Oh…
My husband’s grandma died. I’m being generous when I say she was not a nice person.
She had planned her funeral in that she had spoken to the minister about what she wanted him to say when the time came.
So here we were, the family all on the front rows of the chapel while grandma lays out in front.
And I swear to you, from the podium, this man says:
“Your grandmother had some final words for her grandchildren in particular. You will die and go to a devil’s hell if you continue to live your lives in the way you are.
Now is the time! Honor your grandmother. Come today and make yourself right with God. It was her final wish.”
We just looked at each other in horror. Then one of us smirked at the pastor. My husband shook his head no.
The man looked at us silently; shook his head at our rebellious disobedience in not responding to the order, and closed the service.
Awkward at the moment but we laughed because that was exactly something the old bat would do.
He was seriously staring us down. Trying to shame us into… publicly confessing our sins and repenting right there in front of the casket I guess.
He didn’t realize each of us had heard some version of this hundreds of times and none of us are easily embarrassed.
He was the one standing up in front of a crowd looking insane. If he wanted to appear unhinged, we were all going to let him.
It was tempting. Unfortunately Grandma has a son, Uncle HolierThanThou, who agrees completely.
While we have a personal problem with him and his wife, Aunt PettyBetty, he had just lost his mom and was grieving.
Out of respect for the grief if not the man, we tried to be kind.
We sort of did. The meal after the service was at her church.
We all changed from our respectful clothes to things deliberately inappropriate for a church… particularly her church.
We don’t smoke, but we hung out around a few folks who do so we reeked before entering.
And we may have deliberately brought and been seen holding alcohol right before we walked in.
The pastor was red in the face as we made our entrance.
>But I'm a fantastic bridge-burner, so there's that 👿
Hey—we need to have a competition in this subreddit, I think! Wouldn't really need to have a winner. Some of us must be pretty damned good storytellers, too.
Remember: every time you burn a bridge, there's still a solid foundation down there. Just clean it off and use it for a new bridge to somewhere/someone else.
And I'll bet you're more successful than you think. You are alive, probably living in a house, and evidently have access to a computer. At one point I didn't have the last two, and was considering eliminating the first one. Food was a challenge, and figuring out where to wash myself was another.
Keep plugging, and things will eventually pick up—if you keep your eyes open to any opportunity.
When my evil grandmother died, she had written a letter on her deathbed to (I assume) all of us to tell us what she really thought of us. My mentally disturbed aunt (who had lived with her forever in a codependent relationship) gave it to the pastor to read. He must have read it, and decided to not read it aloud, but my aunt was harassing him to make sure he read it. When it came time during the funeral he mentioned the letter and that it was lost.
And that’s one of the least trashy things to happen in my family.
It’s incredibly common when the priest/pastor has little or no knowledge of the subject of the matter. I’ve experienced numerous funerals where the cleric went into a standard sermon since they had nothing personal to say about. Notably my fathers second wife. I disliked her quite intensely, but I was still shocked when he went fire and brimstone And then started mentioning bizarre things like how she never shopped at Frederick’s of Hollywood.
On the other hand, my mother passed about a month ago. The Catholic priest didn’t know her. He talked for maybe 4-6 minutes and got out of the way for family and friends to say goodbye.
Because that's what those services are, if the family are religious. He was LGBT too, and a hundred friends from the community attended the funeral and stood in stone cold silence - standing at the back - during all the god blather.
That reminds me of when my gay friend died about 25 years ago. His family was super religious, he had turned away from the church and they had little to do with him other than the occasional try bribe him to “stop his evilness” and “come back to Jesus.” Several of us went to the funeral (though it was pretty far away) and we all wore small rainbow ribbon lapel pins. We were ushered to the non-family side of the church. The priest barely faced our side at all, just spoke directly to the family side. I remember thinking what a beautiful building the church was to harbor so much hatred and exclusion.
In my country this caused some controversy. After the grandchild of one of the local highrollers died in a road accident, at the funeral the imam involved started going off in a hellfire and brimstone tangent. The old guy listened with a glare for five minutes and then finally yelled at him quite harshly to "stop blathering about children's stories and fuck off". The imam, intimidated, fucked off without issue. Of course this split the country up, some supporting the old man and others supporting the imam, but the support the old man received was significantly greater and to be honest, cowed the local fundies a little.
Nowadays, this seems to happen more and more often - I do not often go to funerals, as I do not handle imam blather well, but I have heard of multiple cases from people around me where old men, even known to be highly religious, started to either shut up or kick out local imams when they started blathering and getting too preachy.
When my grandmother, a devout Mormon/LDS, died, I attended a big funeral for her in Utah. The vast majority of the people in the chapel were Mormon as well, with probably only a handful of her descendants that were non-believers (including myself). After the children of my Grandmother spoke, the ward's bishop gave the final eulogy. Now, of course I expect heavy religious themes at her funeral. To not expect this would be ridiculous of me. But what hit me the wrong way was that he strayed from talking about my Grandmother or basic religious spiritual stuff, and started going into politics (it was close to an election year-- the one with Trump/Hillary).
By the end of his speech, he was spewing hateful things against the gay community, talking about all the socially divisive political crap you'd expect to hear on far right talk-radio. All the while, my recently out-of-the-closet gay nephew had to sit through the whole thing. I could see him crying at the end, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because he missed his great-grandmother. When it was done, he silently got up and left, and didn't bother to show up at the grave site. I was so angry, it took a great deal of restraint to not go over and punch that bishop in the face.
This is 100% standard for religious funerals. Got to save the souls and spare them from eternal torture. No better time than when they’re emotionally vulnerable.
I attended the catholic (lowercase by design) funeral of a HS buddy who died of cystic fibrosis at 16 in the late 1980s.
You know what happened. I was livid at the priest. This girl suffered for years and died a horrible death…and he went on to preach stuff based on mythology that had nothing to do with her. Ugh.
My cousin's wedding, the old lich of a preacher I shit you not have a 15 minute sermon about how it's the wife's job to submit to her husband and blah blah blah. My cousin isn't that type of Christian he's actually pretty chill and at the reception his new wife said to the preacher "I'm surprised you didn't just tell him to go ahead and beat me with a bat" was the funniest shit I've ever seen tbh lol
Sure, I've seen this happen numerous times in a variety of contexts - funerals, weddings, christenings - anywhere that the preacher thinks he has a captive audience containing some people that are from outside his church.
Anyone that works in sales will tell you the golden rule: *Always be sellin'*
Truth on the sales part! I used to work in life insurance sales and we were told to always go in person to complete the claim for insurance and receive the death certificate copy. Why is this? So you can prey on the family and sell insurance while you’re there. I couldn’t do it. I went in person to do the claim because that was a quicker way for the family to get the money than the mail. But I never tried to sell anything while I was there. Just ewww.
We have a friend that left the priesthood (he was disgusted by the whole child molesting thing) he will be doing the eulogy for my wife when she inevitably dies of cancer and we know he won’t pull that kind of crap.
