My oldest brother was assigned to visit the vicar in advance of the ceremony. We were atheists who had no idea what normally happened at vicar-led funerals in crematoria. Would we have to sing hymns? We hoped not but, in case we did, I suggested Jerusalem because I’d once heard Dad — a great music lover — say he quite liked it.

The funeral, as it turned out, was horrible. In a monotonous voice, the vicar raced through the minimal notes he’d taken about Dad from my brother: where he was from, who his family were, what he liked doing his spare time. He got one place name wrong. Never mind — it was only the place where my Dad loved walking and where his ashes would be scattered. There were no hymns and just one prayer, if I recall correctly. Then there was a bit of twaddle about eternal life as my Dad — an atheist with no hope of resurrection — was “popped in the oven”, as the Rev Ed Tomlinson puts it. (More of him in a moment).

I came away from my father’s funeral feeling flat and vaguely betrayed. Was that it? I was embarrassed for those of  his friends — his former work colleagues, now retired — who’d given up their time and travelled some distance because they wanted to show us — Dad’s family — how that they had liked and respected him and to say their goodbyes. And this was the miserable send-off we’d given him! I won’t dwell on the abysmal failure of that particular rite of passage to fulfil the emotional needs of the bereaved as expected of such occasions; suffice to say I carried the bitterness of my regret for 14 years, until my mother’s funeral provided an opportunity to make things right, at least in my mind.

The Rev Ed Tomlinson, vicar of St Barnabas’s Church in Tunbridge Wells, recently launched a rather unseemly attack on humanists and their funerals. I don’t think Mr Tomlinson would have approved of my father’s funeral, even though it was conducted by a vicar, rather than by one of the humanists he disdains. No, to be “sincerely Christian in character” funerals should be theatrical occasions full of music, ritual and mumbo jumbo, it seems. The pop song chosen by the bereaved because it meant something to the deceased and means something to them has no place in a funeral, whereas the “gorgeous liturgy of the Requiem Mass” does have a place even if the deceased hated it. It’s not the bereaved people’s feelings that matter here. Of course it isn’t.

Mourners who chose a non-religious ceremony were conned by “humanists” making money from death. “I am not the one who suffers,” he said. “Along with my fellow Christians, I will still have the gorgeous liturgy of the Requiem Mass to look forward to. Whereas the best our secularist friends (and those they dupe) can hope for is a poem from nan combined with a saccharine message from a pop star before being popped in the oven with no hope of resurrection.”

The risible comment about humanists “making money from death” is a charge he repeats in a second post here, in which he says,

I am not, like the humanist, running a business and seeking financial gain from funerals. Rather I was and am ordained for the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth.

Post proof or retract, bitch! Yes, humanists do get paid for conducting funerals and so do vicars. Unlike vicars, however, humanist celebrants do not receive a salary and lodgings, etc, from their employer though they may pay a levy to their humanist organisation, if they belong to one. If Mr Tomlinson waives his fee — as one might infer from all that ‘financial gain v advancing God’s kingdom’ stuff — then he’s the exception, rather than the rule. In any event, for the amount of work that goes into a typical humanist funeral ceremony, humanists receive meagre recompense. It is not the thought of financial gain that inspires people to become humanist celebrants. They do have to eat, though.

The suggestion that people are being “duped” by secularists is screamingly funny coming from a peddlar of religion, of course.

Having attended a number of religious funerals — and many more humanist ones — I am satisfied that one of the better decisions I have made in my life was, on the death my mother, to ensure that she didn’t fall into the hands of any religious clergy and to conduct her funeral myself using the humanist model. The music I chose and the words I spoke before commiting her body for cremation reflected her bereaved family’s feeling about her. The centrepiece of the ceremony was a tribute to her life that celebrated the vibrant person she was. It included a poem from her youngest grandaughter. And, because I was running the show, I took the opportunity to make reparation to my father’s memory for the betrayal that was his funeral, saying:

Thinking about her led me to also think about my father, Bill, and that I should include him in today’s tribute. I never felt the eulogy delivered at his funeral did justice to such a decent and such an accomplished man.

So I made the eulogy at my mother’s funeral about each of them and about both of them and the life they shared together. Thus, he too finally received a tribute that befitted him and properly expressed our feelings for him. That it took place 14 years after that production-line vicar’s ceremony means I can only imagine how my experience of bereavement at that time would have been helped, had he had a humanist funeral instead of one that Mr Tomlinson might reasonably describe as insincerely Christian in character.

In fairness, Tomlinson’s bugbear isn’t so much that more and more people are wanting to have less and less religious content in the funerals they arrange — though that obviously bothers him a lot too (snigger). It’s more that cultural Christians are still showing deference to religion by asking for vicars and then expecting them to conduct what are essentially non-religious funerals. On that I am in total agreement with him.

