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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Against Cremation
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did... ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Why do you call that death-phobic? The people I've heard it from, it's more extremely realistic: "I'll be dead, I won't be around to care, the body is a husk." (Realistic in at least one way -- in another way IMHO it's unrealistic about most people's need for funeral rites as survivors. But not death-phobic or -avoiding. I do agree with the "I don't want you wasting lots of money on unnecessary trappings" sentiment usually involved; I just disagree that actually being able to gather and mourn, and caring about the body even if the soul is gone, are unneccesary.)
~ ~ ~
I don't have a problem with cremation. I do find it interesting the rites around funerals and what's done with the body, etc. Cremations IMHO create a different set of places/ways to meet certain needs. For example a coffin present at a funeral (ah, celebration of the life of N ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ) is a different thing than a casket of ashes stuck in a corner, or nothing present at all.
FWIW, the most moving to me is coffin in the church (carried in for real, not rolled in), and graveside including lowering of the coffin into the grave.
But there are all sorts of logistical variations, which haven't got a lot with burial vs. cremation, and more to do with what to do with what's at hand. So it's not like you can say "burial is necessary for the proper rites to happen."
For example in Maine when the ground is frozen burials are held until spring. So there might be one service when someone dies, and a commital come spring. That's a real different pattern than for people who die in spring, boom, service and burial. And then there are people for whom the big memorial service with lots of people is organized for well after they've died for no apparent reason (well, there must be some reason, maybe simply logistics of getting everyone together or the family being up for it, but I haven't been close enough to any of these to be able to tell).
My church has a memorial garden, so cremated ashes are buried directly after the church service: we all troop outside for it. So everyone becomes part of that. In that sense, cremation coincidentally makes more immediate connections possible at my church.
People being buried, it's not so immediate because it will be a drive to the cemetery, and there's some variance in Maine anyway about who (on the scale of immediate family / close friends / everyone) goes to the graveside for coffin burials. So who gets access to the effects of a graveside service varies for all sorts of random reasons.
~ ~ ~
I would want there to be some sort of something at the crematorium, if someone in my family were to be cremated. I would find it wierd to just arrange for them to be taken away and then several days later I get the ashes; somehow it makes more sense to be able to go and wait the couple of hours (or whatever it takes) and then get the ashes right away. Wierd I suppose as that might seem to others. I wouldn't expect that to be the main service, or lots of people to be there though. It might even just be me, if noone in my family wanted to come. I don't know if people arrange ministers for these in Maine; I suppose if the minister felt they couldn't (but wouldn't they say "yes" if I asked them to come?) I would refer to my Quaker sojourn and say prayers myself. Though I guess the purpose of the minister for something like that is in some ways more support than specific sacramental efficacy.
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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jlg
What is this place?
Why am I here?
# 98
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And as for two coffins in one cremator - NEVER.
The crmatorium worker calls each coffin a 'charge' and it is cared for with the highest care and dignity from the moment it leaves the service to the moment the funeral director or family collects the urn a few days later.
You may hope. Scroll down to FACTUAL BACKGROUND, para. 17 to find this little nugget:
quote:
It was at all times represented to Doris Mae Tierney and her family that she would be cremated in a respectful and ethical manner in accordance with state laws. In fact, her body was not cremated and, as recent news events have detailed, numerous unburied bodies have been found at the site of the Tri-State Crematory in Northwest Georgia. The Governor of Georgia has declared Walker County a disaster area and has accused the crematory operator of "depravity."
I quoted this because a legal document seems a pretty reliable source. Anyone wanting more complete gruesome details can google for news articles.
Posts: 17391 | From: Just a Town, New Hampshire, USA | Registered: May 2001
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
[cross-posted with everybody since Psyduck posted the post that I quoted.]
[ETA: and this one was cross-posted with jlg.]
[ 21. August 2006, 23:39: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Manx Taffy
Shipmate
# 301
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Posted
I don't think the Catholic Church permitted cremation lightly, as it was changed at the Vatican II Council.
The arguments for change were not principly theological because the tradition of burial did not arise from primarily theoligical reasons. The main reason seems to have been that Roman authorities burnt Christian Martyrs in a direct attempt to show the impossibility of the bodily resurrection.
I believe that the official RC position is that;
The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the dead is observed, it does not however forbid cremation unless it has been chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian belief.