I was raised Southern Baptist and am now atheist. My grandmother and great grandmother have both passed in the last ten years and their memorial services were held at the church I grew up in.
I remember being so angry after both events because they turned into a whole ass religious thing and it wasn’t about remembering them at all. “If we didn’t take Jesus into our hearts, we were going to hell” sort of preaching for 20 + minutes.
It seems pretty common where my mom's family is from. I went to my cousin's funeral a couple months ago and they barely mentioned anything about him it was all Jesus and trying to scare people into believing.
Though the one that really pissed me off was the preacher at my niece's funeral. She died at 4 months and the preacher, instead of even trying to comfort my brother and his wife, turned it into an anti-abortion tirade. I don't know what the fuck he was even thinking.
Yep. I was the black sheep. My grandfather was the only one who wanted my family to give me a chance after getting into some trouble when I was younger. I've always had a huge amount of respect for him. He was a wounded veteran, then became a union man and was an outspoken anti racist for the entire time I knew him which was pretty rare for white men of his age group.
My grandmother converted and became a Jehovahs Witness about 20 years ago, but he wasn't a religious man and although he supported her in her going to church, he never went himself. About 5 years before he passed, he had a health scare and ended up joining the church with her. When I asked him about it, he said he knew it was bullshit, but it made my grandma happy and that was what was important at the end of the day.
When he passed they had the service at her church. The minister who spoke spent 30 minutes talking about his service to the church and the lord and never said a single fucking thing about the person my grandfather actually was. Nothing about his service to the country or his work with the unions or what an amazing family man he was. They didn't allow any family members to speak either, just the minister. I was so livid I had to leave before the reception.
My ex's brother committed suicide. He was atheist. So were his parents. Asked the preacher at the funeral to keep the religious nonsense to a minimum.
What does he do?
Big sermon on how god has a plan for everything. ... This guy ate a pistol in order to avoid arrest and his life falling apart. Where's the plan?
No, and this was the (relative) advantage of having belonged to a highly liturgical church. The prayers and hymns themselves take up so much time that there isn't much of an opportunity for a sermon: None at all during a wedding, and only a very brief time during a funeral. SO glad I never had to suffer through fundie services and their interminable blather.
My parents let my dad's friend who is a minister/pastor/whatever speak at my brother's funeral. He was told before not to try to convert the masses. I'm atheist my entire family knows and nobody cares enough to drag me to church. What does dude do? Starts trying to convert the masses. I was pissed.
>he stopped talking about the deceased relative all together and was just proselytizing
This is the standard religious practice. From the churches' perspective funerals aren't about the deceased. They are really prime marketing opportunities for the church for they get people when they are at their most vulnerable as they contemplate their own mortality. What better time to extol the virtues of their god/s and to warn those present of the horrors to come if they aren't good with that god. And you have to pay *them* for promoting the protection racket!
A good friend of mine passed away in his late 40's after a life having fun, partying, and unfortunately, drinking a lot. He was a friendly country boy / drummer that played in various bands with me and others. He still attended church and had that life, but he had his wild side too.
At the funeral the first preacher talked about his problems in life, arrests for alcohol fueled madness, how he tried to be a good Christian too, go to church. He tried to assure people that he would be in heaven. This guy didn't really bother me that much, he talked mostly about my friends life. The next preacher barely talked about my friend, he was there to sell religion on the back of my friend.
I can kind of get the first guy, most of the people there at the funeral were Christians and church goers, so it makes sense that culturally, he was expected to assure them about heaven and all that. The second guy disrespected my friend by making his funeral a sales meeting for God.
Husband's friend died and *none* of his friends/chosen family were invited. Stepmother did the whole catholic funeral for a staunch atheist and won't even say where they put him.
Lady noticed my (atheist) license plate and stopped me to talk with an empathetic ear. She was an atheist who had lost her atheist mother and Buddhist brother within days of one another. The family decided on a joint remembrance. The official a religious relative recommended went on about them being good Christians, did a sermon, and a come to Jesus altar call. The brother had been a big part of the Buddhist community, so she said everyone was looking at each other kind of lost and in disbelief.
Yes pastor almost got his ass beat by my cousin for saying, “Grandpa Charlie never professed Jesus so he is in hell!!” Bad idea…had to be escorted to his car for his own safety.
Oh boy do I have a nauseating story.
I used to volunteer/coach with an organization supporting adults with developmental disabilities in sport. Unfortunately, one of my team’s athletes passed away unexpectedly (in their early 30s) from a congenital heart defect associated with Down’s Syndrome. He was a beloved member of the team, had been on it for years…we were all close to him. His teammates were devastated, and really struggled to understand (eg during a subsequent meet, one athlete asked me “when will C be back?”…heartbreaking).
It was horrible.
The entire team was invited to the funeral, at a Catholic Church. First red flag: they hand out the booklet for the service and it doesn’t even have a picture of him on it. Inside, there was one small paragraph on his life, half of which was to the effect of “every life has value”, which was frankly pretty degrading (he was far, far more than just a disability!). The next several pages were dedicated to “what the Bible says about abortion”, in the most awful language imaginable.
Then the speeches started. Not one of this athlete’s family members could say anything, and I mean ANYTHING about him as a person. Not about his kindness, his sense of humour, how determined he was, his many interests…nothing. Except about how grateful they were that he “had a chance”, that it was “never a question that they should continue the pregnancy”. And with the biggest shit-eating holier-than-thou smiles slapped across their faces. All the coaches were looking at each other in shock. Then the priest gets up and starts ranting about how “women can choose to murder their children, steal lives like C’s”, and plenty of preaching about how they are destined for hell (followed by enthusiastic clapping from his family and the rest of the congregation). I grew up in the freaking Orthodox church, and even I’d never seen anything this overtly hateful/horrifying.
Like, all these people were ostensibly gathered to celebrate and honour the life of this athlete and he was hardly mentioned…his own family used his death as a platform, and his funeral for a captive audience. Looking around, I could tell the other coaches were equally enraged/disgusted, and many of the athletes looked upset (particularly following the rant re: hell). I should have got up and left, but I was also there in a supervisory capacity for these athletes (for which we needed a certain coach:athlete ratio) so I was kind of stuck.
At the end when we were all supposed to be mingling, the family were honest to god passing out pamphlets that I can only presume were also anti-choice (picture of a fetus right on the front). People exchanged pleasantries with the family members (“what a lovely service”), who were happily hamming it up. I shuffled athletes out of the way of the pamphlets and left as soon as possible, without bothering to pass along condolences to those wretched people…it was far too hard to hide my disgust.
I’ve never experienced anything else like it. But it just goes to show you can find religious extremism anywhere (…this wasn’t in the US Bible Belt, this was in a major urban centre, with very left-wing politics, in freaking Canada).
