Humanist Funeral Services

What is a humanist? A humanist is a person who did not necessarily have any religious affiliations or practice a certain religion. For those who lived their life with this type of philosophy, they generally opt to have a humanist funeral ceremony. Humanist funeral services are memorial ceremonies for people who were not practicing any type of religion or is a service that is not faith based.

In America, statistics have shown that about half of the men and women living in the United States choose to have a humanistic end of life service. Sometimes people settle for a religious ceremony out of tradition, but may deal with hypocritical feelings, so they may choose to do without it and not to have a funeral at all.

Relating death to religious teachings is just one purpose of a funeral memorial service. It is because of this many choose to have a humanist ceremony in its place. During the humanist ceremony or this type of service, family and friends gather to acknowledge the death, offer support to each other and express their grief. This is still very similar to the faith based religious services.

The funeral service is generally held in the funeral home or some other location such as a hall, park, school auditorium, or at sea.

If the family chooses, a member of a clergy may officiate the humanist service but will have no religious teachings included within the ceremony. Most often, a friend or family member officiates this type of service. The service ceremony includes various types of funeral music, group participation and singing, and special selected secular readings of poetry or literature which held special meaning by the deceased.

The surviving family members do elect to create funeral programs as a type of memorial tribute for their loved one. This program will hold special lyrics to poetry, readings, and song lyrics.

Similar to those of Protestant and Catholic services, group participation is becoming increasing popular in funeral ceremonies. If you have a desire to participate in some fashion or share something to all attendees at the funeral, it's best to discuss this with the family first in order to grant enough time for your sharing.

Even though this type of funeral service is not tied to any religious philosophy, it does assist the surviving family members a chance to grieve and accept the terms of the death of their loved one.