Pope Francis’s Funeral is a Great Example of Why I Detest Church and Religion

My parents were watching it on TV yesterday, and I caught a glimpse as I was walking from one part of my house to another. I saw the coverage in various online outlets and social media channels.

Crowds of priests and church servants in their maroon gowns, a fancy coffin with a dead body, thousands of spectators-mourners-guests, world leaders, security — a spectacle of grandiose scale.

Why?!

Why all this ridiculous degree of complexity and attention when it comes to burying a human being who is not better or worse than billions of others who have walked this planet?

Why this outlandish ritual that’s costing millions, maybe tens of millions?

Why? For whom?

Because somehow this person was closer to God?

Does God perhaps enjoy a show that humans put on now and then in His name?

Would God not be happier if humans spent all these millions on caring for the sick, poor, and hungry?

I get it to some degree — it’s a tradition. Traditions help people maintain their identity, to hang on to something permanent in this ever-turbulent world.

But this is too much, too grotesque, too outlandish. There is nothing spiritual or godly in this kind of funeral. It’s the opposite — it’s too human, too ugly in how so much emphasis is placed on material attributes and man-made…