It implies to my mind a sort of reverence that cremation doesn't.
Well, yes, but the thing is it's
your mind. Others might see it differently. Whereas what you seemed to be saying is that others are not being reverent, because they're not doing the thing that
you would do if
you were being reverent. I think this is a false criticism of them. Everyone is reverent to their dead, but how to do this is an individual or a cultural question.
Burial is a long-standing tradition in our culture, but some might see cremation as more reverent in that it protects the body from the rather horrible process of decay. It would be more reverent
of them to practice cremation. "We will save the body of the person we love", they might say, "from suffering the fate of common garbage".
And in the end, surely the greatest reverence we can show to the dead, in choosing our funerary practices, is to carry out
their wishes, not ours. If my wife predeceases me (horrible thought) I shall respect her by doing what she wants done, irrespective of what I would choose for myself.
In the end, reverence is in the heart and the head, it is not
objective:
Darius [a Persian king] summoned the Hellenes [Greeks] at his court and asked them how much money they would accept for eating the bodies of their dead fathers. They answered that they would not do this for any amount of money. Later, Darius summoned some Indians called Kallatiai, who do eat their dead parents. In the presence of the Hellenes he asked the Indians how much money they would accept to burn the bodies of their dead fathers. They responded with an outcry, ordering him to shut his mouth lest he offend the gods. Well then, that is how people think, and so it seems to me that Pindar was right when he said in his poetry that custom is king of all. --- Herodotus, Histories, Book III, 38
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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