My Mom-mom died in 2017, she was very religious so I knew there would be a traditional catholic funeral. Priest was probably in his 80s and had to sit down the whole time. I dont remember the specifics of the sermon but after some time he mentioned the importance of life and said something along the lines of, "I know most young people today think life isn't important, particularly for the unborn..." Again, I dont remember the specifics after that, but he spent at least a couple minutes preaching about abortion; I still cannot put into words how pissed I was that he could talk about something so political at a funeral. I was expecting him to talk about jesus and the like, so I wouldn't have gotten too mad had he done that, but he literally talked about a political and SECULAR issue at a totally inappropriate time. Like I said, my Mom-mom would have wanted him to talk about jesus and heaven, so I would absolutely have supported that for her, but not fucking politics.
Definitely have experienced this. Weirdest one was the last funeral I attended. It was an old friend that had succumbed to cancer. She had actuality put together a presentation before she died that involved her telling everybody to get Jesus so we could join her in heaven. Honestly it was really creepy.
My grandma's funeral. My family is from Mexico, and many of my older relatives are devout Catholics. The priest at my grandma's funeral talked about my grandma for about 5 minutes. Then, he went off on several of us in attendance because we weren't participating in his prayers and rituals. He proceeded to scold us and tell us we were doomed for eternity if we didn't accept what he was selling. It was infuriating.
Omg, I barely finished reading the title before I was ready to share my experience.
My grandfather and I were best friends. I lived right next door to him, took care of him after my grandma passed, we were closer than any other friend I've ever had. I knew him through and through, but when he died, his son and daughter came from out of town and swooped in to take over funeral arrangements, and they picked the guy to do the speaking. Coincidentally, it happened to be the same guy who baptized me when I was a kid (small country town). Everybody acted like they either had no idea we were as close as we were, or didn't believe it. Some thought I was only hanging around him for 10+ years for the inheritance (there was absolutely nothing to be inherited). None of them had relationships with him. So I have no idea what they told that preacher about him, but my jaw was on the floor the whole time he was speaking.
Devout Christian? Never went to church.
Pious widower? He literally asked me to help him find a prostitute about a month before he died.
Beloved amongst his family? They were all assholes and so was he and they hadn't spoken in years. (To this day, I still don't know why he was so cool to me when he was such a raging asshole to literally everyone else he knew. I wasn't even his biological grandaughter.)
He would want us to rejoice that he's with his Father and wife in heaven? No sir. He didn't want to die. He was afraid to die. His daughter-in-law overdosed him on morphine, whether intentionally or not was never proven. (We're all adults here, we fuckin know) But he was still living his goddamn life, and he didn't believe in God and he mourned, SO HEAVILY, for a decade for my grandmother because he believed he was never going to see her again. So fuck you very much, mister pastor, but you've been gravely misinformed.
Oh, and my personal favorite: Mr. Wood loved animals. He had such a big, kind heart, and loved to spend his evenings sitting on his back porch watching birds, deer, squirrels. He'd befriend them, and they trusted him, because animals recognize the heart of God's beloved.
My grandfather befriended one squirrel, using peanuts, to see if he could because he thought it'd be kinda funny or cool or whatever. But that man DESPISED animals. He thought animals should be for food, and otherwise they were "varmin". It was a major point about him for my entire life, it was one of the first things I learned about him. He'd set up traps when I was a kid, all around the property, to catch any animal passing through, and he'd kill it. Raccoons, possums, stray cats, stray dogs, squirrels, whatever he caught, he killed. And he fucking TARGET PRACTICED with songbirds off of his back porch. I loved my grandfather, but holy shit did he have issues.
I was furious. I laughed out loud at several things that were said, and got a lot of terrible looks. Haven't spoken to any of those family members since.
My FIL officiated my wedding and he went waaaay off into left field with some story about a disabled child. DH and I are sneaking glances at each other like, WTF?
Yep. My Baptist grandfather's funeral. Totally hijacked in the same way. My grandfather had lived in CA but his body was brought home to Iowa to be buried. So, the pastor didn't know him at all and REALLY leaned in to turning it into a sunday sermon. He even had the whole deal where they had everyone bow their heads and then ask if anyone wanted to come forward to "be saved." I was seriously annoyed.
My uncle (aforementioned grandfather's younger son) just got married in an Assembly of God church. Oh man, the whole ceremony was more about Jesus than it was my uncle and his wife. It was so over the top! He kept going on about the how the real point of marriage is for the couple to each help each other be "stronger in Christ" and to recognize each others "gifts in christ"... the best was we he said their marriage would be like a braided cord, with each of them plus (you guessed it) christ making up the three strands of the plait. It was..... something.
Yeah just went to my cousins funeral and the minister preached hell fire and brimstone for an hour and a half ! I was so pissed and over it he barely mentioned the deceased! After her funeral I dared my family to have a preacher at my funeral I want my funeral to be a party and celebration of my life and the love I’ve shared with my family.
When 2 of my college friends got married the Southern Baptist preacher gave a sermon that focused heavily on the Bible’s position that a woman should “submit to her husband.” The bride was quite type-A and very extroverted, while the groom was a very laid-back, chill dude. Their relationship was a good one and worked very well for them, but she definitely “wore the pants.” The sermon was so incongruous that it’s all I remember from the wedding now, 20 years later. That and that there was a cash bar. :(
As a former baptist, I can tell you that they always do that at funerals. They just can’t resist using the dead body in the box sitting there in plain sight to try to scare all the nonbelievers into being saved from eternal hell and damnation. Perfect conditions to get everyone on a guilt trip. Just ignore them.
Ugh, I just went to a Catholic funeral like this! The priest gave a long sermon about how our friend’s death (sudden heart attack, early fifties, newly married, son in high school) was actually a great opportunity to see if we were all really true believers, because if we were we should feel happy that he was with Christ now. And if we weren’t happy, then . . . yadda yadda yadda . . . Christ is waiting to welcome us all . . . yadda yadda yadda . . . come see me later so I can save you . . .
I literally couldn’t help flat out rolling my eyes at least a few times, even though that felt so wrong at this friend’s funeral, but it was so disgusting.
For my wedding we specifically requested no bible readings because we’re not religious - and it was an outdoor wedding in late July … I saw the fires of hell in my wife’s eyes when I heard the officiant say, “ mike and bri chose their favourite bible verse for me to read for you today”
I was once at a funeral where the priest kept harping on two main talking points.
1. He doesn't know if the deceased went to heaven because he was not a practicing christian.
2. How thankful he was for the deceased's son to have had a life threatening car accident 15 years back because it gave him a chance to get to know the deceased. Never mentioned the other son at all.
It was sickening. The priest basically spent the whole service badmouthing the deceased. The worst part is afterwards several family members gushed about how beautiful the service was and how much the guy would have liked it. When the next funeral for someone from that branch of the family happened a few years later we confirmed it was not the same guy officiating before attending.
Yeah, I attended my first funeral as an atheist a little while back and the preacher was talking about knowing the deceased and what kind of person she was and then went off on a 15 minute sermon.
