In a year where I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time attending funerals for friends and loved-ones, who in most instances have been the same people, I have found myself sitting through a variety of different types of service. I have been to secular funerals, part religious funerals and purely religious services and while my own feelings on each are completely irrelevant, I know which services I preferred and that’s the ones where God does not make an appearance.
That said, if the deceased was a religious person then it makes sense to invite God along to offer prayers and sing a few songs in His name. My argument, such as it is, revolves around the whole purpose of a funeral. Who is it actually for?
That’s a more interesting question than I initially thought. Clearly, it’s to mourn and, perhaps, celebrate the life of the departed but it’s also for those in attendance who are doing the mourning and celebrating. It is not just my secularist and indeed atheist leanings that lead me to prefer a funeral where God isn’t there.
Too often, for me anyway, services have been all about God. Hymn after prayer after blessing which I never really understand. Surely, if one is a believer in the supernatural creator with the all-seeing, all-thinking eye and ear, there are plenty of opportunities to pray and give thanks to Him, without dominating the funeral itself?
I am not getting into detail about why anyone would want to thank God for someone who has died, especially in cruel and upsetting circumstances. Obviously, I don’t think He was responsible for the cancer that took the family member and friend because I don’t happen to believe He was there in the first place but if one did hold such beliefs, that’s very much a circle I can’t square.
No. I want the funeral to be about the departed. Their favourite songs and poems, perhaps, and a eulogy from someone close, telling the story of their life.
Please do not be offended by my comments. I have no interest in disrespecting anyone’s ‘faith’, although I have to be honest that I don’t respect anyone’s faith, either. As someone who believes that one does not survive one’s own death in order to go to heaven or hell, and that this life is the only one we are certain to have, I do not feel that God has any business being spoken about with the same level of importance as the person we are mourning and celebrating.
I honestly cannot see why anyone would want God to be at a funeral – he will not be welcome at mine, always assuming I have one at all – but as I say, each to their own. But I do think there’s a time and a place for most things, including God, and a funeral isn’t one of them.
