It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Every spiritual tradition has this idea of death and resurrection. It's not unique to Christianity.
Ceremonies are important. But our gratitude has to be more than visits to the troops, and once-a-year Memorial Day ceremonies. We honor the dead best by treating the living well.
In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment.
Virtually every civilized society today holds sacred the right to peaceably bury their dead.
In Arab culture, music is for celebration. You don't play music at funerals.
Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers, vain indulgences, and unnecessary cares.
Secular humanists can sit around and talk about their love of humanity, but it doesn't stack up against a two-millennium-old funeral high mass.
There is something irresistibly funny about a funeral. More basically, I think the point is that beyond the deepest tragedy, there is laughter. Even in the midst of tragedy, there is always the possibility for it.
Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.
Especially these days where everything is so polite and so proper, I think that rites of passage are good.