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Mr. Spock
Skeptic Friend
USA
99 Posts |
 Posted - 08/13/2002 : 18:59:57
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I won't waste your time with an "afterlife" poll, especially since I already know how most of us stand on this. I don't expect an afterlife; there is no decent evidence for it. I'll live one life at a time, and if I'm surprised after death, then I'll deal with what I face at that time.
What prompted this observation is the fact that I just attended my grandmother's funeral. Yes, I'd love to believe that I'll see her again in the hearafter, and that she is with Grandpa again, etc., etc., but I know that it just ain't so. In a way, my sense of loss was deeper than that of my theistic friends and family simply because I don't buy any of this.
Of course, I hated actually having to enter a church, and while I don't believe in "evil" as anything more than a desciptive term, I wanted to bathe the evil off of me as soon as I left. And yes, like any good atheist, I refused to close my eyes and bow my head during prayers and stared in silent, stone faced disbelief at the morbid, dehumanizing hymns sung.
I have gone through this twice this year, and cannot believe how everyone wants to make a recently deceased person out to be so very religious, even if they were not. The common tactic is to pick a positive inclination or avocation, and make it out to be the deceased' way of "doing god's work." With Grandma, it turned out to be her great cooking and famous hospitality, even though she hardly ever went to church on her own accord.
When they tried to pull this shit at my grandfather's funeral a few months ago, I really got pissed. He was a true, though somewhat closeted, freethinker if I ever knew one (my first real exposure to skepticism as a youngster was witnessing my Grandpa gleefully poke holes in the theological rantings of my newly "born again" father).
I'm sorry for the long-winded post here, but I'm getting to a point. Let me ask: How do you want your friends and family to honor your life when you die, and, if those wishes preclude a religious memorial service, what legal measures have you taken to ensure that your wishes are followed?
"The amount of noise which anyone can bear stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity." --Schopenhauer
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Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2002 : 23:36:10 [Permalink]
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Funerals always seem to turn into a religous ceremony unless the deceased expressly instructs that an alternative be set up. My Aunt Virginia was not religous but her daughter was and without any instructions from my aunt my cousin had a church funeral. The Minister did not know my aunt at all and the only things that anyone could think of to say about her was she kept a clean house and had a good work ethic. How sad for that to be the last things said about a person. Of course there are still funeral directors who push the "standard" funeral because it is what most people expect. I think it falls in the better safe then sorry category.
As most people know I have a terminal form of Chronic Leukemia and things are progressing slowly but downhill so I left exact instructions for my funeral. No open coffin. I don't want people standing around talking aout how "natural" I look. They always put on way too much make-up and I don't wear any at all. I am to be cremated and six months after my death my immediate family are going to use my insurance to go to Disney World where Mickey is going to read my good-by to everyone and then my daughter,son and husband are going to sprinkle my ashes all over the park except in "Its A Small World Afterall" because even I don't deserve to have any of my ashes in the closet place to hell on earth I can imagine.
I want 4 songs played. For my husband I want Peter Gabriels "In Your Eyes" and "You Belong to Me" by Vonda Shepard .For my daughter "Coppa Cabana" by Barry Manilow and my son "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita. They all have personal meanings for us.
If my husband goes before me though I have agreed that as a former preist his family who are devout Catholics I will do the whole Mass ect then for me and our kids will go to his favorite fishing place have a quiet good-bye and plant a tree.
We are all going to die so if we do not leave instructions then we get and deserve what someone else wants.
Death: The High Cost of Living
It is easier to get forgiveness then to get permission! |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 00:45:45 [Permalink]
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Mr. Spock, I'm sorry for your loss. I think people do live on, as it were, in the thoughts and actions of the ones whose lives they touched. If you learned from them in any way, if they did something memorable that you can give that information to others, then they live on.
Ok, probably should give some thought to this before typying but:
I too have been thinking about what instructions I should leave. Sometimes I want to give exact details and other times I don't want to be bothered. Just let whoever is going to take care of it do it. My son, who thinks like me. And hates me as much as I hated my parents, keeps telling me all he wants is my money so I'm sure he will do what I want and dispose of my remains the cheapest way possible(no fuss, no muss). I have not much family left and no one near by who I'm that close with. Just some nice friends and I don't know that I'd want to put them through having to go to some kind of ceremony. My art will live on and that's how I'll be remembered, always. (better buy some now before I become too famous! )
Guess that wasn't much help. I just don't want to deal with the subject. Too busy with what's going on NOW.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Cosmic string
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 02:56:46 [Permalink]
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I haven't thought much about this. Thanks for getting my attention.
