A little integrity...

Someone in a group I belong to has sparked an awareness in me. It begins with one of the first non-religious funerals I took. The deceased man's son wrote a poem which I read at the funeral. It was very good, very good indeed. He put his finger on some important things, and he said things about his Dad that everyone knew but only he had a right to say. After I read it the congregation spontaneously applauded.

The premise of the poem was that his father was sitting on a heavenly bar stool looking down on his family and they'd all meet again in the next life. And this was a funeral without religion. When we were being trained for this role the question came up of how we'd react if we were asked to say a prayer, or in some similar way contradict our personal atheism. I had worked out a compromise, but I never needed to use it. What did come up, and frequently, was my client's expectation of another life where the family would be reunited. That I had not expected.

In the case of the poem above this crops up in the premise of the poem - but the poem was so good, and it was so hard to see how it could have been written any other way, I just put it down as a necessary literary device. Later on there was no such excuse. Families would say something about meeting again, or the next life, almost in the same breath as declaring their rejection of all religion and disbelief in God. I'd smile and say nothing, it seeming wrong to me to disturb grieving people or deprive them of their comforts.

Often a member of the family or close friend would speak at the funeral, and almost invariably they would make a similar reference, either to meeting again or to the deceased looking down on us now. Well, it wasn't me saying it, but I did feel I was being associated with it, with something that seems quite wrong to me.

Every living thing on this planet dies. Its body is recycled one way or another. Nature is cavalier about death - vast numbers of different life forms produce more young than can possibly survive, and the vast majority become food for some other life form. As far as we can tell, Homo sapiens is no different. Our thinking self-awareness is totally dependent on the electro-chemical activity of our brains, just as it is for every other animal. When our brains stop, we stop, and we cease to exist, just as we did not exist for the 13.7 billion years the Universe has existed till now. There is absolutely no evidence of anything else. That is the way of all flesh, and all plants, and all microbes too. Stars are recycled in the same way. The only reasons we can have for believing in another life are comfort at the death of a loved one and the impossibility of imagining our own non-existence. None the less, it seems to me that the vast majority of people cling to that belief, including a majority of those who claim no religious adherence and no belief in God.

Quietly going along with what seems to me to be self-deception, maybe out of kindness, was an irritant to me. Now I do not take funerals any more I no longer need to be dishonest, and I can choose when I want to challenge the fantasies some people have. I general I don't do it, but I am free to, and sometimes I do.

Book recommendation

I just finished reading God Collar by Marcus Brigstocke, who is best known for being a comedian. It's a long time since I read a book and immediately started it again with a highlighter in my hand, but that's the case here. It's witty, in some places eye-wateringly funny, poignant, moving, honest, devastating in its even-handed criticism of religion and not pulling punches about the failings of the non-religious either. He bares what I can only call his soul in a very courageous way. The sheer humanity touched me. If anyone thinks non-religion is easy, a simple rational choice, here is something they need to read.

Just a quickie...

Neither books nor august persons are infallible authorities. All they offer are opinions, more or less well informed, more or less valuable, but nothing set in stone. Every opinion can be questioned, no matter how great the prestige of the person making the pronouncement. Indeed, my experience is that the best experts welcome intelligent questions and respond courteously. In the search for truth there is no question that is forbidden and no hard question that may be ducked.