You want a physicist to speak at your funeral...

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, I searchbared. I also apologize if it is in the wrong spot.

I stumbled upon this some time ago and found it very fascinating and comforting.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him/her that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let him/her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her/his eyes, that those photons created within her/him constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly.

Amen. 

Just a little something to inspire, admire, or just make you think.
I hope you liked it.

Sauce:
thankgodforevolution.com...

Nice.

This instantly reminded me of a scene from 3rd Rock from the Sun:

i just farted a couple of minutes ago. does that mean, because of the laws of thermodynamics, i am now travelling n. america.

i should be over pittsburgh by now, but i don't see anything. i'll keep ats updated on my location. hopefully i'll catch a trade wind and catch a flight to the caribbean.

I'm not stating that this is my belief. I'm not entirely sure what my beliefs are, entirely.
I just found it to be rather poetic, and I thought that others might appreciate my sharing of it.

reply to post by novemberecho


Sure I want one at my funeral, great if he speaks okay if not.
I want my enemies at my funeral to speak bad things of me, I want my loved ones there as well.
But most of all, I want it to be a party, celebrating the fact that I got there first!
I WIN!!!

reply to post by g146541


Haha KEGGER!!!
Man, If I could ask for one thing, it's be for Synyster Gates to play the "seize the day" guitar solo on my casket, while its being lowered.

/a7x fan girl for life. :p

While I don't subscribe to religious believes and I'm a fan of science, the death subject has always creeped me out and will continue to do so until I'm dead.

Sadly.

Originally posted by boncho
While I don't subscribe to religious believes and I'm a fan of science, the death subject has always creeped me out and will continue to do so until I'm dead.

Sadly.

But when you are dead, do you think you will be creeped out by the subject of life?

reply to post by novemberecho


"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not." Grand Master Yoda

Stunning reply, my friend. Yoda is quotable in almost any situation :p

reply to post by novemberecho


I'm not a believer in organized religions by any stretch of the imagination as I see too many flaws within them. I have always taken a more realistic stance of we simple decompose like everything else in nature that dies. However my view in retrospect, has been based on a very basic level of science, the article has made me think about it on a more profound scientific level and for that I thank you.

reply to post by novemberecho


I hope you don't mind but I linked to your thread in a post on another thread (below) as I thought it would add to it.



www.abovetopsecret.com...

I don't mind at all, thank you! I'd like for this to be able to spread around.

Originally posted by boncho
While I don't subscribe to religious believes and I'm a fan of science, the death subject has always creeped me out and will continue to do so until I'm dead.

Sadly.

thoughts of one last thought, forever
chances, we are alive in the first place amidst an infinite universe of extreme chaos, just...

how do you prepare for a death, in a loving life, living yourself knowing your mind, will
one day fade back into the darkness from where it came, never to return as the thought, forever.

reply to post by novemberecho


Greatly appreciated!

I think it's something worth thinking about no matter what conclusion(s) you come to in the end, it has to at the very least.. be included in the decision process.

It's a nice way of saying that your dearly departed loved one....took up space and was opaque. The same could be said of every fencepost, boot scraper, and welcome mat in the universe.

I ate a tuna salad sandwich at noon. It was a beautiful day in Texas, with the gentlest of breezes stirring across the porous exterior surfaces of the whole wheat bread slices. As sunbeams filtered through the branches of the oak we sat under, the sun's gamma rays richocheted off the sandwich. Heck, even the alpha particles which passed cleanly through the mayonnaise matrix of the salad had their paths imperceptibly altered by the slices of hard-boiled egg hidden within the sandwich's innermost recesses. The flies that trod the exposed mid-section of tuna and relish had their tiny lives changed forever by the caloric intake they stole from my uneaten repast. Their larvae, and generations of diptera yet unborn will have their destinies forever altered by my neglected sandwich.

Yes, if you are a materialist, you can take nihilistic comfort in the fact that the love of your life mattered every bit as much as every doorknob or uneaten tuna sandwich in the world.

Indeed, the universe is full of such deep thoughts; it's no wonder you don't need God.


Love to all.

Here's an Atheist's Top 20 List about Atheists...if you find this thread interesting you may enjoy this list..check it out below;

Originally posted by Ericthenewbie
Some atheists are well known and open about their non-belief, while others are more noncommittal. Kevin Bacon’s name graces many lists of celebrity atheists. Given the Six Degrees of Separation game, we wondered what would the Six Degrees of Freethinkers look like?

