My partner has suggested that it would be a good idea if I was to plan my funeral, not so much because I am headed for an early grave – although, who really knows? – but on the basis of ‘just in case’ I shuffle off my mortal coil before having done so. I can see where she is coming from. In my darker, more depressed moments I do find myself imagining my funeral taking place until reality dawns and I remember that, just like Jeremy Corbyn said after a wreath-laying ceremony for a dead terrorist, I would be ‘present but not involved‘. We’re all going to die one day so shouldn’t I plan my own exit?
I see my death as the end. As an atheist, how could I possibly see it any other way? People who believe in a God have faith that they will survive their death and spend eternity in Heaven and I can see how that could give reassurance that death is not the end. Until recently, I was hugely dismissive of the Heaven and Hell post death options and while I have not had a change of heart as to their likely existence – I remain as sure as sure can be that they don’t exist – but I am trying to be more respectful towards people of faith. I would hardly call this a ‘leap of faith‘ since I still regard ‘faith’ as belief without evidence, but like believers, I don’t want to die. As I inch nearer to my own death, I’m more inclined to let others cling to their belief that there’s something else beyond life if it helps them deal with it.
For the slight, maybe minor, change to my attitude, I must thank the brilliant writer and comedian David Baddiel. His short book, The God Desire, is a thoughtful account of his own atheism and how he wishes there was a God because he doesn’t want to die. “I find God’s non-existence deeply depressing,” he says. He describes himself as a ‘fundamental atheist‘ who knows that God does not exist but, perhaps confusingly, he refuses to be ‘dismissive of religion‘. To my mind, that’s an incredibly complex place to come from, but then I am not a Jewish atheist like Baddiel. Having been brought up in a mainly non-religious setting, it was easy for me to settle into atheism. For him, understandably, less so.
I suppose one idea that could drive us on about planning our own funerals is that somehow we might be there in some shape or form, watching our loved-ones grieve (or in my case possibly celebrate?) our demise, that we will somehow be looking down from somewhere high in the crematorium, joining in the fun. It’s not going to happen, is it?
Nonetheless, I’m going to have to sort something out just in case someone decides to do it for me. If I was to leave no instructions, who is to say that some smart Alec in the family would decide to take the piss by playing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now as the coffin disappears, a few ghastly hymns and some bible extracts? I’d like to think I would survive my own death and come back to haunt people in an act of revenge. Best to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place.