So burial is recommended but reasons for cremation may be local custom, economic or health reasons (including wishing to transport the remains over long distances), real fear of burial. It was recognised that cremation is not normally now an anti-Christian statement.
The choice of cremation for a Catholic should for a positive reason and preferably made prior to death by the person themselves. Whether or not there is cremation the main rites including cremation should be made with the corpse present, though I believe this has been relaxed in America.
Personally I might fit into the (irrational) fear of burial category but hopefully I've got a few years to consider it!
Posts: 397 | From: Isle of Man | Registered: May 2001
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Presleyterian
Shipmate
# 1915
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Posted
quote:
Scot wrote: My wife says that, when I die, she's going to set my body atop the boat, dowse us with gasoline, and toss in a match.
What makes you so confident she intends to wait until then?
Posts: 2450 | From: US | Registered: Dec 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Scot: quote:
quote:
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Originally posted by Psyduck:
And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...
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How does not having a preference equate to being "death-phobic"?
Well, when you don't have a preference because you're death-phobic, obviously. In other words, "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" is not the same as "I have no preference as to whether I'm buried or cremated."
In fact, "I won't be there" in relation to one's own death, is a fascinatingly evasive statement. If you don't believe that life is anything but a physical process, then you will indeed be there - but you'll be dead. So "I won't be there" is denial in a literal, not just a psychological, sense. If you do believe that life is a phenomenon that transcends corporeal existence, then it's likely that you hold that belief in a religious framework. And as Father G points out, religious framworks have always, until very recently, prescribed precisely what should happen to a dead body. To hold a religious framework is to want what that framework demands to happen to your body after death.
On the other hand, if you adhere to a religious framework which allows you a choice, as has become possible with modernity, then abdication of choice is also an abdication of the responsibility of using the freedom that that tradition entrusts you with regarding the treatment of your body after death. And that implies, surely, that it's something you don't want to look at or think about. Which to my mind pretty much fits the bill for "death-phobic".
Of course you might hold a non-religious belief in a trans-corporeal existence after death. I can't think of a purely scientific position that would allow you to hold such a viewpoint. therefore it would have to be a philosophical viewpoint (like, say, Tennant's, who believed if I remember correctly, that the mind, after death, with no more sensory inputs from the body, sort of closes in on itself in a solipsistic dream state.) But if you were a philosopher with no view as to what should happen to your body after death, you'd be a bit short on the usual philosopher's quota of opinions! Think of Jeremy Bentham. I suppose if you were a philosopher, you might possibly want to argue why one shouldn't be concerned about what happens to your body after you die. Anyone else - at least a measure of death-phobia. Which is understandable.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Presleyterian:
What makes you so confident she intends to wait until then?
Only the fact that I'm a light sleeper.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
RuthW: quote:
No reason why you couldn't get it from a columbarium.
I suppose there may be one or two columbaria fourteen hundred years old -
Where I live, nothing is 1400 years old. So this isn't exactly a consideration for me.
quote:
But columbaria can't give you that sense of temporary (just a few million millennia!) union with the earth that a churchyard can and does symbolize. It's the dry-land equivalent of the anticipation of that dread day when the sea shall give up its dead.
I guess not. Why this is important I don't see. Do you reject mausoleums for the same reason?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
Psyduck, you seem to be awfully sure of other people's unstated motivations. You seem to think that preference, or lack of preference, that doesn't fit your expectations must somehow point to a fear.
At lunch today I had choice between the sandwich shop and the taco joint. I really didn't care what I had for lunch, so I let my co-worker choose. Am I lunch-phobic?
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
...And by the way, what's all this death-phobic "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" crap, people? I want to be buried. Properly. By somebody who knows what they're doing, like I did...
I'm not "death-phobic" -- I'm not eager to march off just yet, but I have a strong faith in God's grace and mercy. I just meant that once I leave this clay behind, whether it's allowed to burn or rot won't matter much to me.
Personally, I'd rather my family not waste a lot of money on a plot and a fancy box. I'd like them to spend some of it on good music and a good party afterward, instead, and treat themselves to something nice with whatever's left over.
Ross
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I'm not dead yet.
Posts: 15117 | From: Valhalla | Registered: Feb 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
quote:
Originally posted by chemincreux:
One method of cremation Christians haven't tried (so ar as I know) is the open fire, Hindu style. Pity. I think this rite has wonderful symbolism.
