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Awkward Moment

Coleman Smith

Member
Joined
Aug 12, 2000
Messages
323
Location
Center of the Universe
Basic Beliefs
Atheist
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."
 
I knew an MT who didn't say 'Gesundheit' or 'Bless you' when people sbeezed, but "Nothing happens when you die!" I can imagine his response to "Your father's with Jesus, now."
Probably, 'Not after all those dead hobos we found in the basement.'

I, though, always seem to get the asshat who wants me to know that even though he's buried in Temple clothes, grandpa won't be in Heaven because he drank that evil coffee...
Fun people.
 
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."

I prefer - "I am sorry for your loss," if I don't really know the person. If I do, it is usually something more along the lines of, "I believe your loved one is as they were before they were born and am thankful they are no longer in pain."

Because honestly, if the choice is heaven or hell, your God isn't worthy of worship. Limbo - then might as well just call that a second life and have it be part of the reincarnation cycle (which I could get behind) - but it is far more likely that we just go back to being a part of the universe.
 
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."

Hardly. The religious myth that atheists don't believe in anything and are just a bunch of unfeeling, selfish pricks is one of the most stunted and inhumane beliefs religion foists upon its adherents.

Do you really think that if infantile religious stories are not true then there is nothing else that could be true that doesn't reflect that evil cartoon in religionists' heads?

Why do you need a special magical story about an afterlife in order to be compassionate when someone loses a loved one? How impoverished does a person's mentality have to be that they need such fairy tales just to be empathetic humans?
 
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."

They could say "dust to dust", then flick something off their sleeve.
Just a suggestion...
 
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."

Hardly. The religious myth that atheists don't believe in anything and are just a bunch of unfeeling, selfish pricks is one of the most stunted and inhumane beliefs religion foists upon its adherents.

Do you really think that if infantile religious stories are not true then there is nothing else that could be true that doesn't reflect that evil cartoon in religionists' heads?

Why do you need a special magical story about an afterlife in order to be compassionate when someone loses a loved one? How impoverished does a person's mentality have to be that they need such fairy tales just to be empathetic humans?

Angary:

My post was a feeble attempt at humor.

I have been an atheist since about 1956 when in high school I read a book by a holocaust survivor at which time I became aware that humans were not created by an intelligent deity.

My response to the religious is that no member of the National Academy of Science or the equivalent organizations in Europe and Asia have ever produced a single sentence of testable evidence for the existence of any deity, and they never will.

I am not interested in any religious dogma unless and until the advocate gets his belief published in the reference scientific journals.

As far as needing a religious belief to console the grieving I find the Christian deity as frightening as nuclear war.

However, the believers so find solace in their memes.
 
Sometimes the atheist at a funeral is at a disadvantage.

The believer can come forward and say something positive like the decedent has gone to be with Jesus.

The best the atheist can do is say nothing or "when you die you rot."

I think our freethought tradition offers a rich assortment of responses.

1. "Van Halen is dead, too." (Or whatever celeb just died. But avoid the less famous, like Norm Crosby. It really is awkward to have to give the back story.)
2. "At least he/she isn't praying for recovery anymore."
3. "Please accept the corporate sympathy of America's atheists." (Okay, save that one for Trump's sendoff.)
4. "At least now he/she knows that there's no afterlife. Or, no, actually, with a dead brain, he/she doesn't know anything."
5. "It's all a journey. Is this thing catered?" (For multi-tasking atheists)
6. "Let's us do an experiment and leave a cell phone in his/her hand."
7. "It could be worse, you know. If there was a heaven, he/she would probably be listening to George Beverly Shea singing endless songs. If there was a hell, it would be an eternal Trump rally."
8. "You know, Jesus lived in the pre-Lysol days and was probably crawling with cooties."
 
"He is in heaven now and that is all that matters."
"They why did we bother with the expense of the burial?"
"We want to honor them."
"But his soul is in heaven, his soul is what made him who he was... not his body, that was just a shell. Wasted thousands of dollars on a casket for a shell?"
"But he wanted to be with his family."
"He is up there with them in heaven, remember? We just put his body next to their decaying corpses that are more like soil at the moment. He's probably up there thinking, 'Oh I hope they didn't waste thousands of dollars burying my body with all that decaying flesh."
 
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