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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: cremation
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
The Vatican has apparently announced that cremation is okay, but that ashes must be kept in a cemetery or similar - no scattering ashes or keeping them at home.
I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this. Personally, I'm planning to have my ashes scattered. I can't see how this would be against my faith in Christ.
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
Posts: 319 | From: the other side of nowhere | Registered: Jun 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
It is silly.
Here is an article talking about it.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Good thing I'm not a Catholic. I have both my parents stashed behind the TV in my living room.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
And for those who would rather review the actual document rather than news story summaries of the document, here is a link to the English version.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Surely the RCC has allowed cremation for years - I recall reading an article many moons ago about a former Methodist Church in Ealing (IIRC), refurbished as a Polish Catholic Church, and incorporating a columbarium (wall niches) for cremated remains. No ash-scattering, obviously, but clearly no problem with the principle of cremation.
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Ashes don't scatter. At least the three sets I've handled They are more like what we would called cinders. Heavier and in larger pieces than I imagined. If put into water, they sink in a clump. If you put them somewhere other than water, they would clump up on the ground. I think the idea of burying them is sensible.
The key issues after 'scattering' ashes is the is the plastic bag they were in, and the container from the crematorium. Burning plastic is considered a bad idea, though a wooden container might be okay, they have finishes on them. We ended up returning the container and plastic to the crematory after putting ashes into water.
It turns out it is illegal here to not have a box the body is in before fired, and also illegal not to have a container for ashes. I know they call them urns, but none of these containers look anything like what I picture an urn to look like.
You're supposed to have a permit to put into water - we didn't, but the lake was in another country where rules are based on what you pay and we couldn't transport back to Canada.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
The person is dead already those left here should do whatever with the ashes that brings them comfort. My parents were cremated and ashes put in the sea. I am sure my Lord is not troubled by that. I am now looking at a new memorial park idea where you purchase a tree and there is a marker and your ashes and those of the family can be placed around, "Your," tree. Saves a forrest, and has a place for family to visit if they wish. I kind of like that idea.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
The article linked to by lilBuddha says it's been allowed since 1963.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Yes, I rather missed the point here.
Personally, I'm not too keen on the idea of keeping Mum's ashes on the mantelpiece, but surely there can be nothing wrong in scattering said ashes on the earth or on water - 'earth to earth' indeed, and 'water to water' as well, given that water is a major constituent of the human body.
Well, not after cremation, maybe...
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
My youngest has disinherited himself by saying he's going to use me as cat litter.
I wonder what that will reconstitute me as?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Useful?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Vampire cat man. You go to the top of the list.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
Surely the RCC has allowed cremation for years - I recall reading an article many moons ago about a former Methodist Church in Ealing (IIRC), refurbished as a Polish Catholic Church, and incorporating a columbarium (wall niches) for cremated remains. No ash-scattering, obviously, but clearly no problem with the principle of cremation.
IJ
When the new Los Angeles Cathedral Our Lady of the Angels was built a columbarium was included in the crypt. The cathedral was opened in 2002.
ETA: Surely if "to the earth we must return", putting ashes directly in the ground would be within bounds?
[ 26. October 2016, 22:57: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
And for those who would rather review the actual document rather than news story summaries of the document, here is a link to the English version.
Having read the actual document, I am less disdainful, but only by a hair. ISTM, that within the faith of Christianity, the idea that the body matters after death is ridiculous.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
I'm not so sure that burial in a cemetery or other sacred place "prevents any unfitting or superstitious practices." Haven't Their Eminences ever heard of Halloween?
And I'm not sure that the scattering of ashes "prevent[s] God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life."
Personally, my wish (to which my family has acquiesced) is to have my ashes scattered on the streets of a certain city where I have enjoyed many pleasurable hours. But then again, I no longer consider myself Catholic.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
And I'm not sure that the scattering of ashes "prevent[s] God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life."
Just so we are clear, the document does not suggest in any way that it would. The stated objection to scattering of ashes is not because it would prevent resurrection, but rather:
quote:
In order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided, it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects.
