Atheists forced to travel out of Donegal for final resting place

[Errigal]

This is quite funny. I know a few of the people involved in this drama. The journalist Roy Greenslade in question is one of those progressive and atheistic Englishmen who like the Irish because they sometimes shoot at their fellow Englishmen. In other words, a ****.

This story reflects well on north Donegal and badly on Mr. Greenslade.

Atheists forced to travel out of Donegal for final resting place

PATSY McGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent

IT APPEARS there may be nowhere in Co Donegal where someone who is openly an atheist can be buried.

Such was the discovery of journalist Roy Greenslade this week, following the death of his mother last Saturday.

Her remains could not be buried in Donegal. She was buried in a Derry city cemetery instead.

A humanist funeral service for Joan Greenslade took place last Monday but, her son told The Irish Times , that "according to the church people I approached - and underlined by the undertaker - an atheist cannot be buried (in Donegal) because the churches, Catholic, Church of Ireland and Presbyterian, own the graveyards. Therefore, unless one is willing to compromise one's beliefs by agreeing to a religious service, it is impossible to be buried."

He spoke to a former Church of Ireland rector on the matter who advised him it was "out of the question" for his mother to be buried in a Church of Ireland graveyard there.

His mother was buried in Derry on Tuesday.

The city council's cemeteries department, when asked if they could bury an atheist, said they had different areas in the municipal graveyard for Catholics, Protestants and even Muslims.

Asked whether they were starting an atheist section for Mrs Greenslade the reply was: "No, we're putting her in with the Protestants."

A spokeswoman for Donegal County Council said it had responsibility only for old and unused graveyards.

A spokesman for the Church of Ireland diocese of Derry and Raphoe, which includes north Donegal, was mystified by the situation.

Strictures on who could be buried in a Church of Ireland graveyard was news to him.

A spokesman for the Catholic Church said ownership and administration of its graveyards could vary from parish to parish and diocese to diocese.

"Such diversity is one of the glories of the Catholic Church," he said.

Dick Spicer of the Humanist Association of Ireland expressed amazement that there was a county in Ireland which did not have a municipal graveyard.

Atheists forced to travel out of Donegal for final resting place - The Irish Times - Fri, Aug 29, 2008

[BeornWulfWer]

"No, we're putting her in with the Protestants."

Ooh! Shut that door!

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by BeornWulfWer

Ooh! Shut that door!

We turned him away too. Good thing.

[Milesian]

Eh...cremation? Donate his body to medical science?
Why is an atheist so intent on burial?

Oh yes, I know. Both of these would be no problem, whereas our moaning minnie here needs to point out some contrived injustice against poor, long-suffering people like himself. There really is no end to people using this contemporary Victim Mentality as a roundabout way of attacking the beliefs of others (because naturally if undergoing a religious service at his funeral is a compromise of his own atheistic beliefs, then to admit him without one would necessarily be a compromise of the priest/minister's beliefs too).

The obvious point that poor Roy here seems to have overlooked is that for the atheist, when you are dead then you are dead. End of story. The body is dead & there is no soul anyway. So in reality, there is no atheistic beliefs to compromise. He's dead. He no longer has any beliefs. Nothing has survived death as far as he is concerned, so what can it possibly matter to him at that point? There's no problem anymore.
I think Roy has been so eager to contrive this plight that he hasn't really thought it through beforehand. Oops!

[Errigal]

^ I agree.

This has to be one of the clearest cases of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. Or, for our French friends, wanting to "have the butter and the money for butter".

If Mr. Greenslade wants to live in rural Ireland then he should expect his neighbours to have no time for atheists.

[Marcus Marulus]

Such requests by Atheists/Humanists in way point towards them being just another religious denomination, a claim they usually passionately reject. I mean, things like: "humanist funeral service".