Further, when we think of the concept of atheism, many of us think of it as a phenomenon that describes a sense of lacking, or the absence of something. But seldom do we stop and think about what atheists do have, or what they do bring to the table as a group of self-described non-believers.With that in mind and whether you believe or not, consider the following list of 20 things we bet you didn’t know about atheists and atheism:

There are roughly 4.9 million declared atheists in the United States.

A 2010 survey found that those identifying as atheists or agnostics are on average more knowledgeable about religion than followers of major faiths.

A recent Washington Post article states that atheists are likely to outnumber Christians in England in 20 years.

Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous social science research on secularity and non-belief and concluded that societal well-being is positively correlated with irreligion. His atheism-related findings state that compared to religious people, “atheists and secular people” are less nationalistic, prejudiced, anti-semetic, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, close-minded and authoritarian.

Zuckerman also found that in the US, in states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average; and that conversely, in the most religious US states, the murder rate is higher than average.

It’s not so much that atheists are adamant in their disbelief in a god. Instead, they believe that the burden of proof lies not on them to disprove the existence of God, but on the theist to provide a solid rationale for theism.

Although in Western culture atheists are often not religious in any way, many of them consider themselves spiritual.

Though it may sound like an oxymoron, Jewish atheism is practiced by atheists who are ethnically, or culturally, Jewish. Because Judaism encompasses ethnic and religious elements, the term doesn’t really imply any contradiction. Because Jewish law is based on matrilineal decent, even the most Orthodox Jewish authority would have to accept an atheist born to a Jewish mother as fully Jewish.

Atheism figures in many religious and spiritual beliefs within Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Neopagan movements, such as Wicca.

In the 20th century, atheistic thought found recognition in a wide variety of other philosophies, such as existentialism, anarchism, Marxism, and feminism, and the general scientific rationalist movement, to name a few.

The prevailing myth is that atheists hate God; however, one cannot hate something that he/she does not believe exists.

According to atheism educator Austin Cline, a person who truly enjoys and appreciates his or her life will take pleasure in it and enjoy it, regardless of whether any sort of afterlife exists.

New Atheism is the name given to a movement among some early-21st-century atheist writers who advocated that “religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises.”

Although the term atheism originated in 16th-century France, ideas that would be recognized today as atheistic are documented from the Vedic period in India and the classical antiquity.

One common myth about atheists is that “there are no atheists in foxholes.” The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers works to assist non-believers in the U.S. Army and promote awareness of atheists in foxholes. The idea that life-threatening circumstances magically convert atheists to theists is likely wishful thinking on the part of religious believers who have a hard time thinking of anything outside the context of their own religion.

The Oxford English dictionary defines atheism as the disbelief or denial of existence of a god.

The only religious group that’s growing in all 50 American states is “No Affiliation,” according to researchers, Daniel M. Abrams, Haley A. Yaple and Richard J. Wiener; and census data from 85 regions worldwide, show the same trend away from identification with faith. The Netherlands is already 40 % irreligious, Australia and the Czech Republic are both 60 % God-free.

The group American Atheists has erected controversial billboards—in Hebrew in Brooklyn, NY, and in Arabic in Paterson, NJ—that say: God “You know it’s a myth… and you have a choice.”

Atheist feminism is a movement that advocates the equality of the sexes. Atheist feminists believe that the majority of the religions are sexist and oppressive to women.

On March 24, 2012, “The Reason Rally” will take place on the National Mall in Washington D.C.. The Rally is a movement-wide event sponsored by the country’s major secular organizations, with the goal of unifying, energizing, and emboldening secular people nationwide and dispelling the taboos about secularism that prevail today.

reply to post by novemberecho


And yet that particular arrangement of wave packets is no longer really present. With this logic, we would be doing away with the classification of chemicals, atoms, molecules, particles, and the integers. The fact is that there are differences, and those differences are according to their arrangements, and the arrangement of x (consciousness of the deceased person) cannot be quantified. So, to identify the dispersion of his classically material elements with x is more an admission of pragmatism than anything to do with philosophical certitude.

It's cute to those who aren't deeply educated in the mathematics of modern physics because it appears to give comfort, but a mathematician would be a more poetic source.