I like Viking variant wherein the departed is placed in his ship and set ablaze.
I have a sailboat in my driveway, blocking the garage. Life has been busy and the boat hasn't seen water in a number of years, but I have stubbornly refused to put it up for sale. My wife says that, when I die, she's going to set my body atop the boat, dowse us with gasoline, and toss in a match.
Yeah, well, the Vikings generally put the boat to sea. I think it will be a mite unimpressive in the driveway. Or do you think she'll relent and tow your dead butt out to Lake Perris? ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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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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KenWritez
Shipmate
# 3238
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Posted
Are you sure you wouldn't rather die on a Greyhound bus and just travel eternally?
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"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd." --Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction
My blog: http://oxygenofgrace.blogspot.com
Posts: 11102 | From: Left coast of Wonderland, by the rabbit hole | Registered: Aug 2002
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
I experienced something close to that once. I was lost in the NYC subway system and it took me nearly 5 hours to find my way out. So, no... my spirit yearns for the open skies.
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--Formerly: Gort--
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
I'm not going to be there to see what happens to the remains of me, but I am certainly not death-phobic. Been close too many times to count. My funeral's prepaid and I'm going to burn, baby, burn. I have also left suggestions about what to do with my ashes, and I hope they'll be followed, but, again, I'm not likely to care am I?
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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the Pookah
Shipmate
# 9186
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Posted
Hey Father Gregory, I know you were joking - of course you are really almost a Muslim a revert!
The insistance on the burial of the body for the Resurrection as you pointed out - Christianity & Islam stems from Judaism.
In fact under Orthodox Jewish Law if you have any body bits removed (as in amputations -ugh) They must be buried with you. Don't ask I had a relative....
Anyway, let me point out that in China where cremation came to be the norm, there are family cemetaries, the ashes are buried in the family plot with marker & you visit. Funerals are big business in China & Japan.
I actually adore cemetaries in a whole Momento Mori sort of way. Death , Decay, Ruins.
the Pookah
Posts: 926 | From: the Northern colonies | Registered: Mar 2005
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand. My uncle was cremated, he had a funeral and wake beforehand... the only difference was that after the funeral, instead of going to the cemetary, the body went to the crematorium. The funerals weren't held in the crematorium, they were held in the funeral home (in the case of my father) or the church (in the case of my uncle).
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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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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
Nicolemrw, are you meaning funeral specifically to mean a service with a coffin (and body inside) present? But not necessarily the graveside service?
I don't have a good grasp on which technical term should be used with which type of service.
And where are you seeing people talking as if cremation precludes funeral? (I confess, my post may be a case in point! I'm confused over the words at the moment.)
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
You might want to look at the outside of the cremtorium here in the city of Newcastle:
web page
Some crematoria I have conducted services in have been nicer than some churches!
They are usually consecrated by the clergy when they are opened as well - and the presence of daily prayer and worship must also go a long way in sanctifying these buildings.
Better these than those awful funeral homes you have in the US. (Six Feet Under).
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Scot: quote:
Psyduck, you seem to be awfully sure of other people's unstated motivations. You seem to think that preference, or lack of preference, that doesn't fit your expectations must somehow point to a fear.
Hmmm. Two almost throwaway words, hyphenated, at the very end of a longish post... I'm not disavowing them, and I think this is an interesting question. I'm fascinated by your reaction - that's to say, the posts that this interaction have generated as texts.
Just for clarification, what I'm saying is that when professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views say "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" it seems to me that there is an aspect of dying that they find it difficult to look at. What fascinates me is that it's the social aspect of dying - precisely the point at which our lives, at their ends, intersect with the lives of the people who knew us, and who will be marking what we meant to them. It's more than just a statement that we know that there are lots of irreconcilable beliefs about in our society on this matter. And it's precisely an abdication of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die. (It's illuminating that a decision to offer your body for medical research is, to my mind, a clear exception to this phenomenon - and one very rarely taken.) It seems to me to be to do with a social inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings. In just the same way that people repress their dislike for the anonymity of crematoria, and tell the undertaker to just tick the "scatter" box re. disposal of ashes - but when one person puts up a wind-chime at the crematorium garden, tens of others, from years back, immediately follow suit, as though someone has given them the chance of saying "Actually, I don't buy into this crap that the basic issue is one of waste-disposal".
