People and Funerals

The music for today is one of those tunes that will have you dancing around (and dont forget to dance as though no-one is watching. Go for it). If you are none to good on your feet then shake whats left of your body where you sit. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x90NoBIW87Q 

Ah isn't that superb!! 

09* 35.9' N 
101* 16.8'E 
Course 352* 
Speed 1.6 KMs per day (Pipelaying) 
Gentle SxE breeze 5 knots 
Temp @ 0500 83* 

We are laying this pipeline down tonight and then heading "oop north" for about 50 miles to pop in another couple more. 

I am reading Christopher Hitchens "God is not Great" and was reminded of this letter i read a while ago and had adapted it slightly to post on TF but never got around to it. 
Now is as good a time as any while I am in the mood 


I attended a funeral today. 
I went to show support for a widower. 
I did not go inside to listen to the sermon. I never do. I walk around the grounds, looking at nature as well as the countless human efforts at being 'remembered' in the shape of flowers and marble. 
On these occasions I feel like an outsider to my fellow men who, not unsurprisingly, feel a desire to be comforted. I feel the odd chill of mortality. 
Many of my friends inside need to be told that the dead are somewhere else, that the parting is temporary, that the death was for a 'purpose'. Music to soften the blow, to make the departed special, to remember them. 
The pious wonder if it is lonely or difficult to be atheist with no imaginary guide to call on in an hour of need , no-one to blame when disaster strikes. No one to beg from to make it better. 
I often cringe with distaste when I hear the believers use the phrase “there but for the grace of god there go I” because what they undoubtedly mean is “there by the grace of god goes someone else”. 
I have no doubt that truth and reason will out in the end and that nature, if you care to observe it without the blinkers of “design”, points the way. It just lives. It carries on. It has no need for theology or sermons. 

The service ends. I shake hands and smile a sympathetic smile to the bereaved, which is sincere. I offer him no hope, no dream, no comfort. All I can offer is the friendship of one human to another, regardless of his beliefs. 
Such a small thing is I believe far superior compared to the charade of an after life that religions of all persuasions inflict on us. 
Life is so very simple. Enjoy family and friends while we have them. Live off the memories of what we have had, not an unknown fanciful dream of tomorrow . 
The natural world is the only 'sermon' we need and gives any man or woman a feeling of 'belonging' without religious strings. 

Cheers 
Bentley