I'm inclined to agree with Peter Selleck. If there's no belief in an afterlife and the universe is indifferent, why have any ceremony at all? Why indulge in pagan, nay worse, egoistic ritual--ritual dishonesty--when we're just compost? Indeed a secular funeral is much like a secular wedding, an infringement of copyright. Secularists have no imagination, all they can do is rip-off religionists and get all sombre and serious over what? Some lucky bastard who thanks to a few fawning mates doesn't die anonymously, gets shrouded in bullsh!t.
For all the demonising of religionists, you'd think the secularists would come up with something more suitable to deal with mortality--something suitably contemptuous. I've long thought cadavers would make excellent blood and bone. Now this is offensive to Christians, but why should it bother atheists? They give up their organs for posterity, which makes for a great eulogy, but this is idealism; what's the point preserving or celebrating life when it's of no more moment than a wave breaking on the shore? H G Wells' Eloi are true humanists. What are we celebrating in a life past? If we allow the logic of the atheist argument then even our precious reason, which they hold so dear (and on faith), can be nothing more than conceit. Explain reason--reduce it--that's the challenge.

Squeezers, being an Atheist I do not mind becoming blood & bone for the garden, in fact that is where I will be thrown out after my cremation, I will not be in heaven or hell, just blowing with the wind, how nice

I'm a practising Christian and quite frankly am wondering just where Peter is coming from.

A 'traditional' Funeral in my 'Christian culture' is a combination of religious rites and celebration of the life the deceased has lived. Yes it is an occasion for the Clergy to preach to the gathering on the meaning and purpose of a Christian life and the promises of eternal life through Jesus Christ but it is also a day of remembrance for and reflection on the individual in the box. A day of both stress and comfort for the deceased family and friends who have the right to participate in farewelling their loved one.

Myself - I've told my heirs and successors to keep my funeral simple and personal with a traditional hymn and a favourite contemporary song - indeed I've left a few basic instructions in writing. Not that I'm suffering some dreadful illness or expecting to keel over anytime soon. However none of us know when deaths cold touch we shall feel. Best be prepared - naturally as well as spiritually.

Squeers,

"...we're just compost..."

Such a bare reality won't cut it for most humans - who above all seek "meaning" in their encounter with life and death.

Here's scientist, Loren Eiseley, eulogizing a dead dog he encountered on a seashore:

""...On the edge of the littered beach beyond the port I had come upon a dead dog wrapped in burlap, obviously buried at sea and drifted in by the waves. The dog was little more than a skeleton but still articulated, one delicate paw bony paw laid gracefully--as though its owner merely slept, and would presently awaken--across a stone at the water's edge. Around his throat was a waterlogged black strap that showed that he had once belonged to someone. This dog was a mongrel whose life had been spent among the island fishermen....He had romped briefly on shores like this of which he had been returned by an indifferent sea.
I stepped back a little hesitantly from the smell of death, but still I paused reluctantly. Why, in this cove littered with tin cans, bottles and cast of garments, did I find it difficult to turn away? Because, the thought finally came to me, this particular tattered garment had once lived. Scenes of the living sea that would never in all eternity recur again had streamed through the sockets of those vanished eyes. The dog was young...it was of that type of loving creature who had gamboled happily about the legs of men and striven to partake of their endeavours.
Someone had seen crudely to his sea burial, but not well enough to prevent his lying now where came everything abandoned. Nevertheless, vast natural forces had intervened to clothe him with a pathetic dignity. The tide had brought him quietly at night and placed what remained of him asleep on the stones..."

Just a dead dog...much more when adorned with human perception, embellished with meaning.

Einstein said:
"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."

.

We buried old Bob where the bloodwoods wave
At the foot of the Eaglehawk;
We fashioned a cross on the old man's grave,
For fear that his ghost might walk;
We carved his name on a bloodwood tree,
With the date of his sad decease,
And in place of "Died from effects of spree",
We wrote "May he rest in peace".

For Bob was known on the Overland,
A regular old bush wag,
Tramping along in the dust and sand,
Humping his well-worn swag.
He would camp for days in the river-bed,
And loiter and "fish for whales".
"I'm into the swagman's yard," he said,
"And I never shall find the rails."

But he spoke in a cultured voice and low --
"I fancy they've "sent the route";
I once was an army man, you know,
Though now I'm a drunken brute;
But bury me out where the bloodwoods wave,
And if ever you're fairly stuck,
Just take and shovel me out of the grave
And, maybe, I'll bring you luck.

"For I've always heard --" here his voice fell weak,
His strength was well-nigh sped,
He gasped and struggled and tried to speak,
Then fell in a moment -- dead.
Thus ended a wasted life and hard,
Of energies misapplied --
Old Bob was out of the "swagman's yard"
And over the Great Divide.

The drought came down on the field and flock,
And never a raindrop fell,
Though the tortured moans of the starving stock
Might soften a fiend from hell.
And we thought of the hint that the swagman gave
When he went to the Great Unseen --
We shovelled the skeleton out of the grave
To see what his hint might mean.

We dug where the cross and the grave posts were,
We shovelled away the mould,
When sudden a vein of quartz lay bare
All gleaming with yellow gold.
'Twas a reef with never a fault nor baulk
That ran from the range's crest,
And the richest mine on the Eaglehawk
Is known as "The Swagman's Rest".

(Snowy River, 20 October 1895)

.

peter/pass-on to peter2/3..its..MASS-BURIAL*..time1/WORKDAY..TO GET/IT..RIGHT.
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2014/03/the-unstable-alliance-of-nationalists-and-mainly-jewish-oligarchs-in-the-ukraine/
This..much said,..`one must..surely ask..why it is/[that the Jewish community..is supporting the neo-Nazis rise.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/podcasts/hourtitle2.m3u

Why is it that the presence of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers who led rebel groups has not been questioned and addressed? Furthermore, why have Jewish leaders voiced support for the coup and its leaders?
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/03/14/ukraine-americas-midas-touch-again/
Mrs. Van Hyning,..I am surprised at your surprise...You are a student of history --..and you know that both the Borgias and the Mediciis are Jewish families of Italy.

Surely you know that there have been Popes from both of these house. Perhaps it will surprise you to know that we have had 20 Jewish Popes, and when you have sufficient time,..which may coincide with my free time,..I can show you these names and dates...You will learn from these that..:..

*The crimes committed in the name of the Catholic Church were under Jewish Popes. The leaders of the inquisition was one : De Torquemada, a Jew." --From an article in 'Woman's Voice', November 25, 1953.

AND..HERE IS MY..LATEST/PEACE-PLAN
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16038&page=0

TO PREVENT..the fact/red/FLAG..OF Could Diego Garcia..have been the target of a terrorist plot....when..the Poop hITS/THE FAN..using this plane?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
Could you imagine..a US naval base..having to choose whether to shoot down a fully-loaded civilian airliner..out of the sky?...There was a lot of discussion about how there were no “rich targets” in that area.

Diego Garcia...is one such...rich target.[PEAL HARBOUR..]
http://rss.infowars.com/20140314_Fri_Alex.mp3
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity...For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors." -- Charles Peguy
http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=20011
The rapid growth of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a direct result of Western politicians like Cameron and Hague flunking their duty to uphold international law, reject Israel's exceptionalism and punish its crimes. BDS will no doubt apply the solvent to unglue Cameron's unholy alliance. It will increasingly hurt the evil regime and those who support it. And it will be their funeral.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/?p=20022
http://www.gerhard-wisnewski.de/Multilingual/english/War-on-15-March.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl2zeCKVSlQ