I am an Atheist and believe it is just waste of time. A person who is dead they cannot hear you or see what you are doing. what do you think?
And if you die which one do you prefer: Bury you? Burn you and put your ash under a tree to help it to grow better and someone use its shadow or fruits later? Or you have any other preference?
Funerals are for the living. It is a place where they pretend they are making amends for all the shit they once did to the now dead. They get to send him or her on his or her way with good wishes and console the grieving family members.
Grief is a major transition process for the living. You are no longer a son, or daughter. You no longer have a grandfather, A piece of a family has been removed. Contingent on family attachments, funerals certainly have their place.
The real question isā¦ why do it the Christian way? The Buddhists build a pyre and toast you. (I much prefer this.) The Vikings stuck you in a boat, pushed you out to sea and set the boat a blaze., What sea faring salty dog would not prefer this. If rockets ever get cheap, we could simply launch bodies into the sun.
I would not call them, unnecessary. Funerals assist the living with accepting the death of a loved one and with moving on in their own lives. They also serve to remind us that we ate all mortal and our day is coming. The real issue is not the funeral, but rather, how we do it,
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Funerals mean nothing to the dead person and are an emotional and financial burden on the living. The only good things I can say about funerals is they are less stressful than weddings, and they provide great opportunities for comedy.
A funeral director I met in New Zealand told me about a miserly man trying to get the cheapest possible funeral for his dead father. He visited every funeral parlor in the city with his father sitting in the passenger seat of his car. By the time he found one cheap enough rigor mortis had set in, so they had to force poor old dad into the box. Then sonny said he would dig the grave himself to save money. When they took the coffin to the graveyard, they found the hole was slightly too narrow. The son solved the problem by climbing on top of the box and jumping up and down till it slid into the grave.
Alternatives to funerals:
Donate your body for medical training and research
Donate your body to a body farm for use in forensic science training
Burial under a tree
Burial at sea to feed the fishes
Sky burial to feed the birds
Cremation followed by packaging as soup powder to be mailed to your least favorite relatives
Cremation for me.
A nice gazebo. A small plaque - thatās it. My boys can do what ever they want to mourn my dying. Little shits just better not have a fucking religious āthingā - they would you knowā¦just to be funny.
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I wonder if you could put that in your will i.e.:
If the above mentioned little shits do a religious āthingā they are here to fore to be cut out of the will and all proceeding from the estate to go to the care and upkeep of homeless pugs.
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I think I would want my ashes spread about Indian River Inlet Delaware. I also want burned with a new Fievel stuffed toy.
It is kind of weird I know, then in a sense I get to spend eternity at Indian River Inlet Delaware.
Cremation in a cardboard box for me. Yep that is a thing here. No service. A few dollars behind the local bar for my few friends left to toast my passing.
You wanna remember how I looked? Then go buy or rent one or more of the films I have appeared inā¦
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My sister in law is retired funeral director and can be quite blunt.
Dad once mentioned he was afraid of premature burial. Quoth she; āDonāt worry about it. If youāre not dead when we get you, you bloody well are when weāre finished with youā
My best friend died of cancer in 2019. He was an atheist. He forbade his embarrassing happy clappy daughter to pray over him. So of course she ignored that. Cog is quite right; funerals are for the living. Praying for her dad comforted her and didnāt hurt anyone.
Apart from that lone prayer, there was no service. Instead there was an hour of eulogies from a few of the 300 odd people attending. The event ended with my late friend leading a song from a large screen TV. There was a sedate wake after, with more laughter than tears.
Me? Iād prefer to be cremated and the ashes scattered. Part of the reason is that burial plots are leased for only 25 years. After that, the some one eithers pay for another 25 years or up comes your beloved deceased. Fuck that shit. Once the last person who knew me has died, it will be as if I never existed. Iām fine with that.
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My late wife made a great deal of having her ashes kept in an urn installed next to that of her favourite grandmother. She got her wish.
During the preparation of her funeral my two adult kids looked after that detail with the metropolitan cemetery. Not only did they find an unreserved location right next to the grandmotherās garden plot, they were delighted to find it was also a ādual locationā with room aplenty for my remains and an individual plaque for each of us. I hope they will forgive me for now saying, it was the most expensive piece of real estate, per square meter (it didnāt even measure that much), I ever paid for and it doesnāt even have a view.
They really felt the loss of their mum, as I did (I did a lot of crazy irrational things in the days that followed) and finding a dual resting place for the both of us seemed to bring them such comfort I concealed my disappointment at the thought of having my remains resting cheek to jowl with that disagreeable old woman whom my lovely wife adored, in a miserable cemetery populated with statues of grieving angels that epitomised the deep levels of grief and despair to such a degree that I actively avoid going there to pay my respects.