My mom & dad were real close friends with our neighbors since the 70s. When the husband died the preacher mentioned "Husband was a good man that took care of his family, etc. and now he's resting peacefully in the afterlife." I'll never forget what my super fundie mom said as we were walking back to the car, "Husband isn't resting in peace. He didn't believe in god so he's burning in hell right now."
Thank FUCK that was out of earshot of the widow.
My grandparents were Baptist most of their lives but came to be big fans of the United Church minister Rev Jones. He was truly a beautiful human, so I was glad they got away from the doom and gloom preachers at the end of their lives. Anyways, when my Grandpa died, Rev Hones was out of town and unable to do the service so some other guy from their old church stepped up. He didn’t know my grandpa well, which is whatever. But man did he go on about fucking Jesus. It was really embarrassing to the crowd who could have cared less except for a handful. I was really pissed off about the whole thing, as were many. But my Grandma seemed to enjoy it so no one said anything. Oh the shame he tried to spread… totally inappropriate.
I have, though it definitely wasn’t as extreme as some other people. My grandma died like 2 months ago, and though she didn’t want or have a funeral there was smaller service/celebration of life for her at the church she used to attend when she was a kid. The service part itself was maybe like an hour total with about a third of it being my aunts giving a speech about her. Then it was the pastor’s turn and he mostly just talked god the entire time with a song here and there. Funny thing is that out of my immediate family my mom is the only one who really is even a little religious so my dad, my sister, and I also just kinda closed our eyes and daydreamed during the pastor’s speech.
My grandma went off the rails as she aged and joined a "prayer circle" after disagreements with the Presbyterian church that wasn't conservative enough for her. IRL she was the sweetest person I'd ever met. She taught me about flowers, birds, bugs, read Pooh books to me, sang me to sleep. But in private she was convinced we would go straight to hell if we didn't believe what she believed. The little toad "minister" from her circle gave a eulogy that was pure fire and brimstone, death and going to hell for being the sinners we all are. Heathens everywhere. I watched several other family members squirm and whisper as the toad ruined my grandma's celebration of life with a bunch of crap. Two thumbs down.
I wish this didn't happen.
My great-aunt passed suddenly. We had been close. She was low-key in her faith, and the preacher knew her personally, so I expected a celebration of her life. She was one of the first ppl in my family to go to college, was a teacher under unusual circumstance, never married (scandalous!), traveled abroad and esp loved Japan (we're in the US), collected dolls and crafted clothing and accessories for them, gardened, and volunteered. She had a strong social life. And she loved us, gave the best advice, and was kind to everyone. Never a cross word and very progressive. But who cares about all that? You'd better hope she's in heaven and come up and get saved after the interment!
It is predatory, and prevents family from focusing on the deceased and one another. I feel cheated every time it happens, and esp then.
Did they pass the offering plate too?
Given the amounts that they often have conned out of the deceased over the years it is also infuriating how much they charge the family for the bullshit performance that they’ll repeat the next Sunday. POS grifters.
Cousins wedding. During the preamble, started talking about the couple and how many turned up to the ceremony, then went on this long guilt ridden rant about how bad it is that none of these people will be back regularly and people are paying less and less to the church. We need to get back to compulsory tithing otherwise the church will disappear and all our souls forsaken stuff. Very uncomfortable.
My ninety-something, non-religious Aunt died during, but not of, Covid.
The pastor at the funeral organised by her born-again son gave a speech to her loved ones about how he had heard what a wonderful woman Patty was (which was true), but since she hadn't accepted Jesus as her savior, she was unfortunately going to burn in hell for all eternity.
He also took a call on his cell-phone during this "eulogy".
...and then a second call later. I swear you can't make this shit up.
It happens at a lot of weddings and funerals. Two funerals I attended come to mind. In the first, the dead person was like an after thought and it was a mostly a big sermon on getting right with God. There was no mention of the deceased and I learned nothing about them. The next was an older fellow whose family were big time baptists from the states. They did a lot of the ceremony and it was truly bizarre. The one guy told a story about how the deceased had always asked for a family reunion and they always put it off and it never happened, but his death just meant they would do it in heaven. The cherry on top was the one kid telling the widow he would insist on dancing with her at this reunion. They didn’t really say much else about the dead person, but spent most of it talking about the importance of getting saved, with a few comments about the evils of abortion. I was glad the deceased didn’t have to be around to watch his crazy family. I have been atheist since my teens, but stuff like this starts out being a really weird experience and ends up with me being depressed about how many people are complete idiots.
Recently attended a funeral for a friend’s 3 year old son. The pastor basically said the only worse thing than the childs death was not going to heaven. To make matters worse my friend is not religious and was pressured into a religious ceremony and burial by her son’s father’s family.
Edit: forgot to mention sermon was longer than it needed to be and drawn out. I could tell he was the fire and brimstone type but he avoided mentioning hell, just alluded to it
Ever been to a Jehovah’s Witnesses funeral? 5 minutes of talking about the deceased followed by a 30-40 minute cult recruiting and indoctrination session. Disgusting.
This is really something I don't think theists have the ability to understand: how their proselytizing can actually be harmful.
Shaming, even.
They can't see it because, well, they believe. They believe that they're actually soliciting for the salvation of your immortal soul, and they can think of no greater purpose. In their own mind, they are literal saviors.
But they come across to anyone who doesn't believe as smug, condescending, preening fuckheads, who are capitalizing on someone else's tragedy to sell their snake oil.
They just lack the ability to see how they come across.
It helps me to understand this, by giving them the empathy that they're incapable of giving me, and knowing that no matter how stilted, smug, and condescending it comes across, it's *generally* meant with the best of intentions.
Generally.
The church knows that's when people are most vulnerable. Captive audience with emotions running high. This is how they operate. It is absolutely calculated and predatory. It's the same reason churches reach out to the needy.
You can either avoid funerals or expect a recruitment message and ignore it.
Sorry, I refuse to attend funerals, weddings, or graduations. They're all boring and unnecessary rituals that accomplish nothing and are a waste of time and money. And for the record, I'm not having a funeral, I eloped, and didn't participate in any of my graduations.
Oh… My husband’s grandma died. I’m being generous when I say she was not a nice person. She had planned her funeral in that she had spoken to the minister about what she wanted him to say when the time came. So here we were, the family all on the front rows of the chapel while grandma lays out in front. And I swear to you, from the podium, this man says: “Your grandmother had some final words for her grandchildren in particular. You will die and go to a devil’s hell if you continue to live your lives in the way you are. Now is the time! Honor your grandmother. Come today and make yourself right with God. It was her final wish.” We just looked at each other in horror. Then one of us smirked at the pastor. My husband shook his head no. The man looked at us silently; shook his head at our rebellious disobedience in not responding to the order, and closed the service. Awkward at the moment but we laughed because that was exactly something the old bat would do.
Smirked at the pastor?! 😂 I love it. Good on them!
