I wrote this article about grieving as an atheist.
I wrote this article about grieving as an atheist.
I talk about my beliefs about what happens during the process of death, and how that can provide comfort as an atheist.
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I'm very sorry for your loss and I won't criticize your essay, although I do not agree with it, but I will give you this:
You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.
-- Aaron Freeman
https://www.npr.org/2005/06/01/4675953/planning-ahead-can-make-a-difference-in-the-end
I want neither a religious leader nor some physicist with vague "energy" platitudes as a speaker at my funeral. But I think that's the thing. Death is personal. We want different things. And that's it's own beauty.
For me... I want an atheist with an understanding of pain, suffering, delight and nothingness. Someone to, without lecturing, explain that in my view I was not here for eons. Then, for a brief period I lived. I stumbled, loved, and grew old. I relished my moment. I saw it for what it was and made what I could of it. And now I return to the nothing.
Selfless, selfish, nurturing and angry. I did it all. I stayed at home for vacation, I traveled. I was poor. I had a season of money. I lived my moment. I am at peace with that. It could have been far, far worse.
And while returning to the nothing may seem ghastly to some, to me it has beauty. Symmetry.
Even this happy life has struggle. One day, the struggle ends.
I honestly don't care what happens at my funeral because I won't be there. As long as my loved ones are satisfied, that's all I hope for. I just posted that because I know many atheists who grieve have found it comforting.
This is the same conversation my wife and I just had. Funerals are for the living. That's not to dismiss them, I think they serve a purpose in helping the living reconcile to their new normal.