Does Secular Humanism Equip Us To Deal With Death?
My mother died ten days ago. She was still at least nominally Catholic; her death at home was immediately followed by the whole conventional round of open-casket viewing, a memorial service at the funeral home, the funeral Mass, and a graveside service. For my father’s sake, I attended it all, even the Mass. (Need proof there’s no god? The church did not collapse.) Over and over, the priest conjured the image of my mother in heaven, embarking on her new life with Jesus. “She’s not dead, she’s merely elsewhere,” was the underlying message. The mourners, mostly Catholic, seemed to draw comfort from the repeated denials of the reality that lay before them – a life snuffed out, consciousness and memories and emotion and cognition annihilated, a pattern that had danced inside one skull for 64 years but never would again. No, they were assured, none of that means what it seems to. Death is not an end, just a transition. Somewhere behind my own immediate sorrow, I found room to pity those bel
