Shadowhawk wrote:I've now decided that funerals are simply Bad Things. The typical religious funeral does not help the healing process at all; it extends it, forces you to confront things before your mind has had a chance to cope, and often serve as nothing more than an attempt to get more followers by invading their minds while they grieve.
That's not so. When my Dad died he was given a semi-Cathlic funeral. It was beautiful and comforting. The whole ceremony was comforting and it helped. The preist has been in touch with us and he's a good guy. Decent religious cermonies can help. It was an honest and heartfelt service by a priest that genuinely cared. There are decent religious people out there.
Now if you go to a fundy service expect a service in keeping with that fact.
Shadowhawk wrote:I've now decided that funerals are simply Bad Things. The typical religious funeral does not help the healing process at all; it extends it, forces you to confront things before your mind has had a chance to cope, and often serve as nothing more than an attempt to get more followers by invading their minds while they grieve.
That's not so. When my Dad died he was given a semi-Cathlic funeral. It was beautiful and comforting. The whole ceremony was comforting and it helped. The preist has been in touch with us and he's a good guy. Decent religious cermonies can help. It was an honest and heartfelt service by a priest that genuinely cared. There are decent religious people out there.
I agree. When my band director died, our entire band (all 350+) went to his funeral at a church I used to attend. People who had known him were telling stories about him, some of which probably weren't "proper" for in a church, but we were all laughing at some of the crazy stuff he had done. We had all been in a deep blue funk until then, but after that we were able to tell our own stories (like the time my mother sent 10 tour buses of band students the wrong way in Los Angeles) and it allowed us peace of mind. It's like everything else, there's some good and some bad, you have to find the right person for the job. Unfortunately, this was one of the times the wrong person was selected.
Stanley Hauerwas wrote:[W]hy is it that no one is angry at the inequality of income in this country? I mean, the inequality of income is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Why isn’t that ever an issue of politics? Because you don’t live in a democracy. You live in a plutocracy. Money rules.
