ETA: Thank you all for providing your opinion about this question. I'm contacting my mother and asking her about what she would want, I'll follow her lead and support what she decides. As said I don't believe she wants those toxic family members or her families around on a moment so special like saying your last goodbye to a husband. And neither do I.
I'd prefer a public funeral excluding them or conducting a small Christian ritual for family only where we can mourn him like we want but if she wants them around, so be it.
Funerals are for the living.
Thank you all.
My Christian, old republican southerner father wants me to attend his Christian funeral with all of his surviving relatives present. I don’t believe in any god, he knows that. He needs a religion to give a meaning to his life? Knock yourself out.
Religion is not the main problem here. The main problem is how close minded and fake people are in a southern small town in GA and above all, relatives. 2 aunts love to pretend everything is fine, they excel doing that on funerals and weddings, then stab you in the back as soon as you’re not within ear distance, either need drama to feel important or have way too much free time.
I wouldn’t mind a small Christian ritual with my mother, my brother, a priest and nobody else, but these women and their husbands? They drag everyone down with their stupid grudges about yard sales and business deals made in the early 2020s and seem to be envious of those who left that place and found something better. Last time I saw them, 7 years ago, they complained I don’t call them. What for?
I’m better off without them and don’t have the bandwidth to deal with them.
Family seems to be an identity issue for my father, the idea that his whole family won’t bury him together scares him. I told them I will honor him my way, with luck on the hospital bed where he dies or at home, that mother and brother are welcome to honor him with me, that I won’t attend a funeral with people I don’t like but he is not listening: he is now retorting to manipulate me (it would be so good, wouldn’t it be nice…?)
My father is not cognitively impaired. The easy way out would be to tell him ‘sure, I’ll come to your funeral with all those assholes you care so much about’ and after he dies, ignore it. I suspect my mother would agree, because she wasn’t born in GA and these aunts always felt superior to her, something my father always downplays because ‘we’re family’.
I like treating my father like an adult and want genuine conversations with him. To me, placating him on a thing like this means accepting my father has become a 5 year old who needs to be lied to so he doesn’t start feeling sad or feels I’m attacking him. It doesn’t feel right.
But it feels worse to pretend I respect those lying assholes or to listen to their boring life I don’t care about.
So what do I do?
This isn't about religion, even if you're trying to make it about religion. You want to get out of your father's funeral because it makes you uncomfortable.
Life is full of uncomfortable things, you'll need to get used to it. There's thousands of times you'll need to suck it up and be around people you don't like because it's the respectful thing to do.
I'm agnostic, used to be atheist. I thought the same thing. Your fathers funeral, family dinners, respectful times, you're not "making a stand" you're being whiney and immature. Atheists celebrate Christmas, go to weddings and funerals. We just sit there silently and respectfully. That's how we actually want to be viewed outside of a religious context.
Figure out the reason you don't actually want to go and then learn from it. That's what growing up is.
Yeah the holidays/rituals aren’t about religion, they’re about family and community. Social cohesion with those you love is the point, provided you wish to keep those people in your life.
"Agnostic" is just a more specific kind of atheist. You're still an atheist.
Some people who call themselves agnostic lean atheist like you say, and might call themselves "agnostic atheists" as a more specific descriptor of their atheism. Some people who are agnostic may lean theist, and call themselves "agnostic theists" (this is usually the label I give myself). Others may not lean one way or the other, or may not care, and may call themselves simply "agnostic." Or there could be any number of other reasons someone uses the term they prefer.
The differences might be minor or non-existent in your view, but might be important to another individual. Don't presume to understand what someone else believes simply because of your interpretation of a term.