Now what I do not understand and what is not explained is just why scattering the ashes would give an appearance of pantheism, etc. I rather wish the document went into more explanation of that.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
And I'm not sure that the scattering of ashes "prevent[s] God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life."
Just so we are clear, the document does not suggest in any way that it would.
I didn't mean to claim that it did. My point was that surely God can reassemble a pile of ashes regardless of how widely it may have been scattered. I should have expressed myself more clearly.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
And for those who would rather review the actual document rather than news story summaries of the document, here is a link to the English version.
Having read the actual document, I am less disdainful, but only by a hair. ISTM, that within the faith of Christianity, the idea that the body matters after death is ridiculous.
That's a very Western understanding of Christianity. In the East, all matter matters, and human remains even moreso.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
Mousethief, what's the Orthodox position on cremation?
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
Posts: 319 | From: the other side of nowhere | Registered: Jun 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Maybe I should say that's a very Platonic understanding of Christianity. The spirit housed in the expendable body is Plato bordering on Plotinus; it's not Matthew Mark Luke or John.
ETA:
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
Mousethief, what's the Orthodox position on cremation?
We're dead set against it, unless it can't be avoided legally (if there are some places that do not allow burials but only cremations, which apparently there are although I can't name them).
[ 27. October 2016, 03:07: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
Ashes from cremation are like shell grit.
Some years ago, in accordance with her will, I mixed my aunt's ashes with those of her husband who had predeceased her, and poured them into the sea.
They did not clump, and there was no problem.
My own wishes for my remains after I die, in order of preference, are: a. organ donation b.use of cadaver for medical students to cut up c. cheapest possible disposal to prevent the vultures of the funeral industry using my death as an excuse to get money out of my family.
For the Christian, our current body is expendable because God regards it as so important he is going to totally renew it.
[ 27. October 2016, 03:21: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
For the Western Christian, our current body is expendable because God regards it as so important he is going to totally renew it.
Fixed that for you.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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St Deird
Shipmate
# 7631
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
Mousethief, what's the Orthodox position on cremation?
We're dead set against it, unless it can't be avoided legally (if there are some places that do not allow burials but only cremations, which apparently there are although I can't name them).
Why is that?
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They're not hobbies; they're a robust post-apocalyptic skill-set.
Posts: 319 | From: the other side of nowhere | Registered: Jun 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
It is considered a desecration of the body.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
For the Western Christian, our current body is expendable because God regards it as so important he is going to totally renew it.
Fixed that for you.
So the Eastern Church thinks that Paul was a Western Christian and/or that I Corinthians 15 is not canonical.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
At some point, though, doesn't the idea of desecration of the body run up against competing questions regarding creational and financial stewardship?
In Western Europe we are running out of space to bury people - you can't buy a perpetual concession for a grave in my city any more - and cremation is far cheaper, which is not a minor consideration for someone on a low income.
I prefer burial over cremation any day of the week, but not at any price. And at the end of the day, I think a lot of this issue is to do with what we are culturally used to rather than what is right in absolutum. Views and practices in France have changed more than I'd have thought possible in the past 25 years or so.
[ 27. October 2016, 05:43: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It is considered a desecration of the body.
OK, so here is the problem: The world that God created is based on recycling resources which modern burial does not allow. It also uses land which is need for living humans. And humans limiting their own growth, which isn't compatible with general Orthodox birth control, is a non-starter in practice. adn is only a stopgap anyway.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
There is this line from a translation of Job, incorporated (what a good word) in one of the musically beautiful Arias in 'Messiah' which for me has something to do with this debate.
quote:
And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God
The atoms which have been, are, and will be incorporated of all of our bodies have been elsewhere since they were made by fusion in the stars. They may have been incorporated in other living creatures since the dawn of time. The stuff of which we are made gets shared around.
