Burials

Hi Leroy Jenkins! I was previously a Grade 11 student in a Canadian Catholic high school (Southern Ontario area).
Hope you stick around and check out the rest of the place. There's a lot of interesting information around here. Have fun! I just thought I would mention that an afterlife isn't necessarily a non-atheist position. Just an afterlife run by a God. Therefore, an atheist is as free to use their imagination as any theistic person is to dream of an afterlife where they continue their existence in some other, non-physical-as-we-know-it bodily form. The atheist just has to dream of it without a God, is all. I've always thought that burial practices (any and all) are for the living to deal with their loss. I don't think they have any implications for the deceased. That's why burial practices are so varied across history and cultures. Because people are varied across history and cultures. I don't think there's anything "generally silly" about living people trying to deal with their loss of someone dying... in whatever way they try. People have feelings. Sometimes the feelings are difficult to deal with. I think people should be free to attempt to deal with their feelings in pretty much whatever way they think is best. As long as they aren't hurting other folks, anyway.But I understand your point. In the context of not-considering-the-feelings-of-other-people... I agree that graves (and pretty much all other burial practices) are unnecessary and can seem like a waste of time and resources. I think that we should keep cemeteries around as long as people are attached to the idea of cemeteries helping them to deal with their loss. I do understand that (at some possible point in the future) the resources required for cemeteries may become stretched. At that point, things will change. However, these sorts of things have a way of evolving on their own into alternative, acceptable, equally-consoling customs. I think we should let such things run their course. Sounds like a very fair position. Again, I hope you stick around and add to our little community. Have fun!

Yeah, it's used all over in gaming pop-culture stuff.It originated from a World of Warcraft video posted online, if you're wondering:

quote:

---

It features a group of players discussing a detailed battle strategy for the next encounter while one of their party members, Leeroy, is away from his computer. Their risky plan is needed specifically to help Leeroy, yet is ruined when Leeroy returns and, ignorant of the strategy, immediately charges headlong into battle shouting his own name in a stylized battle cry. His companions rush to help, but Leeroy's actions ruin the meticulous plan, and all of the group members are massacred.

​

Leeroy Jenkins

---

Leeroy Jenkins!!!!111

But how is that taking it lightly? Someone who taught and presumably loved anthropology wants his skeleton to go on teaching anthropology and inspiring anthropology students after his death. Someone who loves the woods and the trees wants his body to nourish and nurture them after his death. I'm signed up to be an organ donor; someone who loves humanity wants to help people after his death. These are not frivolous things, no-one's leaving their body to be used for a practical joke. How about we honor people's humanity by honoring their individuality, and their wishes, and the things they loved? You write: "Sad that you're all willing to treat yourselves as trash." But what we're looking at is people who are willing to treat their bodies as useful, rather than just disposing them in a hole in the ground ... like trash. I think this is a point of view you might at least tolerate.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Except nobody, including those Christians you allude does any such thing, do they? Buried bodies using modern 'preservation methods', rot away in short order. We don't exactly mummify people before we bury them. Isn't your own plan for your body to become worm and bacteria food? And in what way would a cremated body become dog food?

What's the difference between vulture food and worm food? And if god can put us back together no matter what, what is your argument?

I separate recycling from trash. I find it much more uplifting to be recycled than to spend eternity grovelling at the feet of some fictitious monster.

quote:

---

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

​

-- Max Ehrmann

---

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.