But in a sense - and I don't mean this at all personally - your very strong response to two words, and (I thought) a quite reasonable follow-up post, makes an important point in itself, eh no?
quote:
At lunch today I had choice between the sandwich shop and the taco joint. I really didn't care what I had for lunch, so I let my co-worker choose. Am I lunch-phobic?
I don't know. Did you tell your worker that it wouldn't matter what he chose because you wouldn't be there?
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jlg:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
And as for two coffins in one cremator - NEVER.
The crmatorium worker calls each coffin a 'charge' and it is cared for with the highest care and dignity from the moment it leaves the service to the moment the funeral director or family collects the urn a few days later.
You may hope. Scroll down to FACTUAL BACKGROUND, para. 17 to find this little nugget:
quote:
It was at all times represented to Doris Mae Tierney and her family that she would be cremated in a respectful and ethical manner in accordance with state laws. In fact, her body was not cremated and, as recent news events have detailed, numerous unburied bodies have been found at the site of the Tri-State Crematory in Northwest Georgia. The Governor of Georgia has declared Walker County a disaster area and has accused the crematory operator of "depravity."
I quoted this because a legal document seems a pretty reliable source. Anyone wanting more complete gruesome details can google for news articles.
But that is an example of malpractice, not policy!
I am sure that there are those who could tell some equally hair-raising stories about interments too! That doesn't render burial a dreadful thing.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
You might want to look at the outside of the cremtorium here in the city of Newcastle:
web page
Some crematoria I have conducted services in have been nicer than some churches!
They are usually consecrated by the clergy when they are opened as well - and the presence of daily prayer and worship must also go a long way in sanctifying these buildings.
Better these than those awful funeral homes you have in the US. (Six Feet Under).
Hmmm, try this:
Newcastle Crematorium
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand.
For me, there is a difference between the visible finality of lowering the coffin into a tomb, and what you see in a cremation (in the case of our local crematorium, a 'now-you-see-it-now-you-dont' arrangement whereby curtains close, you hear various mechanical clanking sounds, the curtains open, and bingo! the coffin has disappeared.
I realise the entombment is not really permanent, but at least you see the coffin all the way to what looks like a resting place. I've yet to have a family member cremated, but I can see a niggle in my mind as to what actually happened to the coffin in the cremation I've described, which just 'disappeared'. Psychological rather than theological concerns.
Also, with a burial, once you're done, you're done, and people can relax. With a cremation, there's an awkward hanging around for a couple of hours to get the ashes, when people don't feel they have finished the process and find it difficult to unwind. Again, maybe a question of habit, and I'm sure this sort of thing will change over time, but that's my take.
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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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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Why are people talking as if having a cremation somehow precludes having a funeral? My father was cremated, he certainly had a funeral and open coffin viewing beforehand.
For me, there is a difference between the visible finality of lowering the coffin into a tomb, and what you see in a cremation (in the case of our local crematorium, a 'now-you-see-it-now-you-dont' arrangement whereby curtains close, you hear various mechanical clanking sounds, the curtains open, and bingo! the coffin has disappeared.
I realise the entombment is not really permanent, but at least you see the coffin all the way to what looks like a resting place. I've yet to have a family member cremated, but I can see a niggle in my mind as to what actually happened to the coffin in the cremation I've described, which just 'disappeared'. Psychological rather than theological concerns.
Also, with a burial, once you're done, you're done, and people can relax. With a cremation, there's an awkward hanging around for a couple of hours to get the ashes, when people don't feel they have finished the process and find it difficult to unwind. Again, maybe a question of habit, and I'm sure this sort of thing will change over time, but that's my take.
Eutychus, if I may, I would like to reassure you.
You say you have never had a family member cremated, but have you actually been to a cremation?
For a start, after the curtains close, that's it. The coffin stays where it is, out of sight, until the service is over and the mourners have left the chapel. It never gets winched down or slid through a door until then. And the curtains never open again to reveal an empty bier.
And as for waiting around for a couple of hours. Never happens. Sometimes the body isn't put into the cremator immediately, then it certainly takes a while. It is usual for a couple of days to pass before the processes are complete.