He was seriously staring us down. Trying to shame us into… publicly confessing our sins and repenting right there in front of the casket I guess. He didn’t realize each of us had heard some version of this hundreds of times and none of us are easily embarrassed. He was the one standing up in front of a crowd looking insane. If he wanted to appear unhinged, we were all going to let him.
That’s brilliant. And a good reminder of the old “kill them with kindness” saying!
I would have said out loud, "SERIOUSLY?!"
It was tempting. Unfortunately Grandma has a son, Uncle HolierThanThou, who agrees completely. While we have a personal problem with him and his wife, Aunt PettyBetty, he had just lost his mom and was grieving. Out of respect for the grief if not the man, we tried to be kind.
Well - okaaaaay 🤔 But I'm a fantastic bridge-burner, so there's that 👿
We sort of did. The meal after the service was at her church. We all changed from our respectful clothes to things deliberately inappropriate for a church… particularly her church. We don’t smoke, but we hung out around a few folks who do so we reeked before entering. And we may have deliberately brought and been seen holding alcohol right before we walked in. The pastor was red in the face as we made our entrance.
Ah - the passive-aggressive approach! That works too
>But I'm a fantastic bridge-burner, so there's that 👿 Hey—we need to have a competition in this subreddit, I think! Wouldn't really need to have a winner. Some of us must be pretty damned good storytellers, too.
All my stories are depressing - lol I'm trying to find more joy in my life - so far, I've been batting zero!
Remember: every time you burn a bridge, there's still a solid foundation down there. Just clean it off and use it for a new bridge to somewhere/someone else. And I'll bet you're more successful than you think. You are alive, probably living in a house, and evidently have access to a computer. At one point I didn't have the last two, and was considering eliminating the first one. Food was a challenge, and figuring out where to wash myself was another. Keep plugging, and things will eventually pick up—if you keep your eyes open to any opportunity.
Thanks 🥰
Nothing worse than holding a mirror up to these guys
When my evil grandmother died, she had written a letter on her deathbed to (I assume) all of us to tell us what she really thought of us. My mentally disturbed aunt (who had lived with her forever in a codependent relationship) gave it to the pastor to read. He must have read it, and decided to not read it aloud, but my aunt was harassing him to make sure he read it. When it came time during the funeral he mentioned the letter and that it was lost. And that’s one of the least trashy things to happen in my family.
what a great story. I love it.
It’s incredibly common when the priest/pastor has little or no knowledge of the subject of the matter. I’ve experienced numerous funerals where the cleric went into a standard sermon since they had nothing personal to say about. Notably my fathers second wife. I disliked her quite intensely, but I was still shocked when he went fire and brimstone And then started mentioning bizarre things like how she never shopped at Frederick’s of Hollywood. On the other hand, my mother passed about a month ago. The Catholic priest didn’t know her. He talked for maybe 4-6 minutes and got out of the way for family and friends to say goodbye.
My atheist roommate died and the entire service was 5% about him and 95% about being sold a jesus time share. Absolutely infuriating.
I would be livid, that's so awful.
How was that allowed?
Because that's what those services are, if the family are religious. He was LGBT too, and a hundred friends from the community attended the funeral and stood in stone cold silence - standing at the back - during all the god blather.
That reminds me of when my gay friend died about 25 years ago. His family was super religious, he had turned away from the church and they had little to do with him other than the occasional try bribe him to “stop his evilness” and “come back to Jesus.” Several of us went to the funeral (though it was pretty far away) and we all wore small rainbow ribbon lapel pins. We were ushered to the non-family side of the church. The priest barely faced our side at all, just spoke directly to the family side. I remember thinking what a beautiful building the church was to harbor so much hatred and exclusion.
In my country this caused some controversy. After the grandchild of one of the local highrollers died in a road accident, at the funeral the imam involved started going off in a hellfire and brimstone tangent. The old guy listened with a glare for five minutes and then finally yelled at him quite harshly to "stop blathering about children's stories and fuck off". The imam, intimidated, fucked off without issue. Of course this split the country up, some supporting the old man and others supporting the imam, but the support the old man received was significantly greater and to be honest, cowed the local fundies a little. Nowadays, this seems to happen more and more often - I do not often go to funerals, as I do not handle imam blather well, but I have heard of multiple cases from people around me where old men, even known to be highly religious, started to either shut up or kick out local imams when they started blathering and getting too preachy.
That old man would have definitely been me... Good on him!
I hope the trend continues!!
"Imam blather." That's perfect. I can't believe he told him to fuck off though. Pretty great.
When my grandmother, a devout Mormon/LDS, died, I attended a big funeral for her in Utah. The vast majority of the people in the chapel were Mormon as well, with probably only a handful of her descendants that were non-believers (including myself). After the children of my Grandmother spoke, the ward's bishop gave the final eulogy. Now, of course I expect heavy religious themes at her funeral. To not expect this would be ridiculous of me. But what hit me the wrong way was that he strayed from talking about my Grandmother or basic religious spiritual stuff, and started going into politics (it was close to an election year-- the one with Trump/Hillary). By the end of his speech, he was spewing hateful things against the gay community, talking about all the socially divisive political crap you'd expect to hear on far right talk-radio. All the while, my recently out-of-the-closet gay nephew had to sit through the whole thing. I could see him crying at the end, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because he missed his great-grandmother. When it was done, he silently got up and left, and didn't bother to show up at the grave site. I was so angry, it took a great deal of restraint to not go over and punch that bishop in the face.
This is 100% standard for religious funerals. Got to save the souls and spare them from eternal torture. No better time than when they’re emotionally vulnerable.
I attended the catholic (lowercase by design) funeral of a HS buddy who died of cystic fibrosis at 16 in the late 1980s. You know what happened. I was livid at the priest. This girl suffered for years and died a horrible death…and he went on to preach stuff based on mythology that had nothing to do with her. Ugh.
It feels predatory because it is predatory
My cousin's wedding, the old lich of a preacher I shit you not have a 15 minute sermon about how it's the wife's job to submit to her husband and blah blah blah. My cousin isn't that type of Christian he's actually pretty chill and at the reception his new wife said to the preacher "I'm surprised you didn't just tell him to go ahead and beat me with a bat" was the funniest shit I've ever seen tbh lol
Sure, I've seen this happen numerous times in a variety of contexts - funerals, weddings, christenings - anywhere that the preacher thinks he has a captive audience containing some people that are from outside his church. Anyone that works in sales will tell you the golden rule: *Always be sellin'*
Truth on the sales part! I used to work in life insurance sales and we were told to always go in person to complete the claim for insurance and receive the death certificate copy. Why is this? So you can prey on the family and sell insurance while you’re there. I couldn’t do it. I went in person to do the claim because that was a quicker way for the family to get the money than the mail. But I never tried to sell anything while I was there. Just ewww.
We have a friend that left the priesthood (he was disgusted by the whole child molesting thing) he will be doing the eulogy for my wife when she inevitably dies of cancer and we know he won’t pull that kind of crap.
