Burials

Ancestor worship may account for some burial practices, or the deification of royalty as well. Ancient royal tombs like this one recently unearthed in Macedonia are fascinating as they lavish the departed with treasures to accompany them to the afterlife.But I think burial probably mostly has to do with the sense most peoples have had that the soul is immortal. I also think there's a basic respect for humanity implied in burial and funeral ceremonies, that seems to be lost in our modern so-called enlightened progressive viewpoint that is either content, or pretends to be content, with being reduced to fertilizer or a skeleton in an anatomy class. Pretty sad in my opinion that there is so little respect for the human individual that feelings are all boiled down to personal relationships while humanity itself is treated as so much trash. I suppose most would deny this but most of the posts on this thread imply it. And where does it come from? Oh, probably from your proud evolutionism and atheism, right?I guess you could relegate the burial rites of primitive peoples to superstition, including Europeans up to Darwin or the Enlightenment, and I'm sure there's plenty of that to go around, but to me such rites hold a respect for humanity that's utterly lost in the kinds of opinions on this thread. The theory of evolution already did in any real respect for humanity of course. Just animals, just apes, nothing special, no spirit, no soul, nothing special. Just a bunch of chemicals all crashing around and accidentally coming up with human beings.Maybe I'm misremembering something from years ago but isn't the Japanese practice of bowing upon meeting someone a gesture of respect for that person's humanity, simply being born human being respected as a very high calling. They must be losing some of that perspective as they are being poisoned by the vulture-food view of humanity through western influences. I don't know anything about Japanese funeral practices but I like the respect implied in that gesture. Then there are the sacred burial grounds of the American Indians. Ancestor worship, superstition, oh probably, but also respect.Darwin said there's grandeur in the evolutionist view of things. Poor Darwin, poor modern man who has learned to regard himself as dog food.There is an opinion among some Christians that burial is to be preferred to cremation because we are immortal souls whose bodies will eventually be resurrected and joined with our souls in a new glorified form, so we should preserve the body until that day. Even unbelievers will be reunited with their bodies, though not in glorified form. I don't think it matters as far as the reality of being reunited with your body goes whether you are buried or cremated or burned at the stake. God will know how to put us all back together no matter what condition the body ends up in.But I do think there's more respect for human beings shown in burial than in cremation. Respect for the human body at least, I guess. Cremation is just so violent and destructive.Sad that you're all willing to treat yourselves as trash. "Man who is in honor" says the scripture, yet perishes like the beasts. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'd suggest that perhaps you misread my post and should reread it, but I don't suppose you'd see things any differently, since as you admit, you knew what I'd say before you read it anyway.

I already read your post and was very touched by it. You've been through a lot and I feel for you. I don't understand what you are so angry about. Nothing I said related to anything in your post, it was prompted by the fertilizer and skeleton type comments as if one's own death can be taken so lightly.

My remarks were completely on a general abstract level, the level of culture, zeitgeist etc., I was not talking about anybody's personal feelings which can be something else entirely.I've lost both unsaved parents and an unsaved brother among other family members, and I have a daughter who is unsaved and shows no signs of ever becoming a believer, and two grandsons in the same situation. It hurts enormously to think of them as possibly dying unsaved, it's certainly not that I've never thought about such things. I can't decide my theology on my feelings, but my theology is certainly hard on those feelings.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Just making a simple little point, that it seems to me burial, to "lay the body to rest" is psychologically more respectful of humanity than cremation which destroys the body, or displaying it with its rotting flesh or as a mere skeleton. But the point is a general abstract point, not about our personal feelings for our own lost loved ones. Some of my family members were buried, some were cremated, it doesn't affect how I think of them personally. But I think when people say they want to be fertilizer or one of those anatomical skeletons, that they are trying to force themselves to accept the denigration of humanity qua humanity that is so popular these days, though it's really psychologically abusive. I'm speaking of the effect on the living, not about eternal things, which wasn't part of my original post either.ABE: To Dr. A: I personally can't wrap my head around the idea that being "useful" as fertilizer for the trees does anything to elevate either humanity or the trees, but sure, let people do as they please.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

My commentary "as though it were scripture?" Where?Please reread my posts, Omni, because I didn't impute one word of it to God or the Bible, it was all presented as my own opinion, my own feeling about the psychological effect of burial versus cremation. The only time I mentioned a Christian point of view it wasn't based on the Bible, it wasn't my own and in fact I disagreed with it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I can see an argument for cremation over burial for those who are claustrophobic and don't like the idea of being eaten by worms inside a cold damp enclosed space. I can get creeped out at the thought myself. Cremation by contrast seems nice and clean and over and done with. My only point was the psychological "feel" of "laying a body to rest" as versus incinerating it. It implies to my mind a sort of reverence that cremation doesn't. That's all. Nothing to do with the realities of worms, it's all a symbolic sort of thing.