It's not, thankfully, as you suggest.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Ferijen
Shipmate
# 4719
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Posted
Ashes usually get delivered/collected sometime later here, perhaps that day, perhaps a few days later.
As a Vicarage child, we frequently had someone in my Dad's study overnight. And sometimes, joy of joys, the box was still warm on delivery...
Posts: 3259 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2003
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ferijen:
Ashes usually get delivered/collected sometime later here, perhaps that day, perhaps a few days later.
As a Vicarage child, we frequently had someone in my Dad's study overnight. And sometimes, joy of joys, the box was still warm on delivery...
*Shudder*
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Ferijen
Shipmate
# 4719
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Ferijen:
Ashes usually get delivered/collected sometime later here, perhaps that day, perhaps a few days later.
As a Vicarage child, we frequently had someone in my Dad's study overnight. And sometimes, joy of joys, the box was still warm on delivery...
*Shudder*
Hey, there was a reason I chose cremation for my undergraduate dissertation topic ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 3259 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It's not, thankfully, as you suggest.
I may not have had any family members cremated, but I have lost count of how many cremations I have *taken* and I can assure you that here, they take place exactly as I have described.
Even if things don't happen quite that way where you are, your post does not address the issues I raise of the incompleteness of the funeral process or the lack of visual continuity in what happens to the body.
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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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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
When my father died, about 8 years ago, we had a funeral in the village church (with the coffin) and then a short service in the crematorium (this is how most crematorium services that I have been to have worked, although some just have the service in the crematorium chapel).
The ashes were interred at the crem - mum went to see them once, because she felt she ought to. But I never bothered, I don't think my brothers have and mum's never gone back because after all, it's not dad there. Dad is in memories.
Not everyone needs a place to mourn.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Zealot en vacance
Shipmate
# 9795
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Posted
Regarding the necessity of burying the complete body, is this not a tradition acquired by Mosaicism from ancient Egypt? From there come the most succesfully preserved corpses, extant long after the bodies of most who died since, (whatever means of bodily disposal was employed) have completely disintegrated, and been lost to all human recollection. Either God can resurrect, or he cannot. Since He brought us into being from nothing once, there is no reason that He cannot do so again: whether or no there is any physical evidence of our bodily existence recognisably remaining.
Or were the ancient rulers of Egypt correct, and their elaborate process the 'golden ticket'?
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He said, "Love one another".
Posts: 2014 | From: Surface of planet Earth | Registered: Jul 2005
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
Posted by Ferijen: quote:
Hey, there was a reason I chose cremation for my undergraduate dissertation topic.
That's interesting. So did I.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Something I've just remembered, about UK cremations (there certainly seems to be a difference of practice in different countries) is that anyone with a pace-maker etc has to have it removed so that there is no explosion.
Before the service which culminates in the cremation, we always have the body, in an open cofin, in our house so that people can come and say good-bye. It also feels like respect and love and care for the person who has just died.
And when Mr d's body arrived at our house, the two people who welcomed him were myself and my loving Muslim woman neighbour - she wasn't allowed to come to the funeral as apparently in her tradition, women have to stay away and the men go, like it was when I grew up in Scotland.
Viola and mudfrog, the three of us have advertised beautiful, appropriate, crematoriums!
Anyone got any pics of USA ones?
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
The norm for Christians round here (C of E, not too far from FG, little burial space) is public funeral in church (with coffin), private ceremony at crematorium, ashes often scattered or buried in large (and full) church graveyard, small memorial stone.
I quite like it - it seems to combine most of the good points from both sides. Personally, I'd probably prefer ultrasonic decomposition to cremation - it's tidier and more environnmentally friendly.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
The rules about pacemakers are actually for a very very good reason. Pacemakers tend to have internal very long lasting power supplies, which are usually provided by having some radioactive material inside. They make sure it's properly shielded, and a lot safer than not having the pacemaker in, etc.
If the body is cremated with pacemaker, the radioactive stuff is then released into the atmosphere or the soil or wherever, which is a Bad Thing. It needs to be properly disposed of at a site that can cope with such things.
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blog
Adam's likeness, Lord, efface;
Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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sharkshooter
Not your average shark
# 1589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
-- when my grandmother died, the funeral home tried to sell us a 15,000 coffin with a 5,000 grave liner. My father asked if the coffin was wired for internet and phone service. She would never have wanted us to spend 20,000 on such a set-up. ...