People who are attracted by the idea of a funeral ceremony totally unfettered by the dead hand of religion might like to check out the ceremomines information on the website of the British Humanist Association who today issued a press release in response to Mr Tomlinson’s rantings. Tana Wollen, BHA Head of Ceremonies, said,

Committing the dead to a god or gods that you don’t believe exists or sending them off to an after-life you believe is fictional, even with the accompaniment of a sonorous liturgy, doesn’t feel right. Humanists hold that we have just one life: this one. A humanist funeral which pays tribute to how someone has lived, to what they have done for themselves and for others, with music and words particularly fitting to them can be a joyous occasion.

OK, that was my bit to publicise the BHA. My absolute favourite response to the vicar’s hissy fit comes from another clergyman: none other than the Rev David Robertson of the fanatical Free Church of Scotland who, beneath Ed Tomlinson’s second post, comments:

Ed, Ed, Ed,

What business is it of yours what music is played at funerals? You’re just there to go through the motions. Who really wants the commemoration of their death to be marred by the tuneless caterwauling of the elderly adherents of some ghastly Middle-Eastern death cult, anyway? People have priests at these things only for the sake of tradition. You religion is not relevent anymore, nor are your opinions.

Amen. Well said, David.

Take Michael White, for example, in yesterday’s Guardian:  “Secularists dominate the airwaves for the other 23 hours and 57 minutes of the day,” he tells us, “so why not keep three minutes for the faiths?” Or as Free Presbyterian Minister, David Robertson, whines in the Sunday Herald, “The BBC’s default world view and operating principle is secularist…We will be more than happy to give up the tiny slot that is reserved for “religion” in the BBC…provided that the 99% of the BBC that is exclusively run from secularist presuppositions is opened to the majority of the population who have some form of religious belief.”

Well, blow me! It never occurred to me that religious listeners might resent the fact that the rest of the BBC output is presented from a neutral perspective and that they’d rather have a religious slant on everything. Perhaps they’d like to hear an archbishop or rabbi present the news from their religious “presuppositions” as well as produce dramas, documentaries and music programmes?

Sorry, but that argument is hogwash. Unless a programme is specifically religious, everyone can enjoy it, regardless of their world view. There is a place for religious thoughts and I don’t mean they should stay in the heads of religious people. I’ve no objection to a few clearly flagged religious programmes. After all, religion is a special interest still held by many and those of us who are bored or offended by it can listen to something else.

The problem with Thought for the Day is that it interrupts a purportedly serious daily news magazine with what is, for many of us, a highly irritating three-minute religious platitude. I always found TFTD objectionable when I was a regular listener to the Today programme. One day in 1981 my irritation boiled over and I switched channels permanently. I’ve never listened to the programme since but recently I’ve looked at some transcripts of contributions to the slot on the programme’s website and I found no improvement to speak of. Most of them are, in my view, trite, tired and unoriginal.

The second problem with Thought for the Day is its very title, which suggests the thought being expressed is profound and meaningful. Excluding non-religious contributers implies that only religious people can have profound, meaningful thoughts. Thus non-religious listeners are irritated even more.

On the plus side, a three-minute daily platitude would seem to be low-hanging fruit, as far as secularists are concerned: the campaign against it gets the secular humanist organisations some publicity during the silly season. If you do nothing else for the campaign against religious privilege, drop a line of complaint or just sign a petition against TFTD’s exclusively religious character and pat yourself on the back for doing something worthy.

I’m inclined to agree with A C Grayling’s view, quoted in The Telegraph:

At the moment the slot is discriminatory. A lot of people are irritated by it being on a main news programme. They should really abolish it but at the very least they should have alternative views.

Yes, they should but personally I wouldn’t lift a finger in furtherance of that particular cause. I loathe TFTD with a passion and I wouldn’t expect to like it any better just because it included an occasional secular platitude. Because, let’s face it, not every secularist is a Grayling or a Baggini. We shouldn’t flatter ourselves that the quality of the slot is necessarily going to be improved by the inclusion of secular contributors. The bar isn’t exactly set high.

Opposing David Robertson in the Sunday Herald, Tim Maguire of the Humanist Society of Scotland, says,

If the UN Special Rapporteur on Religion and Belief is to be believed, two-thirds of the UK population have no religious belief. Why should they look to religious leaders for moral guidance? On the other hand, if the Daily Mail is to be believed, there’s a huge moral vacuum in our society. For once I agree with the Daily Mail, but let’s fill that vacuum with philosophers, thinkers and comedians whose conclusions are reached by reason and compassion rather than divine revelation.

