Who performs the funeral services of atheists?

I can’t answer the specific question, but the Quakers (Society of Friends) have a lovely way of handling a funeral service. Here is a good explanation. ( I am too tired to summarize clearly.)

Here is a bit of it:

“A Quaker funeral or memorial meeting comforts and strengthens at a time of grief, enabling mourners to give thanks for the life that has been lived.

Quaker funerals can take one of two forms. One is an ‘unprogrammed’ meeting where the congregation waits in silence for spiritual guidance. If someone feels moved to speak, this is known as ‘vocal ministry’.”

Who needs funerals?

@CWOTUS The family and friends of those who died.

I think some of the rituals at funerals regardless of who you are or what you believed in are helpful to the family. Like people speaking about the newly deceased, sharing stories, meeting and eating together, comforting each other for their loss and seeing the person for the last time.

I would imagine that they would leave out scriptures that are religious or bible based. Instead substituting comforting quotes.

Interesting question and I am sure there will be interesting answers. It might be a good business to get into. (Atheist burials etc., )

You can plan a memorial service for someone and program it any way you like. Presumably you have taken care of disposal of “the remains” in some legal manner privately beforehand.

We did one recently for my mother at the facility where she had been living. The husband of her boyfriend’s daughter was the MC, so to speak. He orchestrated things…which consisted of letting anyone who had something to say, say it. He was a former rabbi but other than commenting that my mother was Jewish, said nothing else about religion or faith.

Family and close friends had prepared remarks; a surprising number of members of the community who showed up had some spontaneous and unprepared things to say. It was all pretty relaxed.

We had a table set up with photos and memorabilia and a really good spread afterwards.

The friends and family of the deceased, a funeral director, or someone designated by the deceased. A non-denominational minister would probably be willing, if they were very good.

The last memorial service I attended was a “Celebration of Life”. The woman was delightful, and loved by all. She’d planned the service herself: a Potluck dinner with a pleasant, loving “Roast” of her as the entertainment. People that knew her best got up and told the funniest, sweetest stories about her. My, would she have been proud.

And no, it was not a foretold death of an elderly lady. She died when she tried to rescue her pets from a burning house at the age of (about) 62…er…42. (She’d appreciate that! We were all shocked at her true age!)

@gailcalled That is more along the lines of something I prefer to attend. I would want my funeral to be about me, about my life and the people I have had contact with.

A Speaker for the Dead is what immediately occurs to me. According to Orson Scott Card, some people have had this done as their funeral IRL. It is what I would like when I die, ideally – though it is a difficult request to fulfill.

There will be no furneral for me in the usual sense, because I am donating my body to science. If my relatives choose to have a memorial service, they will make their own arrangements.

I’ve never had the pleasure of attending a nonreligious funeral. The one funeral for a young atheist friend who died unexpectedly was organized by his religious father, and the whole affair was simply awful.

I’m going to differentiate between funerals and memorial services. Funerals are the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead. And funerals have the body present.

A memorial service, is a gathering of people to remember and mourn the deceased. While a funeral is promptly after the death, a memorial can be much later. A friend died two weeks ago, his memorial will be December 16.

There is no custom or rite or set of beliefs about dying for an atheist, but as a way to grieve and mourn the passing of the atheists I have know, there have been memorial services.

Someone generally tells the life story of the deceased, family expresses their grief, friends tell of memories or stories. And it really depends on the person and what they were like. There different people in my bicycle club have had memorial gatherings and bike rides, they can be quite emotionally moving.

When my grandpa died we just went to the place where the coffin was bought and he was embalmed. They had a nice room where the coffin was and someone spoke for a bit about him. There was maybe 30 people there. Then we all went to the cemetery while they put him in the ground and did the military 21 one guns thing. No religion needed.

When his wife died ten years earlier it was a different story. A big Mormon church and probably around 500 people that most likely didn’t know her name. That was just a big ball of religious bullshit.

It would be just the same as any other funeral service, but without church interference. The survivors would just celebrate the life of the individual, hopefully in a tasteful manner, a burial and then a wake.

I’ve been to a funeral where the person that died was an atheist. The family made this known to the funeral director and the preacher respected the request greatly.

It was completely focused on the persons life and that he is no longer in pain. The only religious topics that were brought up were just an open suggestion to the attendees on how to deal with the pain of losing the deceased.

