. I find that in Christian funerals, whether C of E, Catholic or Methodist, the service is mostly generic, by which I mean, it's the same service, whoever died. And perhaps that's comforting to those who believe, because it confirms the fellowship, or the fact that we're all going the same way... To me, it's not comforting. To me it's just formulaic.
I don't want to hear about the death (or, heck, the life) of someone other than the person I'm there for, and how that was way more meaningful. I don't want to hear all that stuff about the afterlife, because I don't believe it. Dead is dead, no survival of the 'soul', no reuniting with those who've died before. That's it. But once I'm inside a church, the assumption of the whole service is that I believe everything. It angers me. I don't. I'm there for a formal farewell to the person who died.
The humanist service made space for people's religious belief, if they had it - there were a few minutes during the service specifically for individuals to hold their own thoughts of the deceased, to pray if they wished to. In a religious ceremony there is no room allocated for my beliefs, no acknowledgment that there are any alternatives.
It seems to be a trend nowadays that people don't dress in sub-fusc for funerals, at least, not always. We wore bright things on Friday, and at my father's funeral, and at my grandma's. I like it.
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