Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead/Orson Scott Card

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amyjo88
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So I watched Ender's Game and then read the book, both very good. Finally got a hold of Speaker for the Dead and I'm about halfway thru, very good.

This topic is to talk about any book in the Ender canon, I'm gonna start off with Speaker for the Dead

Basically, instead of giving a typical Eulogy at a funeral telling how wonderful a person is, a Speaker for the Dead finds out who that person really was, on a deeper level than anyone who knew them understands (even a spouse). This is a unique skill and those who misunderstand think it is a religion, and churches are typically against it (sci-fi, btw). The speech typically unveils the persons greatest sins while also unveiling their reason behind it. The goal is truth and understanding, not to excuse their faults and say everyone is a nice person.

Anyway, what do you guys think about the idea of a Speaker for the Dead? It's not "Christian" but it's not "Anti-Christian" either.

There is the recurring idea that when you fully understand someone as a Speaker does, you love them in spite of their faults. This is what draws me and I think this is Christ-like, this is how we love sinners. When we understand that we are all sinners, and also that everyone is fighting a battle that maybe no one else knows about, we love people. When we understand a person and their views we love them. Now, we don't have to agree with them and we want to bring them to Jesus yes, but true love is the best way.

Thoughts?
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ccgr
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I've only seen the movie, but I enjoyed it.
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ArcticFox
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My thoughts are that a Speaker for the Dead does a devastating disservice to the departed.

We spend considerable time and energy during our lives trying to do the right thing. Sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we take a nose dive. In any case, those who live us and are closest to us already know our dirty laundry and don't need to be reminded of it after we're gone. The others, those who didn't know about our dirty laundry... well that's how we wanted it in life, isn't it? Otherwise we'd have told them ourselves.

This is especially true for Christians. When we repent of our sins, God forgets them. What is the point of bringing them back up after we've died? If Heavenly Father sees no reason to remember them, why should anyone else?
"He who takes offense when no offense is intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense is intended is a greater fool."
—Brigham Young

"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
—Christopher Hitchens
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amyjo88
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I feel like my first description didn't do it justice. The very "Speaker for the Dead" explained the alien race known as the "Buggers" at the end of the first book, they mention it in the movie too I believe.
Spoiler:
The buggers were like bees/ants, their queen was sentient but the workers weren't. Buggers killed humans not realizing they were sentient. Stopped when they figured it out but couldn't communicate with the humans. The humans ended up wiping out the species, except the buggers knew what was coming and put a queen on another planet to restart the species.
It did develop into something that worked in the books to bring about good but I'm pretty sure now it would be terrible in real life. I agree that Christians should forgive as Christ forgave, and try to see people as he sees them, with their sins washed away.

And lately, I haven't heard pastors glorifying the dead unfairly. The Senior Pastor at my current church is very good at doing funerals. She is in a unique position, having pastored here for a long time, was an alcoholic, works with AA, NA, Al-Anon. These past few months she has done far too many funerals. But she does them well. She does get to know the person. She gives an accurate picture of them (I guess, I don't really know the people. But it feels real.) She highlights their good traits (not generic, general, this was such a nice person kind of stuff that we sometimes hear) and doesn't shy away from the bad (not revealing anything that isn't widely known). She doesn't say everyone goes to heaven, but never says the person went to hell either. -_- I feel like I'm not explaining this well either.

In short, I think you're right. A Speaker for the Dead is a bad idea. But I do think some pastors need to rethink how they do funerals. Some are really lying to try and comfort the family. But I think that does more harm than good. When we talked about funerals in ministry class, the prof reminded us we really don't know and therefore shouldn't say whether a person went (or is going to) heaven or hell.

So anyway... I'm tired. Hopefully some of that made sense
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