That stuff is not wasted by cremation. The atoms go elsewhere. Starting from that point, and respectful of other Traditions, I am not sure what desecration actually means. The returning to the earth of the dust of which we are made is a part of the natural yet remarkable recycling of this remarkable dust, originally made in the stars.
I have to tell you that I am awed by that process of cycling and recycling. And the fact that a part of it leads to the assembling, maintaining and reassembling of living creatures such as ourselves. It is a part of my personal reverence for life. I am not offended by cremation in this context. But I wish to respect the beliefs and feelings of those who are.
I think we can do that best together by acknowledging the cruelty and indifference which is inflicted by us on the bodies of others while we and they are alive. That seems to me to be the real desecration.
I do believe that the resurrection of the body is more than just a metaphor but given our atomic construction I cannot see how it happens. Getting back to the Messiah, I know (in my knower) that my Redeemer liveth. Eternally. And, somehow, by unimaginably miraculous means, so shall I. What happens to the temporary assembly of atoms which constitutes this 'I' seems to me to be secondary to that. But I do not wish to add to the grief of those who feel loss. That needs to be recognised in our various ways of honouring the various rites of passage which we practise.
(Edit; clearly cross-posted with lilBuddha)
[ 27. October 2016, 08:08: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
This diocese no longer grants permission to construct columbaria because they are not a final resting place. A former colleague's family is having to retrieve ashes from a closed church elsewhere in the country.
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I do believe that the resurrection of the body is more than just a metaphor but given our atomic construction I cannot see how it happens.
It depends on whether you think resurrection of the body necessarily means resurrection of the exact same atoms that made up the body when it was alive. Of course, if you do then there's a question to be asked, namely: which exact set of atoms? For all but a few unlucky humans, the atoms that comprise our body at birth are not the same atoms that comprise it at death - I recall reading somewhere that our atoms are completely refreshed roughly every five years, and for most body parts and organs it's considerably more frequent.
The other interesting point to note is that, as well as every single atom on planet Earth having once been part of a star, every single atom in my body (and yours) has almost certainly been part of someone else's body at some point in the past. If the specific matter of the body is so important, which of us will get custody of those atoms for our resurrection bodies?
I don't see any inherent difficulty in the idea that our resurrection bodies could be made of completely new atoms and yet still be us, given that that's effectively what happens a good dozen or so times during a normal human lifespan anyway.
Also, if we consider things at the atomic level then I don't see why disposing of some of the body's atoms via cremation is any more of a desecration than disposing of some of them by throwing your toenail clippings in the bin.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
My Mum and Dads ashes were scattered at sea, the whole family went and my brothers and I scattered them. Some pieces sank, some floated away, we put tulips and roses with them - tulips were my Dad's favourite and roses Mum's. We then all hugged and went out for a meal to chat about times gone by.
I shall be scattered at the same place when my turn comes.
No ecological problems, no land required. Why our remains need to be pickled in coffins and jars, I've no idea. They no longer belong to us, they should be set free to rejoin the creation from which they were made.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
@ Marvin
We agree. I think there is some confusion between resurrection and resuscitation - even if that "resuscitation" involves some form of "gathering". Within Orthodoxy (and I stand to be corrected), the real issue is that death entered the world at the Fall and so Traditional belief is that we were not originally made to die. Redemption includes that concept of restoration of that pre-Fall state. How those beliefs continue in the light of scientific understandings of the material composition of the body, I'm not sure.
I think the issue is what does the eternal continuation of "I" mean? Given that the "I" itself changes, both in terms of body and self-realisation.
I have no real answers to these questions, but in company with Gloria Gayner, I believe "I will survive"!
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
My paternal grandparents died in the 1930's in Charleston WV. That's all we grandkids new about them. A few years ago,2012, my brother bought a condo in Charleston and took his dog for a walk in the cemetery next door. There were our grandparents headstones. Cool.
I'm all for cremation, but think it's nice to have that little plot or plaque on a wall for future generations to see. I'm also all for keeping the close loved ones from worry, so I wouldn't want someone to have to carry an urn around forever or to have to travel to another country to scatter my ashes.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
For the Western Christian, our current body is expendable because God regards it as so important he is going to totally renew it.