And I do honestly pay my respects to her on a regular basis, thinking of her and even addressing her memory, but not in that blasted cemetery but on the local headland near where I live overlooking the sea, where day trippers give strange sidelong looks at the old bugger they find there mumbling and laughing to himself as seagulls fly overhead.
My share of that dual cemetery spot is going to remain empty. My plaque on a modest headstone will be there with some deepity comment my children will compose, but my ashes, if all goes according to my plan, will be cast out above the sea from that local headland I like to frequent. I feel a return to the sea is a fitting resting place. I just need to impress my mates to make sure the wind is blowing the right direction when they launch my remains out over the Pacific. We might need to watch āThe Big Lebowskiā together and share a few beers before I kick the bucket.
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In my experience funerals are not for the benefit of the deceased, but their living friends and relatives.
I find them excruciating tbh.
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I had to do a will.
When we talked about death and my final arrangements and the boys say āhey! Youāll be dead - what stops us from taxidermy and getting a voice box? When we miss you, we walk over to you standing in the corner and pull the string. āJesus fuckināChristā ā¦
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ā¦make sure they include an animatronic swinging arm and rolling pinā¦cbflsm!
Cognostic has answered you very well but to add my bit;
I am 63 and I have leukemia. It is kept well under control with medication and I expect to live for many years yet but I have made plans.
I have left instructions for a humanist funeral. I have specified the uplifting music, with a few favourites and I have already written my own eulogy (to be read out by a weeping Kylie Minogue 
). Although I fully understand how utterly devastated everyone will be, I want no tears or wailing. A message from the the reigning monarch and the Prime Minister of the day would be appreciated, but I want the service to celebrate my brief time on the planet and all the wonderful things I have done. And then I will be burned. I have been very clear that my ashes may be used as fertilizer or under a carās wheels to help in the snow but they are definitely not to be stored, spread in the garden of remembrance or in any way mourned over.
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The biggest problem I have with funerals is that they are expensive and they are depressing ( if a person dies you canāt bring the person back you will also never see the person again) .
Here is the worldās largest cemetery the Najaf cemetery .Cemeteries also take a lot of space .Funerals is mainly for the living such for family members and friends etc.
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@Aresh
Like many other things itās a matter of perspective. I imagine that you have never been to a funeral that was actually a celebration of the personās life. We celebrated a friends death to his last detail. No priests. No church. Just a small reception hall. He wanted us to celebrate his life with musicians, videos, pictures and a free for all speaking about his life. Then he wanted us to all go out to a restaurant and get to know his other friends and family
Iāve been to 2 funerals like that. There was music and dancing and food and sharing of stories.
Good memories indeed and good buddies as well.
I want mine to be just like that. Plain and simple and cremated. Placed in the cheapest wooden urn and my ashes to be sent back into nature at the discretion of my friends. Then recycle the wooden urn
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I have left instructions/arrangements/promises for me (ashes) to be flushed down the toilet. Iām serious.
Iād considered donating my corpse to science, havenāt ruled it out yet. There are more options for carbon neutral funerals all the time.
I wonder could they turn my body into fuel, or use any of the body parts?
If anyone finds a soul theyāre welcome to it of course.
@ Nyralathotep
Interesting. I never heard that one before. Any particular toilet or will any do? And does someone specific get the honors.
I donāt care what anyone else thinks but I think itās an honor for whomever you have chosen.
These are truly special moments that really only come by once in a lifetime.
No one in particular, but Iāve secured promises from some of my nieces and nephews. Any toilet is fine!
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OH, I agree. Funerals are downright morbid.
Although born in Australia, my ethnicity is Irish. When a person dies, we have a wake after the funeral. People used to go a relativeās house. Thereās heaps of food and alcohol. People sit around eating, becoming very drunk and telling outrageous white lies about the deceased. This is one of the only times one usually sees relatives one detests. Some one always starts singing. Because they are inevitably out of tune, the singing is soon replaced by some fighting.
The above is a tale of times past. These days the wake is usually held at a pub. Because of our modern drink driving laws, it is very subdued and usually only last for an hour or so.
I want no funeral. Not that it matters, it could be held in a telephone box. Apart from my three sibling just about everyone Iāve ever cared about is deceased or estranged.
Donāt have much to do with my sibs now. So I hope me dying will bring them some happiness, because my modest estate is to be divided among them.
Good idea to writer your own eulogy, assuming you care what other say about you after youāre dead. I couldnāt care lessā¦
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