Hang on a minute, where’ve I read that before? Strangely, the same four sentences — identical right down to the use of the first person — appear in a piece written for The Guardian back in February by Juliet Wilson, also of the Humanist Society of Scotland. (And there was I mocking the Muslim speakers Adam Deen and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, recently, for being unoriginal thinkers with a set script!)

Anyway, Juliet was promoting what she describes as a “secular alternative in podcast form called Thought for the World” and I resisted the temptation to scoff at the idea that a three-minute slot on highbrow radio could impinge on any moral vacuum because my hopes were raised by the mention of philsophers, comedians and thinkers.

Alas, the first of this year’s series of thought for the world podcasts was by Muriel Gray, who is neither philosopher nor comedian nor, it would seem, much of a thinker. Her contribution on voluntary euthanasia, which I railed about in a previous post because it’s a subject close to my heart, was not only devoid of both reason and compassion, it also conflicted sharply with the view held by the majority of freethinkers — and many religious believers too — that people who are suffering unbearably should have the right to end their own life if they choose to. As I said in the earlier post,

To be fair, Muriel wasn’t really trying to make an argument. She was simply using an opportunity handed to her on a plate to speak uninterrupted and unchallenged about what she wants or, rather, what she thinks she would want if she were dying a slow painful death. The arguments in favour of a change of law, the sufferings of the likes of Diane Petty, Nigel Pratten, Sue Lawson or countless others could be safely ignored. And they were.

It struck me as a tad ironic that this project of providing a secular alternative to religious TFTD should give a voice and a potential audience of millions to someone who opposes another long-standing humanist campaign and one that is far more important, in my opinion, than getting secular viewpoints on TFTD because it is a campaign that is concerned with real human suffering.

I wouldn’t deny people the right to say whatever they like; what I object to is giving people a soapbox which, once they’ve had their say, they can kick aside and go home without any requirement that they listen to an opposing view. The notion of providing platforms for platitudes where there is no opportunity to engage with the speaker and explore their ideas in more depth — or disagree with them altogether — doesn’t sit well with my understanding of humanism as a positive and democratic philosophy.

All over the web I see thoughts being expressed by ordinary people with more wit, wisdom and perspicacity than most of the contributors to either TFTD or its secular alternative can manage. Better still, I see those thoughts being challenged and developed through discussion and debate from people all over the world (something that humanists in Scotland don’t seem very interested in, judging by the tumbleweed on their internet forum).

For all the noise that (some) secularists make over our exclusion from TFTD, I know there are plenty who, like me, don’t give a flying toss about it and aren’t really interested in hearing atheists sounding off with no come-back. An attempt to raise funds for the Thought for the World project launched in February this year has raised a pitiful £211.11 so far and, as the extraordinary success of the atheist bus appeal demonstrates, it’s not because we’re stingy.

No. While the idea of pissing off the likes of the Revd. David Robertson is appealing, it wouldn’t compensate for the tedium of hearing atheists use the slot to promote their favourite cause or whinge about their personal bugbears without fear of being challenged.

I’d rather scrap it altogether, thanks all the same.

Edited to add: Oops – if I’d seen this article in the Independent before posting, I would’ve chosen a different title. I recommend the article in spite of the title.

I once happened to be in Glasgow at this time of year and was curious about the annual big orange walk through the city so decided to go and watch it. As I emerged from Central Station, I heard the sound of drumming in the distance and it sounded pretty good so I followed the direction of the sound, expecting at any moment to turn a corner and see the bigots marching in all their glory.

What I found instead was a little African guy sitting on the pavement playing a pair of bongo drums. It turned out the marchers had already been and gone. I later consoled myself by watching some of the videos of the march on youtube and leaving facetious comments about not realising Glasgow celebrated Gay Pride so enthusiastically.

That was great sport so this year I decided to go to youtube again and do the same thing. I’ve had one response so far from a ‘MrJimthejock’ :

skepticat1, i bet you take part in gay pride marches..in fact i bet you are the gay pride queen!!!

Naturally, I am devastated by MrJimthejock’s incisive wit  and I’m wondering how I’ll ever recover.

Talking of Gay Pride and Glasgow, I recall a great brouhaha a few years ago, when a bunch of small-minded firefighters were told to attend the Glasgow Pride and distribute fire safety literature. Yes, that’s all they were told to do: attend a public event where there would be thousands of people and give out a few leaflets. They were disciplined for refusing, snivelling like a bunch of little girls that they were afraid they’d be sexually harassed or some such nonsense but they were treated like heroes by a cross-section of the Glasgow public, who left their sanctimonious and obnoxious comments on the website of the Herald newspaper and elsewhere.

At the time, Scotland was welcoming visitors with an advertising campaign modestly proclaiming itself to be ‘the best small country in the world’.

Funnily enough, they never mentioned the dinosaurs.