Irenaeus, Siteadmin, Check users, oversight, Administrators
351,427
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 12:
Line 12: + + + + + + +
no edit summary
The one [[secular humanism|humanist]] funeral I have attended was well-ordered and polite but had to be followed by religious services for family who found the secular event lacked comfort. I am grateful to the Rev Giles Fraser for being so honest in saying what needed to be said.<ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/26/secular-funerals-can-lack-the-requisite-dignity-and-fail-to-provide-comfort Secular funerals can lack the requisite dignity and fail to provide comfort], Penelope Nixon, ''The Guardian'', letter to the editor concerning a ''Guardian'' article by the Reverend Giles Fraser</ref>}}
The one [[secular humanism|humanist]] funeral I have attended was well-ordered and polite but had to be followed by religious services for family who found the secular event lacked comfort. I am grateful to the Rev Giles Fraser for being so honest in saying what needed to be said.<ref>[http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/26/secular-funerals-can-lack-the-requisite-dignity-and-fail-to-provide-comfort Secular funerals can lack the requisite dignity and fail to provide comfort], Penelope Nixon, ''The Guardian'', letter to the editor concerning a ''Guardian'' article by the Reverend Giles Fraser</ref>}}
== Religious aspects of the funeral of atheist Christopher Hitchens ==
Below is a description of the funeral of new atheist Christopher Hitchens given by the British newspaper ''The Globe and Mail'':
{{cquote|Religion was present, too. That was the most interesting part. Hitch’s brother read from St. Paul, on hope. Francis Collins, a devout Christian and former head scientist the Human Genome Project, admitted he was better at piano than speech. So he played a composition of his own, which he said was what his final conversation with Hitch had sounded like. They had spoken of an experimental gene therapy for cancer. Hitch had participated as a test subject, even though the protocol had come too late to save him. (He wanted to help.) Though he didn’t dwell on it, Mr. Collins suggested that the beautiful music came from God. Plainly, atheist funerals don’t mean exclusion of the faithful living.
But religion was perhaps most present in the memorial’s language. The readers spoke of spirit, transcendence, soul. These words are from faith. Their meaning is bound up with biblical poetry. Hitch’s great argument was that we must strive to see the sometimes hidden moral evil in those poems, going beyond them, to a beauty that lives much deeper. There, religion’s barbaric legacy can be stamped out so that love might flourish. Perfect execution of this may be impossible. (For Hitch, that fact necessitated “contempt for our own weakness.”) But like Robin Hood, we can steal faith’s gold, its unique terminology for some of the most mysterious human aspects.<ref>[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-spirituality-of-hitchs-atheist-funeral/article4103156/ The spirituality of Hitch's atheist funeral] by AIDAN JOHNSON, Globe and Mail</ref>}}
== See also ==
== See also ==