It's too soon for me to fully contemplate this, so the following is based on what I things will be like more than a decade off.
Being an atheist, and being that funerals are always religious, I know I must be very specific on some points, lest my funeral misrepresent me or damage people's memories of me. So, I have a few key points I must include in my will:
0. My organs and, perhaps, my body will be donated to save lives and advance science and medicine. How anyone can not do this is beyond my imagination. (Thanks for reminding me of this, Spock. I tend not to think about organ donation except when I put the sticker on my licence.)
1. My funeral will be secular. If that is impossible, I may consider a unitarian setting, or I may have no funeral (undecided on this yet).
2. There will be no open casket.
3. I haven't decided on burrial or cremation yet. I'm learning strongly toward creamation now (thanks for your input, Spock).
4. My monetary assets will be divided among my widow(~25%), my children (~45% for two), and several charities (~25%) including CSICOP, RSDSA, ACLU, AHA, The Planetary Society, and a few others. No money may go to religious groups/charities.
5. My house, etc. goes to my widow.
6. The remaining 5% of my monetary assets is to be used to create a virtual (online) library of all of my research papers, any books I've written (not yet, but I'm planning on it), and reviews of my favorite books and papers, not to mention a biography.
7. Memorial photographs of me will be taken, my body posed normally, or my corpse; that is, unless the body is in bad shape.
8. People will party, or at least should party.
Essentially, no religion, no open casket, fair division of assets, money given to charities, money used to keep the real memory of me going, and either burrial or cremation. I'll pick the people to give eulogies when the time is right, but for now it includes my mother, my wife, my children, my best friend, and maybe one close coworker.
IMHO, the forced religion when someone dies clearly has nothing to do with the individual who died. Instead, the afterlife/god mumbo-jumbo is just to quell the fear those attending have. I'll bet that the churches realize that funerals are ideal places to win converts. They're grief-striken and afraid of death. Then the clergyman spouts off garbage about eternal paradise. This is the hook. Then the clergyman makes the claim that this person went there because he did "god's work." This is the line. Then he adds stuff about eternal punishment and that his religion is the only way to heaven, which is why the dead guy went there. Finally we have the sinker.
Dr. Shari, I'm very sorry to hear of the situation you are in. May you have as many good days as you can; may your time remaining be long; and may you enjoy life to the fullest.
{Edited to make minor changes and one addition. Thanks for reminding me of these, Spock}
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.” --Voltaire
Edited by - Cosmic String on 08/15/2002 01:23:44 |
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DVF
Skeptic Friend
USA
96 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 10:08:16 [Permalink]
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My standing funeral order:
Noone gets in without a bumper sticker.
"Know what, if you were in a building, and it was on fire, I'd rescue you."
- My Son 3/5/2002 |
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ConsequentAtheist
SFN Regular
641 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 13:13:55 [Permalink]
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It's a difficult situation.
My wife and I were on vacation last month when we got word of our daughter's death. There was no church or pastor, no preselected funeral home or prepurchased cemetary plot - nothing. We had to rush back and make all of the arrangements while trying to support family and friends and deal with our own grief as well. I ended up planning the 'service' and eulogising my own daughter. It was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done.
What I learned from it (other than how very much I love my daughter) is the importance of advance planning. Upon my death, my wife, children, and grandchildren, will have nothing to pay for, and nothing to do but grieve as they wish. If that process includes prayer, so be it, so long as they acknowledge and respect me as an atheist. I have also indicted three non-religious charities as my preferred alternative to the local flourist.
Mr. Spock, please accept my condolences at the loss of your grandparents. Your grandfather sounds great. Given my girth, however, I would have probably been slightly biased in favor of your grandmother's cooking. Take care ...
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Mr. Spock
Skeptic Friend
USA
99 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 17:24:38 [Permalink]
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Let me thank you all first for your kind words, and may I offer my condolensces and encouragments to those who have related their stories.
If anything, I have learned the virtues of planning ahead, especially since we never know when we are going to go. (Even though I'm in my early 30's, I know that my crazy driving, prior battles with boozing, fondness for shitty food and major losses in the genetic lottery could move me up in line quite a bit). 
One might very well ask: as an atheist, why would I care? Obviously, I can't have that selfish fantasy that most people have about witnessing their own funeral and receiving some perverse pleasure over all of the fuss that everybody is making over them. I guess that while I'm alive, it will make me happier to know that I am accurately represented when I go, and that any memorial for me does not offer a portrayal that belies my beliefs and lifestyle for the benifit of a religious, or any other, institution. I would like those who really knew and liked me, rather than those who simply pretended to, to have a good time remembering me and receive their "closure" in a non-tainted manner.