Personally, while I myself am an atheist, and do care about religious things to some extent, once I’m dead I don’t really care anymore, get a representative from each major religion and let them fight it out for who gets claim to me.

If the mormons win, maybe they can even baptize me too.

Friends and family often handle whatever service is provided for an atheist. A few years ago an atheist friend died. People prepared eulogies and delivered them, and they focused on the life and character of the person who died. In this particular situation there was no casket because the person chose to donate her body to a nearby medical school. However, if you use a funeral home as a setting there is no requirement that a religious official has to be involved.

@zenvelo I don’t think it’s right to say that atheists cannot have funerals. You seem to be going by the second sentence of this Wikipedia article, but the full opening paragraph tells a different story:

“A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, respecting, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor. Customs vary widely between cultures, and between religious affiliations within cultures.”

Note that this paragraph distinguishes between what a funeral is (“a ceremony for celebrating, respecting, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died”) and how they are typically carried out (“the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor”). Moreover, it notes that no specific custom is essential to something counting as a funeral, with a specific mention about religious affiliation (“customs vary widely between cultures, and between religious affiliations within cultures”).

If American Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus can all count as having funerals despite having different religious affiliations and different funerary customs, then there is no reason to say that atheists cannot do so as well. The beliefs expressed may be different, but the function is the same: to celebrate the life of the deceased.

@SavoirFaire I should have been more clear. I didn’t mean that atheists couldn’t have funerals. It’s just been my experience that they don’t. I was distinguishing between the OP’s question about funerals and what I find increasingly common which is a memorial.

I’ve been to three funerals in the last eight years, and also to a dozen memorials. Two of the funerals were Catholic, the third was at a funeral home with the body on display until shipment for burial in another state.

In general, I find that atheists don’t have belief system that calls for preservation of the body somehow, so they don’t have a funeral.

I question your distinction between memorial service and funeral. A memorial service is a funeral. I also don’t agree with the necessity of believing in the preservation of the body. You could, for example, have a funeral with the cremated remains of a person. There is nothing that theists do that does not have an atheistic equivalent.

I agree with @LostInParadise completely. It’s like saying there is no music outside of hymns.

Does a big wake count?

I bet that there is someone from a Secular Humanists organization that could fill the role, or a Unitarian Universalist minister, but most probably have a friend do the honors. For myself, I plan on not having a funeral. I want to be cremated and my friends and family can have a goodbye party. Laughing, singing and drinking will be mandatory.

^ I hope for a wake like Finnegan’s , as well. ^_^

I’ve been to one, @augustlan, and it was great. The potluck dinner (for the locals only) was a nice touch. FUNNY stories. MaryAnn (my deceased friend) would have loved it.

In my dad’s case it was his rabbi.

I am not formally an atheist though I have an aversion to religion.

However even though I have living will and life insurance currently in the process of switching. I also am minimizing my possessions with one of the purposes of it being easier to handle. I have made no plans for a service for myself. I don’t think I intend to.

While it seems ideal to have the details ironed out. A preneed sort of affair I don’t feel qualified to plan my own service. I am donating my cadaver to science. And the life insurance should more then cover the cost. I have come to the conclusion that the service is not about me. It’s about whomever might care to attend and get closure. As such I really hope and as a still living being am repulsed esp by the idea of a service directed in my mother’s church by her pastor. But anything really with religious overtones.

In my case it would be so false a representation of me. But I won’t tell them that. If a service is what would give my survivors the most comfort or be the most conveniant and comfortable I have no right to deny them that.

I’m not an athiest, but I am a member of a religious minority (and the two are quite similar in many ways).

If you want the body of the deceased present, you have a memorial service in the funeral home or at the gravesite. Either the funeral home director or anyone the family chooses can be the officiant. If it does not matter to you whether the body is present, you can have the service anywhere you choose.

My grandfather was ex-communicated by the Catholic church for using birth control after having 5 children. His memorial service was in the funeral home (with his body present) and was largely led by the family, with the funeral home director present and available to help in any way needed.

Members of the Baha’i Faith who I have known who died have had services in homes or in a Baha’i Center after the burial.

The memorial services I have attended have focused on the person’s life and interests. There are pictures posted on boards around the room. Family members tell stories and jokes. People laugh and cry. Perhaps poems or prayers are read. They are a bit informal, but might have a program or a handout of a particularly meaningful and relevant poem or writing.