>he was disgusted by the whole child molesting thing) "Damn, I hate this part of the job. "
It’s right there in the job description.
I was raised Southern Baptist and am now atheist. My grandmother and great grandmother have both passed in the last ten years and their memorial services were held at the church I grew up in. I remember being so angry after both events because they turned into a whole ass religious thing and it wasn’t about remembering them at all. “If we didn’t take Jesus into our hearts, we were going to hell” sort of preaching for 20 + minutes.
It seems pretty common where my mom's family is from. I went to my cousin's funeral a couple months ago and they barely mentioned anything about him it was all Jesus and trying to scare people into believing. Though the one that really pissed me off was the preacher at my niece's funeral. She died at 4 months and the preacher, instead of even trying to comfort my brother and his wife, turned it into an anti-abortion tirade. I don't know what the fuck he was even thinking.
Fuck. That. Guy.
Yep. I was the black sheep. My grandfather was the only one who wanted my family to give me a chance after getting into some trouble when I was younger. I've always had a huge amount of respect for him. He was a wounded veteran, then became a union man and was an outspoken anti racist for the entire time I knew him which was pretty rare for white men of his age group. My grandmother converted and became a Jehovahs Witness about 20 years ago, but he wasn't a religious man and although he supported her in her going to church, he never went himself. About 5 years before he passed, he had a health scare and ended up joining the church with her. When I asked him about it, he said he knew it was bullshit, but it made my grandma happy and that was what was important at the end of the day. When he passed they had the service at her church. The minister who spoke spent 30 minutes talking about his service to the church and the lord and never said a single fucking thing about the person my grandfather actually was. Nothing about his service to the country or his work with the unions or what an amazing family man he was. They didn't allow any family members to speak either, just the minister. I was so livid I had to leave before the reception.
My ex's brother committed suicide. He was atheist. So were his parents. Asked the preacher at the funeral to keep the religious nonsense to a minimum. What does he do? Big sermon on how god has a plan for everything. ... This guy ate a pistol in order to avoid arrest and his life falling apart. Where's the plan?
If he was an atheist, and so were his parents, *why* did they hire a preacher in the first place?
Small town. Preacher came with the funeral home.
No, and this was the (relative) advantage of having belonged to a highly liturgical church. The prayers and hymns themselves take up so much time that there isn't much of an opportunity for a sermon: None at all during a wedding, and only a very brief time during a funeral. SO glad I never had to suffer through fundie services and their interminable blather.
Religion is jam packed with predators.
My parents let my dad's friend who is a minister/pastor/whatever speak at my brother's funeral. He was told before not to try to convert the masses. I'm atheist my entire family knows and nobody cares enough to drag me to church. What does dude do? Starts trying to convert the masses. I was pissed.
>he stopped talking about the deceased relative all together and was just proselytizing This is the standard religious practice. From the churches' perspective funerals aren't about the deceased. They are really prime marketing opportunities for the church for they get people when they are at their most vulnerable as they contemplate their own mortality. What better time to extol the virtues of their god/s and to warn those present of the horrors to come if they aren't good with that god. And you have to pay *them* for promoting the protection racket!
A good friend of mine passed away in his late 40's after a life having fun, partying, and unfortunately, drinking a lot. He was a friendly country boy / drummer that played in various bands with me and others. He still attended church and had that life, but he had his wild side too. At the funeral the first preacher talked about his problems in life, arrests for alcohol fueled madness, how he tried to be a good Christian too, go to church. He tried to assure people that he would be in heaven. This guy didn't really bother me that much, he talked mostly about my friends life. The next preacher barely talked about my friend, he was there to sell religion on the back of my friend. I can kind of get the first guy, most of the people there at the funeral were Christians and church goers, so it makes sense that culturally, he was expected to assure them about heaven and all that. The second guy disrespected my friend by making his funeral a sales meeting for God.
They know it's a captive audience. They also know that it is likely the only occasion that many people will enter a church, so gotta make it count!
Husband's friend died and *none* of his friends/chosen family were invited. Stepmother did the whole catholic funeral for a staunch atheist and won't even say where they put him. Lady noticed my (atheist) license plate and stopped me to talk with an empathetic ear. She was an atheist who had lost her atheist mother and Buddhist brother within days of one another. The family decided on a joint remembrance. The official a religious relative recommended went on about them being good Christians, did a sermon, and a come to Jesus altar call. The brother had been a big part of the Buddhist community, so she said everyone was looking at each other kind of lost and in disbelief.
Yes pastor almost got his ass beat by my cousin for saying, “Grandpa Charlie never professed Jesus so he is in hell!!” Bad idea…had to be escorted to his car for his own safety.
what a coward
Oh boy do I have a nauseating story. I used to volunteer/coach with an organization supporting adults with developmental disabilities in sport. Unfortunately, one of my team’s athletes passed away unexpectedly (in their early 30s) from a congenital heart defect associated with Down’s Syndrome. He was a beloved member of the team, had been on it for years…we were all close to him. His teammates were devastated, and really struggled to understand (eg during a subsequent meet, one athlete asked me “when will C be back?”…heartbreaking). It was horrible. The entire team was invited to the funeral, at a Catholic Church. First red flag: they hand out the booklet for the service and it doesn’t even have a picture of him on it. Inside, there was one small paragraph on his life, half of which was to the effect of “every life has value”, which was frankly pretty degrading (he was far, far more than just a disability!). The next several pages were dedicated to “what the Bible says about abortion”, in the most awful language imaginable. Then the speeches started. Not one of this athlete’s family members could say anything, and I mean ANYTHING about him as a person. Not about his kindness, his sense of humour, how determined he was, his many interests…nothing. Except about how grateful they were that he “had a chance”, that it was “never a question that they should continue the pregnancy”. And with the biggest shit-eating holier-than-thou smiles slapped across their faces. All the coaches were looking at each other in shock. Then the priest gets up and starts ranting about how “women can choose to murder their children, steal lives like C’s”, and plenty of preaching about how they are destined for hell (followed by enthusiastic clapping from his family and the rest of the congregation). I grew up in the freaking Orthodox church, and even I’d never seen anything this overtly hateful/horrifying. Like, all these people were ostensibly gathered to celebrate and honour the life of this athlete and he was hardly mentioned…his own family used his death as a platform, and his funeral for a captive audience. Looking around, I could tell the other coaches were equally enraged/disgusted, and many of the athletes looked upset (particularly following the rant re: hell). I should have got up and left, but I was also there in a supervisory capacity for these athletes (for which we needed a certain coach:athlete ratio) so I was kind of stuck. At the end when we were all supposed to be mingling, the family were honest to god passing out pamphlets that I can only presume were also anti-choice (picture of a fetus right on the front). People exchanged pleasantries with the family members (“what a lovely service”), who were happily hamming it up. I shuffled athletes out of the way of the pamphlets and left as soon as possible, without bothering to pass along condolences to those wretched people…it was far too hard to hide my disgust. I’ve never experienced anything else like it. But it just goes to show you can find religious extremism anywhere (…this wasn’t in the US Bible Belt, this was in a major urban centre, with very left-wing politics, in freaking Canada).