First, I want the scientists and organ banks to pick me well over before cremation (burial is an egotistical waste of real estate, as far as I'm concerned). My wife would get my assets, unless she passed first, in which case they would go to deserving organizations such as JREF (I have no children, and the rest of the brats in my family are quite spoiled enough already with undeserved handouts).
Depending on the weather, I'd like to rent a pavilion in a park or perhaps a room at a restaurant or night club, and have a short multi-media presentation of the reality that was Mike. I'd have my musician friends play my favorite Zappa tunes, I'd have readings of my philosophical musings, a videotape of me telling everyone how glad I was that they could come, and which would proceed to tell my loved ones how much I loved them and why and tell all of the pricks and phonies to fuck off (I do this now, but people pay more attention to you when you are dead). Hell, I might even have a roast--I am sometimes annoyed that people only remember the good things about the recently departed. I wouldn't want to obscure the fact that I am a mentally diseased, socially retarded, ill-mannered, self-absorbed, pretentious and dirty minded alcoholic SOB, even after my passing.
After this, everyone should party like it's 1999! Food, booze, whatever. (As Bruce said to the other Bruce's on the Python sketch, "I don't want to catch anyone not drinking"). 
A fantasy, maybe, and hopefully not one that will be fulfilled too soon. The problem is that if one wants to break the mold with regards to one's own memorial celebration, much planning is involved, which I have yet to do. What I have witnessed with the recent deaths of my grandparents has prompted me to get started.
"The amount of noise which anyone can bear stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity." --Schopenhauer |
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Mr. Spock
Skeptic Friend
USA
99 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 17:32:47 [Permalink]
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BTW, for those into the culinary arts, Grandma was a graduate of the Food Trades Vocational School in NY, NY. Her "thesis" was organizing and hosting a great war-time hoo-haa for the great big-band and jazz guys of the time at a posh NY restuarant. She ended up partying with the likes of Benny Goodman, Glen Miller and Artie Shaw, and damn well let everyone she came to know afterward about this fact--as if her cooking wasn't evidence enough that it was made for the best of the best.
"The amount of noise which anyone can bear stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity." --Schopenhauer |
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Donnie B.
Skeptic Friend
417 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2002 : 18:48:53 [Permalink]
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I don't really care what my family and friends do after I die. If praying gives some of them comfort and helps their grief (if they have any!), fine, no skin off my corpse.
Personally, though, I think a good party would be more fun.
-- Donnie B.
Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!" |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 01:10:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
I haven't thought much about this. Thanks for getting my attention.
It's too soon for me to fully contemplate this, so the following is based on what I things will be like more than a decade off.
Being an atheist, and being that funerals are always religious, I know I must be very specific on some points, lest my funeral misrepresent me or damage people's memories of me. So, I have a few key points I must include in my will:
NOT IN YOUR WILL.
A bit of advice:
If you don't feel like talking to or telling people close to you what your wishes are and you want to write them down=
Never put them in your will.
Wills are commonly read after the fact and are not meant to be arrangements for funnerals.
Have a seperate document somewhere that people can get at it easily when the time comes. In other words NOT in a safe depost box. But give the paper or tell people where to look for an important paper should something happen to you.
As for it being too soon and as in Mr. Spocks case being in his 30s, I don't want to be any more morbid than this subject is already but my cousin was in his early 30s a few years ago, just finished working out at the gym, got a sudden headach, went home and died of a brain hemorage. The family was in shock, there was never a hint of anything wrong before.
Thankfully this isn't the norm so don't worry too much all you youngsters but you never know what's going to happen.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Cosmic string
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 01:44:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
I haven't thought much about this. Thanks for getting my attention.
It's too soon for me to fully contemplate this, so the following is based on what I things will be like more than a decade off.
Being an atheist, and being that funerals are always religious, I know I must be very specific on some points, lest my funeral misrepresent me or damage people's memories of me. So, I have a few key points I must include in my will:
NOT IN YOUR WILL.
A bit of advice:
If you don't feel like talking to or telling people close to you what your wishes are and you want to write them down=
Never put them in your will.
Wills are commonly read after the fact and are not meant to be arrangements for funnerals.
Have a seperate document somewhere that people can get at it easily when the time comes. In other words NOT in a safe depost box. But give the paper or tell people where to look for an important paper should something happen to you.