Fixed that for you.
So the Eastern Church thinks that Paul was a Western Christian and/or that I Corinthians 15 is not canonical.
1 Cor 15 as you interpret it, perhaps. Everybody thinks their interpretation is what the Bible really says, and everybody else is interpolating.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It is considered a desecration of the body.
OK, so here is the problem: The world that God created is based on recycling resources which modern burial does not allow. It also uses land which is need for living humans. And humans limiting their own growth, which isn't compatible with general Orthodox birth control, is a non-starter in practice. adn is only a stopgap anyway.
None of this has anything to do with the question of whether or not it's a desecration of the body.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
But why is it a desecration? Plonking the body in a big hole to be eaten by worms is hardly "dignified"!
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
My Dear Old Mother should be well on her way down to the North Sea after being cremated and scattered in a highland river last week. A river is more permanent than many grave sites, is much more pleasant to revisit, will always be there, and it doesn't waste any of God's good land. The idea of a river as something that constantly renews itself is a metaphor for resurrection that appeals to me. A dug hole is just, well... a dead place, and it stays that way.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Expense is behind cremation here. Death's big business. There is a cut rate cremation place which picks up the body, gives 10 death certificates, cremates, puts them in a wooden box for you to pick up. Depending on their body pickup travel abt $1200, including the lowest price casket made of cardboard ($125). It can be 8-10k for a traditional funeral.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by St Deird:
Mousethief, what's the Orthodox position on cremation?
We're dead set against it, unless it can't be avoided legally (if there are some places that do not allow burials but only cremations, which apparently there are although I can't name them).
As genuine questions:
Given that there are circumstances in which the body can't be buried intact in the ground (on board ship, times of war, body is biohazardous waste, the manner of death) what's the Orthodox position (as you understand it, obviously) regarding a funeral.
Also, what about post/perimortem organ donation? Is that permissable without being considered desecrating the body?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The other interesting point to note is that, as well as every single atom on planet Earth having once been part of a star, every single ++atom in my body (and yours) has almost certainly been part of someone else's body at some point in the past. If the specific matter of the body is so important, which of us will get custody of those atoms for our resurrection bodies?
I did a back of the envelope calculation in response to this point on the Ship a couple of years back.
My conclusion was that the carbon in the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere is about six hundred times the carbon mass of the entire human race.
The current biomass is about fifty times that of the entire human race.
So that suggests that the chance that any given carbon atom has been in another human's body is less than one in six hundred and fifty (and that's ignoring carbon that is elsewhere in circulation - dissolved in sea water, for example).
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I did a back of the envelope calculation in response to this point on the Ship a couple of years back.
My conclusion was that the carbon in the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere is about six hundred times the carbon mass of the entire human race.
The current biomass is about fifty times that of the entire human race.
Is that the entire currently extant human race, or the entirety of the human race since we first evolved? The latter is a considerably higher number than the former, and is also what I was talking about.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It is considered a desecration of the body.
OK, so here is the problem: The world that God created is based on recycling resources which modern burial does not allow. It also uses land which is need for living humans. And humans limiting their own growth, which isn't compatible with general Orthodox birth control, is a non-starter in practice. adn is only a stopgap anyway.
None of this has anything to do with the question of whether or not it's a desecration of the body.
Honestly? It is because I couldn't think of a polite way to say "desecration" of a body is superstition* held onto by tradition.
I really don't mean that to be insulting, it is what I think.
The harm in how one treats a body is in how the people who cared about the former person feel about that. The body id no more the person after death.
*Combined with a schema of control and/or direction.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
I was told a few years ago that cremation isn't particularly environmental. Cremated ashes aren't good for plants. Your cremains do not recirculate for the benefit of the planet. Although bone meal is widely available and recommended as a fertiliser, that is made by grinding animal bones, almost entirely as a by-product of the meat industry.