Perhaps you could have just rented it for a couple days.
I think it is abusive to sell such expensive coffins. Do you know if Costco still sells coffins?
Costco begins test marketing caskets from $800
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Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. [Psalm 19:14]
Posts: 7772 | From: Canada; Washington DC; Phoenix; it's complicated | Registered: Oct 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
Just for clarification, what I'm saying is that when professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views say "I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me" it seems to me that there is an aspect of dying that they find it difficult to look at. What fascinates me is that it's the social aspect of dying - precisely the point at which our lives, at their ends, intersect with the lives of the people who knew us, and who will be marking what we meant to them. It's more than just a statement that we know that there are lots of irreconcilable beliefs about in our society on this matter. And it's precisely an abdication of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die. (It's illuminating that a decision to offer your body for medical research is, to my mind, a clear exception to this phenomenon - and one very rarely taken.) It seems to me to be to do with a social inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings.
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.
Psyduck hears: "I abdicate of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die because I have an inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings.
What if the person really means this?: I won't personally experience whatever happens to my body, so I'm not really concerned by it. It may, however, matter deeply to my loved ones, so they may do whatever they wish."
That's just one alternative interpretation. There may be many others. I don't see any reason to insist on the rather condescending interpretation that you have proposed, even if we are only talking about "professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views."
I've known a number of people who, while indifferent about what is done with their body, have expressed specific and sometimes elaborate opinions about what sort of memorial service they'd like. It doesn't seem to me that they are at all unable to cope with the social aspects of death.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Isaac David
Accidental Awkwardox
# 4671
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Posted
According to Orthodoxy, a person is a unity of body and soul. When a person dies, this unity is interrupted but not permanently effaced. Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person. Cremation, on the other hand, seems to treat the body as if it were merely an appendage of the soul, to be destroyed as worthless (assuming you believe in the soul, of course). This body/soul dualism which lies at the heart of cremation may not be the chief objection from the Orthodox POV™, but it does strike me as important.
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Isaac the Idiot
Forget philosophy. Read Borges.
Posts: 1280 | From: Middle Exile | Registered: Jun 2003
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
We've already established that burial is merely a symbolic respect for the concept of the resurrection. Theologically everyone admits that cremation of even vaporization is no impediment to bodily resurrection.
Tradition merely for the sake of tradition is a fine thing, and that is why I want to be buried. But a symbol has power only as long as it has meaning for people. A cross is only two crossed sticks without people to associate with Jesus Christ or crucifixion or what have you. Likewise with burials, many atheists have the bodies of their loved ones buried without the least expectation that their loved ones will rise from those graves on the last day to greet the Savior. Many Christians have their loved ones cremated and have faith that they will indeed greet them again on the Last Day.
In the early days of the Church cremation was the norm among most people. The Church allowed only burials because new Christians needed to understand the nature of the resurrection. But, here we are 2000 years later and in 2000 years the needs of the people have changed. Christians today have grown up in the Church and have 2000 years of Christian history to give them faith in the bodily resurrection. Christians simply don't need an earth burial to believe in the resurrection. What's more, the needs of the people have changed and those needs often necessitate cremation.
Therefore cremation is morally permissible in the Church, does not impinge on our faith in the resurrection, and should be viewed as a perfectly respectful manner in which to give the body rest until the Last Day.
Zach
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.
What that sounds like to me is somebody who has really looked at and internalized what death does to your ability to make choices about the matter.
[ 22. August 2006, 14:57: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Isaac David:
According to Orthodoxy, a person is a unity of body and soul. When a person dies, this unity is interrupted but not permanently effaced.
I accept all of that.
quote:
Burial, preceded where possible by lying in the open casket, shows respect for the body and for the person. Cremation, on the other hand, seems to treat the body as if it were merely an appendage of the soul, to be destroyed as worthless (assuming you believe in the soul, of course).
The destruction happens anyway, whichever method is used. Cremation is just a lot quicker than decomposing, being consumed by worms, and/or having what little is left bashed to bits 1000 years later by the plough of some farmer who doesn't even know there are graves under his field.
From that I conclude that it's not our current bodies that we are resurrected in. Or if it is, God can put them back together no matter what state they're in by then (so cremation is no greater a bar to bodily resurrection than burial anyway). If not it's going to be one ugly afterlife ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) .