Got it. Not in the will. Maybe a notorized document stored somewhere safe in my house (like one under boxes in my closet and one deep in my school/work files). And another "not to be opened unless I die" version to give to my close family. And maybe one in the safe. I'd think that would cover it.
quote:
I don't want to be any more morbid than this subject is already but my cousin was in his early 30s a few years ago, just finished working out at the gym, got a sudden headach, went home and died of a brain hemorage. The family was in shock, there was never a hint of anything wrong before.
I'm very sorry to hear about that. My condolances.
Mr. Spock: I'm sorry I missed that part about your grandparents my first time through. It must have been painful to watch them be misrepresented (defamed?) that way while you are already grieving over their deaths. I can only empathize with you. My condolances about your grandparents.
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.” --Voltaire |
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Cosmic string
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 02:02:42 [Permalink]
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I have a question that may be relevent to the topic at hand. How do you feel knowing you will die someday? Isn't it deeply depressing when you realized that there is no evidence for an afterlife?
I got to talking with a close friend about this while we drove out of town to see the Perseid meteor shower the other night. We are both in total agreement that the idea of an afterlife is just mumbo-jumbo. This ended up putting us both in total agreement that the thought of dying and that being it is depressing. So we brainstormed some ways to look at things in a positive light and how, in some senses, we don't immediately die with our bodies. Our hypotheses are essentially:
When we die it is, from our perspective, as if we never lived. But we could live on to a degree in the memories of those close to us, especially our children or grandchildren (I do plan to live that long). And any memes we will have created by then would live on. We are, in my opinion, two things: our awareness, and our thoughts. Awareness goes out the window with death, but not all thoughts must. If a thought has taken the form of a meme and is incorporated into society and science, then the thought lives on.
I must admit, even though these ideas make me slightly less uncomfortable with the idea of dying than before, they don't help much. It's still a depressing thought. Anyone have more uplifting ways to look at it? 
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.” --Voltaire |
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 02:11:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Maybe a notorized document stored somewhere safe in my house (like one under boxes in my closet and one deep in my school/work files). And another "not to be opened unless I die" version to give to my close family. And maybe one in the safe. I'd think that would cover it.
Yap! You got it.
I see you are only one year older than my son. I thought you were older from reading your posts, until I looked at your profile. (I'm going to send you a private message, would like to tell you more but not in this folder)quote:
I'm very sorry to hear about that. My condolances.
Thank you. I never got along with most of my family. He was one of the nice ones. It's true, Only the Good die Young.
I try to be as mean as I can.
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*Carabao forever
*SAN FERNANDO VALLEY SECESSION - YES
*All lives are movie settings, it's what channel you're on that counts. Zatikia
*Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand.
Homer Jaye S. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 03:27:26 [Permalink]
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"It" is not a depressing thought. To feel bad about death is to feel bad about life. Death is part of life. To say that one "shouldn't" die is to say that one shouldn't live, or that life is not enough as it is. Life is. There are no gods to tell us that it "should" be something other than what it is.
Why choose to be depressed about it? How does that help one live a better life? Choose to appreciate life.
Feeling bad because you may die someday is like feeling bad that you don't have wings, or eight legs. You are human. Death is part of the definition of being human. You'd like to change that? Fine. Work to change that.
quote:
I have a question that may be relevent to the topic at hand. How do you feel knowing you will die someday? Isn't it deeply depressing when you realized that there is no evidence for an afterlife?
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn
Edited by - gorgo on 08/15/2002 05:04:02 |
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Cosmic string
New Member
USA
37 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 10:24:14 [Permalink]
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quote:
To say that one "shouldn't" die is to say that one shouldn't live, or that life is not enough as it is.
I don't think one "shouldn't" die. Part of life is death.
quote:
There are no gods to tell us that it "should" be something other than what it is.
You won't hear any argument against that from me.
quote:
Why choose to be depressed about it? How does that help one live a better life? Choose to appreciate life.
Thank you. That was exactly the kind of uplifting perspective I was hoping someone could provide.
quote:
You are human. Death is part of the definition of being human. You'd like to change that?
I said nothing about changing it. It is the way it is and there is no changing it.
I was simply looking for how to think of dying in a positive light. Apparently there is none, but since, as Gorgo pointed out, there is no way to change it, why worry? Perhaps this might make my thoughts easier to understand. I recognize that I will die someday, that there is no afterlife, and that there is no changing these. What I was getting at with the thought that thinking about death in this light can be depressing is that I think it explains why so many people cling so steadfastly to their beliefs in an afterlife.
Thanks again, Gorgo, for putting things in perspective.
“The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning.” --Voltaire |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2002 : 10:46:22 [Permalink]
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I just hope my kids were joking about making a few extra bucks by selling me to Alpho.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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