Death & Dying - A Tippling Philosopher

A Tippling Philosopher

Sign in Subscribe

Death & Dying

A collection of 12 posts

Death: Every year, the probability increases

I was fortunate enough to swan through most of my life only rarely coming into contact with death. My grandparents, eventually (while I was away from home, either abroad or at university), one work colleague...but I think that was about it. Over the last few years, that has changed,

Humanist Pastoral Carer Gets Volunteer of the Year

This is from Humanists UK: Charlie Barnes, pastoral carer and Manchester hospitals’ Volunteer of the Year: an interview Charlie Barnes is a humanist volunteering as a non-religious pastoral carer at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, providing valuable support as part of the hospital’s chaplaincy team. He is also the recipient

Being Skeptical of Near-Death Experiences (Pt 2)

The other day, I introduced the topic of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), and today I will talk about naturalistic, scientific explanations for such phenomena. The problem with scientific explanations and hypotheses for such phenomena is that they aren't as fun and exciting as some funky spiritual world operating in

On Fellow Patheoser, Ed Brayton

It comes with great sadness to announce that Ed Brayton of Patheos Nonreligious' Dispatches from the Culture Wars has decided to write his last blog post there for Patheos in the light of opting for palliative care. In his final piece, "Saying Goodbye for the Last Time"

New Ways to Do Post-Death

Bert posted the last article on funerals and alternatives to cremation. This sparked a memory of a fascinating article I read a few years ago in The New Humanist - well worth subscribing to - "The business of death in a growing world". Things have probably moved on

The Discovery of Death

[This is a guest piece from Joseph J. Berger, PhD, for whom I am presently editing a book Science and Spirituality: An Introduction for Students, Secular People & the Generally Curious, which is essentially a short introduction to scientific naturalism/humanism for high school students. He has taken this opportunity

Demographics of Religion

Suicide, Religion and Atheism

Suicide is never an easy thing to talk about. To give some background, The Suicide Act 1961 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It decriminalised the act of suicide in England and Wales so that those who failed in the attempt to kill themselves would no

Passing Away and Setting up Foundations

People die all the time. This is the inevitability of life. They have been doing it for every week of every year since time immemorial. Of course, this is a very sad reality for so many families. Dealing with death is a difficult thing for any loving friend or family

When an Atheist Dies: Upon My Death

I was reading Bert's recent post on dying as an atheist, and thought I'd share my eulogy again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fib2Kg6dSzk

Jesus' Sacrifice Wasn't All That

There is a ubiquitous notion that Jesus sacrificed an awful lot for our sins. Putting Atonement to the side for the minute (after all, it's a completely nonsensical ideal), let us consider the sacrifice that Jesus made. So what happened to Jesus at the end of his life?

2016, Celebrity Deaths and Statistics

2016 has been a terrible year. Just in the last few days we have had George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Watership Down author Richard Adams die. This adds to a long list, including David Bowie, Kenny Baker, Prince, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Caroline Aherne, Muhammad Ali,

The Legacy of Life Eulogy

Here is my poem that I would like read out at my funeral put to moving face time. When do my humanist poetry and music nights, it's the one I get most comments about, which is really nice, since I wrote it! Let's see how it