Of course people have different impressions, but oddly enough nobody has offered any. When one presents one's own, normally the idea is to persuade others to it, such as by its intuitive appropriateness, which I would still argue. You are always free to have your own impression, but often you seem to be objecting to things I say just for the sake of objecting.Such as when you object that worms don't eat ashes as if I had made such an absurd mistake. Yes indeed I was talking about buried bodies. I reread the post and it reads that way to me, I wonder why it doesn't to you.ABE: Or that you'd impute to me the absurd idea that I was talking about an effect on a dead person rather than the psychological effect on a living person contemplating the realities of the grave. Odd indeed that you would have such a strange idea. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The reverence I most had in mind was reverence for humanity as such, and I tried to be clear that I'm not talking about the feelings of individuals in dealing with the death of their own loved ones.I'm thinking of a cultural attitude in general, and when it's possible for anyone to talk about the human body as fertilizer, even one's own body, I think that's a sign that the culture has undergone a shift in reverence for not just the dead, but human beings, period. Which makes sense if your understanding of the nature of humanity comes from evolution. If we're just bags of meat, as it were, that were accidentally evolved over millions of years, what basis is there in that philosophical point of view for any sort of reverence? Wanting to be fertilizer for trees or a marijuana patch is perfectly consistent with that point of view.It's not only Christianity that shows more reverence, though, which is why I mentioned various other cultures I thought also do so, I think it's a general change in the social attitude, the zeitgeist, from earlier times. Surely you all can see the common rejection of all views that elevate human beings over animals, and that it's due in large part to evolution that teaches that all we are is the material form that evolved, but also in conjunction I suppose with Enlightenment atheism.If you confound it with your own personal feelings about the loss of those you love then you can fail to see what I'm talking about. Reverence for people's personal loss is something else entirely. Being human we all have people we love, so we're going to have powerful feelings in relation to their death and want to see them honored. That's a completely other level from what I'm trying to focus on here, which has nothing to do with individuals or how we choose to remember our own loved ones.I do think the general attitude of the writer of the OP represents this modern point of view, which would not have been possible a couple hundred years ago.But I've said all I care to say about this. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

"Going on forever" as just a clod of dirt that is "part of a greater whole" of more dirt, is a pretty denigrated view of humanity and what's weird is that you don't seem to know it. While you're lying there being trod upon or whatever your fate may be as that clod, will you be contemplating your fate as a clod of dirt? I mean that would be more human than contemplating nothing at all.And I might as well answer the dust to dust nonsense posted above by NN, who manages not to notice that in that theological system we are spirit and body and only the body returns to dust, while in the evolutionist system we are only dust, fertilizer, whatnot, no spirit, no mind, no soul, no consciousness etc.

My focus has been on the psychological effect on the living of how we -- as a culture -- treat the dead, and it seems to me that respect for the body figures in that effect. I haven't been discussing this from a theological point of view. The only reason to note that Christian theology sees us as spirit and body is as a counter to the idea that we can be reduced entirely to material food for worms and vultures, which is the viewpoint I consider to be least respectful of humanity qua humanity. By comparison most cultures up until recently have recognized a soul or spirit, and again, I didn't even mention Christianity as part of my basic argument on this subject.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I agree but you are also misunderstanding my point. I'm not talking about individuals, which I've tried to make clear all along, but about how the culture as a whole regards death which implies an attitude to humanity as such. Not individual persons.ABE: This general view of death is what the OP brings up, the idea that cemeteries are a big waste of space and should be eliminated. I think that shows a lack of respect for what death means to humanity as such, not individuals but the culture as a whole and humanity as a whole. Their value as history has been brought up and is also important in this regard, but I've been trying to keep the focus on the general idea of what a human being is and what death means to us as human beings in general. Are we just worm food or something more than that? In general, not as individuals, since we always value those we love.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Again you are making something personal which isn't personal.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And you too are making something person which isn't personal. What Jesus said to believers about letting the dead bury their dead is a whole other level from what a culture conveys about its view of humanity in its treatment of death.

I'm sorry to say I'm having a very hard time understanding what you are saying. You have no good thing to say about "true Christians" but you like something in what I've said which you find to be other than what you'd expect of a "true Christian?" That is, my putting a high value on human beings?Well, it's a point of view I would have argued before I became a Christian, but it's only been affirmed and solidified since, and I'm not sure why you'd expect anything different.Are you taking into account that I've contrasted this high valuation of humanity with the view of humanity that I think of as deriving from the idea of evolution and infecting society at large?I'm almost afraid to find out your answer to this but I have to get some sleep so I won't find out until tomorrow. Or perhaps in a moment of insomnia in a few hours.