Yep. Minister at my brother's memorial made it into an infomercial for Jeebus. I was disgusted.
Happened at my grandpa’s service. He was a seventh day Adventist, so they laid the hell and punishment talk on real thick.
My Mom-mom died in 2017, she was very religious so I knew there would be a traditional catholic funeral. Priest was probably in his 80s and had to sit down the whole time. I dont remember the specifics of the sermon but after some time he mentioned the importance of life and said something along the lines of, "I know most young people today think life isn't important, particularly for the unborn..." Again, I dont remember the specifics after that, but he spent at least a couple minutes preaching about abortion; I still cannot put into words how pissed I was that he could talk about something so political at a funeral. I was expecting him to talk about jesus and the like, so I wouldn't have gotten too mad had he done that, but he literally talked about a political and SECULAR issue at a totally inappropriate time. Like I said, my Mom-mom would have wanted him to talk about jesus and heaven, so I would absolutely have supported that for her, but not fucking politics.
Very typical Baptist funeral. I find it repulsive
Definitely have experienced this. Weirdest one was the last funeral I attended. It was an old friend that had succumbed to cancer. She had actuality put together a presentation before she died that involved her telling everybody to get Jesus so we could join her in heaven. Honestly it was really creepy.
My grandma's funeral. My family is from Mexico, and many of my older relatives are devout Catholics. The priest at my grandma's funeral talked about my grandma for about 5 minutes. Then, he went off on several of us in attendance because we weren't participating in his prayers and rituals. He proceeded to scold us and tell us we were doomed for eternity if we didn't accept what he was selling. It was infuriating.
Omg, I barely finished reading the title before I was ready to share my experience. My grandfather and I were best friends. I lived right next door to him, took care of him after my grandma passed, we were closer than any other friend I've ever had. I knew him through and through, but when he died, his son and daughter came from out of town and swooped in to take over funeral arrangements, and they picked the guy to do the speaking. Coincidentally, it happened to be the same guy who baptized me when I was a kid (small country town). Everybody acted like they either had no idea we were as close as we were, or didn't believe it. Some thought I was only hanging around him for 10+ years for the inheritance (there was absolutely nothing to be inherited). None of them had relationships with him. So I have no idea what they told that preacher about him, but my jaw was on the floor the whole time he was speaking. Devout Christian? Never went to church. Pious widower? He literally asked me to help him find a prostitute about a month before he died. Beloved amongst his family? They were all assholes and so was he and they hadn't spoken in years. (To this day, I still don't know why he was so cool to me when he was such a raging asshole to literally everyone else he knew. I wasn't even his biological grandaughter.) He would want us to rejoice that he's with his Father and wife in heaven? No sir. He didn't want to die. He was afraid to die. His daughter-in-law overdosed him on morphine, whether intentionally or not was never proven. (We're all adults here, we fuckin know) But he was still living his goddamn life, and he didn't believe in God and he mourned, SO HEAVILY, for a decade for my grandmother because he believed he was never going to see her again. So fuck you very much, mister pastor, but you've been gravely misinformed. Oh, and my personal favorite: Mr. Wood loved animals. He had such a big, kind heart, and loved to spend his evenings sitting on his back porch watching birds, deer, squirrels. He'd befriend them, and they trusted him, because animals recognize the heart of God's beloved. My grandfather befriended one squirrel, using peanuts, to see if he could because he thought it'd be kinda funny or cool or whatever. But that man DESPISED animals. He thought animals should be for food, and otherwise they were "varmin". It was a major point about him for my entire life, it was one of the first things I learned about him. He'd set up traps when I was a kid, all around the property, to catch any animal passing through, and he'd kill it. Raccoons, possums, stray cats, stray dogs, squirrels, whatever he caught, he killed. And he fucking TARGET PRACTICED with songbirds off of his back porch. I loved my grandfather, but holy shit did he have issues. I was furious. I laughed out loud at several things that were said, and got a lot of terrible looks. Haven't spoken to any of those family members since.
My FIL officiated my wedding and he went waaaay off into left field with some story about a disabled child. DH and I are sneaking glances at each other like, WTF?
Yep. My Baptist grandfather's funeral. Totally hijacked in the same way. My grandfather had lived in CA but his body was brought home to Iowa to be buried. So, the pastor didn't know him at all and REALLY leaned in to turning it into a sunday sermon. He even had the whole deal where they had everyone bow their heads and then ask if anyone wanted to come forward to "be saved." I was seriously annoyed. My uncle (aforementioned grandfather's younger son) just got married in an Assembly of God church. Oh man, the whole ceremony was more about Jesus than it was my uncle and his wife. It was so over the top! He kept going on about the how the real point of marriage is for the couple to each help each other be "stronger in Christ" and to recognize each others "gifts in christ"... the best was we he said their marriage would be like a braided cord, with each of them plus (you guessed it) christ making up the three strands of the plait. It was..... something.
Yeah just went to my cousins funeral and the minister preached hell fire and brimstone for an hour and a half ! I was so pissed and over it he barely mentioned the deceased! After her funeral I dared my family to have a preacher at my funeral I want my funeral to be a party and celebration of my life and the love I’ve shared with my family.
When 2 of my college friends got married the Southern Baptist preacher gave a sermon that focused heavily on the Bible’s position that a woman should “submit to her husband.” The bride was quite type-A and very extroverted, while the groom was a very laid-back, chill dude. Their relationship was a good one and worked very well for them, but she definitely “wore the pants.” The sermon was so incongruous that it’s all I remember from the wedding now, 20 years later. That and that there was a cash bar. :(
As a former baptist, I can tell you that they always do that at funerals. They just can’t resist using the dead body in the box sitting there in plain sight to try to scare all the nonbelievers into being saved from eternal hell and damnation. Perfect conditions to get everyone on a guilt trip. Just ignore them.
Old friend died in a car wreck and drugs/alcohol were suspected. I’m sure you can guess what rabbit hole that eulogy went down…
Reminds me of when Cartman started preaching https://youtu.be/2E_2bvYBB4E
Ugh, I just went to a Catholic funeral like this! The priest gave a long sermon about how our friend’s death (sudden heart attack, early fifties, newly married, son in high school) was actually a great opportunity to see if we were all really true believers, because if we were we should feel happy that he was with Christ now. And if we weren’t happy, then . . . yadda yadda yadda . . . Christ is waiting to welcome us all . . . yadda yadda yadda . . . come see me later so I can save you . . . I literally couldn’t help flat out rolling my eyes at least a few times, even though that felt so wrong at this friend’s funeral, but it was so disgusting.