If you are cremated, all the goodies (i.e. nutrients) in your carcase have gone up the chimney. What is left is very near to being a pollutant. Cremains do not benefit the ground they are buried in or anywhere they are scattered. Also, they contain residues from the embalming fluid that is almost universally used these days. In recycling terms, being buried, though still adding the embalming fluid to the ground you are buried in, is better for the soil.
On Orthodox burial, Mousethief am I right that if you are Orthodox you are normally dug up again 5 or 7 years after burial when the flesh has rotted away, and your bones put in a box? Or is that a specifically Greek custom? Here, digging up bones or ashes is normally very forbidden. Once you are in the ground, you stay there. It is rare for anyone to be given a faculty to move buried remains.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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lilBuddha
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So that suggests that the chance that any given carbon atom has been in another human's body is less than one in six hundred and fifty (and that's ignoring carbon that is elsewhere in circulation - dissolved in sea water, for example).
Add in the calculation the other things composed of carbon. And how some of these containers of carbon process other containers of carbon.
The real point is that bits of everyone's body came from somewhere else and will go somewhere else. This is true even if you hermetically sealed the body without embalming.
The idea that the body remain as intact as possible hangs on pretty slim reasoning.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
In recycling terms, being buried, though still adding the embalming fluid to the ground you are buried in, is better for the soil.
The carcinogenic embalming fluid is not nothing. Cremation is not perfect, but there are alternatives such as "wet" cremation and composting.
The problems with these are perception, but as we expend more of our resources and land, we need to grow up and get over it.
ETA: The perceptions. Much as I disagree that Christianity mandated traditional burial, I am trying to not be rudely dismissive.
[ 27. October 2016, 16:52: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Forthview
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# 12376
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Posted
The Catholic church has always considered burial to be the most respectful way of dealing with dead bodies.
Of course there are times when this is not possible.
In traditionally Catholic countries cremation was chosen by those who doubted the resurrection of the body in the way that the Church teaches.It is still the case that those who choose this method of disposal of the body for this reason are denied a Catholic funeral. Those who choose cremation for other reasons may have a Catholic funeral.
The denial of a Catholic funeral to unbelievers is not unreasonable ( I think)
The Church is also a community and this is why the Church would much prefer that remains are kept in a place of communal prayer such as a cemetery and not 'stashed behind the mantelpiece.'
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lilBuddha
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
The Church is also a community and this is why the Church would much prefer that remains are kept in a place of communal prayer such as a cemetery and not 'stashed behind the mantelpiece.'
The community that matters is that which is above ground and still breathing. If the dead don't live in them, it doesn't natter where they are. And if they do live on in the memories of the living, the location of their dissipating components do not matter either.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Forthview
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Posted
Of course you are right about the importance of the community which is living and breathing above ground.
For the Catholic church the community of the faithful extends beyond those who are living and breathing above ground. Respect for the dead and prayers for the dead are an integral part of Catholic worship.
A traditional way of considering the Church is to
divide into :
The Church militant : those living and breathing above ground.
The Church suffering : those who have passed beyond this earthly life and preparing to enter the heavenly kingdom
The Church triumphant : those who have come through earthly life and have reached the goal of Heaven
All of these are part of the community of the faithful - both those who are still imperfect and those who have reached the place of perfection.
I am happy to admit that 'stashing the ashes of the dead behind the mantelpiece' is not necessarily and deliberately disrespectful. The Church, however, wishes to have the remains of those who have claimed to be members of the community in a place where they can be more easily recognised as members of the community.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
My conclusion was that the carbon in the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere is about six hundred times the carbon mass of the entire human race.
Is that the entire currently extant human race, or the entirety of the human race since we first evolved? The latter is a considerably higher number than the former, and is also what I was talking about.
Since we evolved. (Wikipedia estimates that due to the exponential population growth in the last couple of centuries about one in twenty human beings are alive at the moment.)
The calculation doesn't include food consumed for calories, but I've assumed that doesn't count as being part of us.
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