by Stealth 30 Replies latest jw friends
99% of all funerals that I have attended have been the WT version, where they preach about the resurrection into Paradise and say little about the person who passed other than they were loyal to Jah. The other 1% catholic for grandparents.
Now that I consider myself an atheist, I got to wondering what do atheists plan for when they die?
If you are a non-believer what are your plans for when you die? Will you be burried or cremated? Will you have any service of any type?
Donating my body to science. Those med students need a laugh.
It is up to those I leave behind as to what happens to this incredible, unbelievable body of mine. *
I have left instructions only that it be disposed of in the most ecologically sound way possible.
I have also left instructions that should there be any kind of ceremony, it be totally secular and free fom anything religious.
The British Humanist Association have trained Celebrants who will conduct such a ceremony, and there are other independent people who will do so too.
* (Incredible and unbelievable that such a huge wobbly thing can actually walk)
i want to be buried. on mars.
I'll be dead, so I don't really care much. I'll let whoever I leave behind decide what makes them feel best. Funerals aren't for the desceased, they're for the bereaved.
I have given this some thought. If I ever come up with an answer I will get back to you.
On the one hand I don't want any mumbo jumbo but on the other hand people find comfort in ceremony.
It's a puzzle.
i had a distant relative leave his body to science, just last year.
and bigmac there is a mars Pa, so you might get half of your request, lol
Cantleave: I guess donating your blood to science is a good way to thumb your nose at the WT.
Phizzy: I agree with your thought of disposed of the body, most ecologically sound way possible. I would prefer that over being put in the ground. Good to know there are some places that would do a non religious service.
Bigmac: If I could afford it, I would love to be put into a pod and ejected into space to travel through the solar systems.
OneEyedJoe: I agree that most traditions for for the living not the dead. So you won't mind if they throw up a JW funeral for you? That is the last thing I would want.
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.
Cofty: I feel exactly the same way. I don't want any WOO WOO, but at that point it's not all about what I want anymore. It really is a puzzle.
Aaron Freeman: You illistrate the puzzle quite well. The Physicist would speak truth, but that would provide little comfort to those still here.
