PEOPLE HANDLE DEATH OF LOVED ONES SO DIFFERENTLY

Religions still have the marketing hold on wakes and funerals along with funeral parlors where embalming and body preparation usually take place.  For the first time I attended a wake held in a  church.  I was told you had to be pretty high up in the church for that honor.  There were probably several hundred people who filed through for this financially endowed person who undoubtedly gave to the church with largesse.  As I contemplated the purpose of all this, I could only assume it was to make the survivors realize the importance of supporting the church.

Most religions think there is an afterlife...totally man's fantasy.  My guess is that it was a primitive 'carrot on a stick' to make people stay within the behaviors as set out by the church for morality, faith, and spiritual education.  As an Atheist, none of this touches me.  I do not believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, nor being forever damned to Hell. 

Instead, I also believe that the business of burials and taking the best lands for cemeteries is a shameful practice.  Some of our best lands, better used for parks, are taken up as acres of carved rocks and statues for vandals to destroy or mourning relatives or friends visiting to talk to a rock as a substitute for their loved one.

Cremation offerings from one cemetery (otherwise in the category of marketing): "We have a wide variety of urns available to suit your needs. Urns come in many different shapes, sizes, materials, colors and finishes, so please visit our urn showroom to see what we can offer you. For families who wish to share their loved one’s remains among different family members, we can offer miniature keepsakes and urns.
Memorialization options include engraving on urns, an engraved bronze leaf on our Tree of Remembrance in our Columbarium, jewelry pendants that can hold a small portion of a loved one’s remains, and a line of glass jewelry and display pieces that can be made with a small portion of the loved one’s remains."

Since I have but one life, let me live in peace and allow me to run my own life as long as it does not directly interfere with another's.  Do not tell me I MUST have faith in that in which I cannot respect.  Do not tell me I must live by your ignorance.  Do not allow religion to defy the Constitution.  May there truly be a separation of Church and State.