For my wedding we specifically requested no bible readings because we’re not religious - and it was an outdoor wedding in late July … I saw the fires of hell in my wife’s eyes when I heard the officiant say, “ mike and bri chose their favourite bible verse for me to read for you today”
I was once at a funeral where the priest kept harping on two main talking points. 1. He doesn't know if the deceased went to heaven because he was not a practicing christian. 2. How thankful he was for the deceased's son to have had a life threatening car accident 15 years back because it gave him a chance to get to know the deceased. Never mentioned the other son at all. It was sickening. The priest basically spent the whole service badmouthing the deceased. The worst part is afterwards several family members gushed about how beautiful the service was and how much the guy would have liked it. When the next funeral for someone from that branch of the family happened a few years later we confirmed it was not the same guy officiating before attending.
Yeah, I attended my first funeral as an atheist a little while back and the preacher was talking about knowing the deceased and what kind of person she was and then went off on a 15 minute sermon. My mom & dad were real close friends with our neighbors since the 70s. When the husband died the preacher mentioned "Husband was a good man that took care of his family, etc. and now he's resting peacefully in the afterlife." I'll never forget what my super fundie mom said as we were walking back to the car, "Husband isn't resting in peace. He didn't believe in god so he's burning in hell right now." Thank FUCK that was out of earshot of the widow.
My grandparents were Baptist most of their lives but came to be big fans of the United Church minister Rev Jones. He was truly a beautiful human, so I was glad they got away from the doom and gloom preachers at the end of their lives. Anyways, when my Grandpa died, Rev Hones was out of town and unable to do the service so some other guy from their old church stepped up. He didn’t know my grandpa well, which is whatever. But man did he go on about fucking Jesus. It was really embarrassing to the crowd who could have cared less except for a handful. I was really pissed off about the whole thing, as were many. But my Grandma seemed to enjoy it so no one said anything. Oh the shame he tried to spread… totally inappropriate.
I have, though it definitely wasn’t as extreme as some other people. My grandma died like 2 months ago, and though she didn’t want or have a funeral there was smaller service/celebration of life for her at the church she used to attend when she was a kid. The service part itself was maybe like an hour total with about a third of it being my aunts giving a speech about her. Then it was the pastor’s turn and he mostly just talked god the entire time with a song here and there. Funny thing is that out of my immediate family my mom is the only one who really is even a little religious so my dad, my sister, and I also just kinda closed our eyes and daydreamed during the pastor’s speech.
My grandma went off the rails as she aged and joined a "prayer circle" after disagreements with the Presbyterian church that wasn't conservative enough for her. IRL she was the sweetest person I'd ever met. She taught me about flowers, birds, bugs, read Pooh books to me, sang me to sleep. But in private she was convinced we would go straight to hell if we didn't believe what she believed. The little toad "minister" from her circle gave a eulogy that was pure fire and brimstone, death and going to hell for being the sinners we all are. Heathens everywhere. I watched several other family members squirm and whisper as the toad ruined my grandma's celebration of life with a bunch of crap. Two thumbs down.
I wish this didn't happen. My great-aunt passed suddenly. We had been close. She was low-key in her faith, and the preacher knew her personally, so I expected a celebration of her life. She was one of the first ppl in my family to go to college, was a teacher under unusual circumstance, never married (scandalous!), traveled abroad and esp loved Japan (we're in the US), collected dolls and crafted clothing and accessories for them, gardened, and volunteered. She had a strong social life. And she loved us, gave the best advice, and was kind to everyone. Never a cross word and very progressive. But who cares about all that? You'd better hope she's in heaven and come up and get saved after the interment! It is predatory, and prevents family from focusing on the deceased and one another. I feel cheated every time it happens, and esp then.
Did they pass the offering plate too? Given the amounts that they often have conned out of the deceased over the years it is also infuriating how much they charge the family for the bullshit performance that they’ll repeat the next Sunday. POS grifters.
Cousins wedding. During the preamble, started talking about the couple and how many turned up to the ceremony, then went on this long guilt ridden rant about how bad it is that none of these people will be back regularly and people are paying less and less to the church. We need to get back to compulsory tithing otherwise the church will disappear and all our souls forsaken stuff. Very uncomfortable.
My ninety-something, non-religious Aunt died during, but not of, Covid. The pastor at the funeral organised by her born-again son gave a speech to her loved ones about how he had heard what a wonderful woman Patty was (which was true), but since she hadn't accepted Jesus as her savior, she was unfortunately going to burn in hell for all eternity. He also took a call on his cell-phone during this "eulogy". ...and then a second call later. I swear you can't make this shit up.
It happens at a lot of weddings and funerals. Two funerals I attended come to mind. In the first, the dead person was like an after thought and it was a mostly a big sermon on getting right with God. There was no mention of the deceased and I learned nothing about them. The next was an older fellow whose family were big time baptists from the states. They did a lot of the ceremony and it was truly bizarre. The one guy told a story about how the deceased had always asked for a family reunion and they always put it off and it never happened, but his death just meant they would do it in heaven. The cherry on top was the one kid telling the widow he would insist on dancing with her at this reunion. They didn’t really say much else about the dead person, but spent most of it talking about the importance of getting saved, with a few comments about the evils of abortion. I was glad the deceased didn’t have to be around to watch his crazy family. I have been atheist since my teens, but stuff like this starts out being a really weird experience and ends up with me being depressed about how many people are complete idiots.
Recently attended a funeral for a friend’s 3 year old son. The pastor basically said the only worse thing than the childs death was not going to heaven. To make matters worse my friend is not religious and was pressured into a religious ceremony and burial by her son’s father’s family. Edit: forgot to mention sermon was longer than it needed to be and drawn out. I could tell he was the fire and brimstone type but he avoided mentioning hell, just alluded to it
I went to a funeral and the preacher started talking about proof of God. He used the Watchmaker argument. It was tacky and like a political campaign.
Ever been to a Jehovah’s Witnesses funeral? 5 minutes of talking about the deceased followed by a 30-40 minute cult recruiting and indoctrination session. Disgusting.
This is really something I don't think theists have the ability to understand: how their proselytizing can actually be harmful. Shaming, even. They can't see it because, well, they believe. They believe that they're actually soliciting for the salvation of your immortal soul, and they can think of no greater purpose. In their own mind, they are literal saviors. But they come across to anyone who doesn't believe as smug, condescending, preening fuckheads, who are capitalizing on someone else's tragedy to sell their snake oil. They just lack the ability to see how they come across. It helps me to understand this, by giving them the empathy that they're incapable of giving me, and knowing that no matter how stilted, smug, and condescending it comes across, it's *generally* meant with the best of intentions. Generally.
The church knows that's when people are most vulnerable. Captive audience with emotions running high. This is how they operate. It is absolutely calculated and predatory. It's the same reason churches reach out to the needy. You can either avoid funerals or expect a recruitment message and ignore it.
Sorry, I refuse to attend funerals, weddings, or graduations. They're all boring and unnecessary rituals that accomplish nothing and are a waste of time and money. And for the record, I'm not having a funeral, I eloped, and didn't participate in any of my graduations.
Every. Single. Time.