Thanks everyone for the input, I appreciate all the points.First things first, and this is off-topic, but I feel like I need to address the Leeroy-Leroy issue. I forgot the "e." Sorry. I'll add to my signature that I forgot the e.Anyway, another thing I wanted to quickly mention was that I'm sorry about the way I worded the OP. I've noticed that I seem to have struck a nerve with some people, and I want to make it clear that I didn't mean any disrespect to you or your deceased loved ones. I've never really experienced anything like the older members of this forum have (there I go again with the possibly offensive thing), as a fair number of people have already noted, and I'll be getting to that later. In addition, some of the phrases I used weren't exactly the most suited for the situation, with the "general silliness" thing being a an obvious one. I don't expect any of my excuses to mean anything, so I'll just admit that it was a screw-up on my part.Into the meat of the actual debate, a lot of you brought up some very good points, and I'll try to get to all of them. The first one I'll have a shot at was the one about the historical importance of graves and cemeteries. I hadn't really thought about that in my initial analysis of their use. I've considered the data that can be gained from them before, but for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me when I was writing the OP. I understand that we can learn about the lives of past generations, perhaps analyze their diets or even judge the general wealth and value of people and materials based on their headstones, coffins, etc. Having had that pointed out to me, I've revised my original idea that they should be done away with entirely (eventually, I never meant in one go), to keeping and filling the current cemeteries at the very least. That, by the way, is what I actually want now, it's not just me grudgingly agreeing to what other people want.With regards to what we should do to make future historians' lives easier, I would like to point out that we live in the Information Era. The artifacts we leave don't have to be just rocks, wood, and bone fragments. I think that a general movement towards having people actually documenting their own lives would give massive amounts of data to future researchers. If used in combination with their family members' and friends' biographies or writings about the person in question, as well as any files about that person's finances, education, etc. (basically any official data), historians and psychologists could put a picture together of our mental, educational, and economical, development. Much more data could be gained if we actually recorded it than if we just leave our successors to their own devices.As dwise pointed out, it will take time for people to adapt to anything that provides a good solution. I'm not hoping for a massive leap to new developments anymore, but if someone started such an online program to record details about yourself that could be accessed by anyone in any generation, and even just a few people participated right now, the rest would follow eventually. That is, of course, assuming that the program and plan would actually make practical sense and work.Another issue that a few people, but most notably (in my opinion) dwise, mentioned, was that of the emotional needs of the surviving family and friends. I'm young. I DON'T have much life experience, and I haven't had to go through too much death. Two grandparents, a great aunt, and her partner, are all the family members I know who have died. I can easily go to places that remind me of them that aren't cemeteries, so I've never really had to think about what it would be like if I didn't have that. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose a parent or sibling, so I apologize if I offended anyone who has. I'm getting a better picture of why people do go to cemeteries now, but I think that the thing I proposed, a database of every dead person, complete with their autobiography, pictures, and possibly other biographies of them, would be a very good thing to help people remember the dead. I understand that it wouldn't replace actually going to a place where you spent time with them, and I'm not going to pretend that it could.The issue I have, as a sixteen-year old who has spent half his life in Toronto and half in one of it's suburbs, is that I haven't gotten used to seeing wide open spaces. Procedurally taller buildings are being erected around me all the time, so when I go to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in the middle of an urban sprawl, I can't help but think of all the stuff that could be put there instead. I think of things as if the world is turning into Coruscant, when there's really tons of room. In the end, however, we will start running out of room at some point. It won't be for generations, but as has been noted, it takes us a lot of time to react to things. I ask you this: By the time the world has been urbanized, will we be developed enough to react quickly and remove anything taking up unnecessary space, or will we still be this slow? Will we even still need this planet, or will we have colonized other worlds (or killed each other off, that's another option)? I'm trying to solve this problem before it becomes a problem, and I can see why you guys don't like that. In my defense, it's been 155 years since Darwin published the Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection, and people still don't understand it. It worries me about our future ability to react to new problems and discoveries, and that's contributing to my reaction to cemeteries, which, in hindsight, is a bit over the top. So onto the cremation-pollution correlation. I've never actually heard of that before, but it seems reasonable. I'm not going to immediately concede the point to you without having seen any evidence, so I was hoping you could perhaps provide some statistics or studies about it. I'm not trying to be lazy, it's just that I could search forever and not find it, but it would still be there, so I think it's better if you maybe provide some evidence first.Overall, the opposition to me has made some excellent points. I'm hoping you could give me your opinions about the program I suggested. I'm actually going to start a Programming Club and a Robotics Club (not sure why I mentioned the second), and I'll see if anyone in the programming one would be interested in perhaps designing a program like the one I described.

Yes you are, because googling "pollution cremation" is real easy.Page not found | UVA Faculty and Lab Sitesand ever other link on the first 4 pages

I don't particularly see how you'd elevate humanity by dumping me in a hole for invertebrates to eat me. I guess I'd be in a nice box, but I don't see that it makes all that much difference.Anyway, if you do feel that that's what it'll take to "elevate humanity", please wait 'til after I'm dead. I don't like invertebrates or holes in the ground.

As far as I can recall, the Bible offers no instructions on the treatment of dead bodies (well, burial in Egypt is bad). Yet you offer your judgmental commentary as though it were scripture. I think your pride could give mine a good head-start and still lap it before the first turn. I only speak for myself; you speak for God.

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.

I would expect that a "psychological feel" is a very personal reaction, as is the idea that claustrophobia might affect a dead person or even a newly resurrected person. It should not be all that difficult to imagine that someone else would not have the same impressions.Now contrast that with the tone of your original post. What worm would attempt to gain sustenance from ashes? Isn't it buried bodies that are worm food?

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.