I accept that some may feel cremation is symbolically ressurrection-denying, but it can logically never be more than that, and as I said before the purely symbolic should be a matter of conscience and not required of everyone.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
I really do want to be cremated. It creeps me out to imagine being left in one place, immovable, in a little box, forever.
I want the winds to scatter me, or else I want to become part of the earth itself, and to be part of the lifecycle. The world is forever changing - seasons, weather, tides - and I want to become an ordinary part of it.
BTW, people are often cremated before the funeral service, and then the ashes are interred at the Committal right afterwards. This is the way it's been at the last two funerals I've gone to, and the family does take part in casting earth and the "committal of his/her body to the ground." I can't really see why this is any different than doing the same thing with a casket; if anything, it makes you think more about death, since the loved one's body is not at all what you're familiar with anymore. Ashes to ashes.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.
Psyduck hears: "I abdicate of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die because I have an inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings."
Actually, I have quite a strong preference for cremation. I don't like the idea of being left around rotting. I don't like the idea of people seeing a graveside and thinking "That's where he is" - because I won't be.
I wonder what that says about me? A self-destructive urge to do violence to myself after death? Sublimated inability to cope with my own corpse? A denial of the resurrection?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Actually, I have quite a strong preference for cremation. I don't like the idea of being left around rotting. I don't like the idea of people seeing a graveside and thinking "That's where he is" - because I won't be.
I wonder what that says about me? A self-destructive urge to do violence to myself after death? Sublimated inability to cope with my own corpse? A denial of the resurrection?
I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Scot: quote:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.
Interesting and significant rewording. What I actually said was: quote:
"I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with me"
I was being quite specific; that's the way I've heard it said.
quote:
Psyduck hears:
I quite understand why you put it like that. If you'd said "Psyduck interprets..." you would have had to deal with my interpretation. quote:
"I abdicate of the right to say what I want to happen to my body after I die because I have an inability to cope with death, and an individual lack of confidence in socially generated meanings.
quote:
What if the person really means this?: I won't personally experience whatever happens to my body,
We've already established that you can only get this meaning if you change the wording. quote:
so I'm not really concerned by it. It may, however, matter deeply to my loved ones, so they may do whatever they wish."
quote:
That's just one alternative interpretation. There may be many others. I don't see any reason to insist on the rather condescending interpretation that you have proposed, even if we are only talking about "professing atheists, professing theists, professing new-age persons and others with maybe less definite views."
Who's being "condescending?" Where's this "only" from? I'm a professing theist myself.
quote:
I've known a number of people who, while indifferent about what is done with their body, have expressed specific and sometimes elaborate opinions about what sort of memorial service they'd like. It doesn't seem to me that they are at all unable to cope with the social aspects of death.
Again, this only makes sense with that weasly litte interpolation of the word "body" into what I actually said.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.
My place or yours?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Person: I won't be there, so I don't care what they do with my body.
What that sounds like to me is somebody who has really looked at and internalized what death does to your ability to make choices about the matter.
I really couldn't give two hoots about what happens to my body, but I would like those dealing with it to have something happen that won't add to their distress unnecessarily. It's not just the deceased's personal comfort that's at issue here, it's what it's like for the mourners - the ceremony is primarily for their benefit.
[ 22. August 2006, 17:31: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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TubaMirum
Shipmate
# 8282
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by TubaMirum:
I'm sure it means you're a repressed bisexual.
My place or yours?
Sure. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Eutychus
Just for the record ... I am "happy" to relate that I am not in agreement with one word of your last post. It's entire intent and underlying assumption constitutes I fear a completely different Christianity from mine. My Christianity:-
(1) Cares deeply about the body and the physical - whether I do or not.
(2) Accepts that death is both distressing and necessary to contemplate. Funerals are indeed a time for grief, quite overt grief actually.
(3) The funeral isn't of course about the deceased's "comfort." He / she is dead. But neither is it simply and only therapy for the mourners.
For the first read "Incarnation."
For the second read "The Passion."
For the third read "Resurrection."
[ 22. August 2006, 18:03: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
I'm always amazed how comforting it is to the families I prepare funerals with if there's something - anything - that they know is what the deceased wanted. Even just a hymn. And how at a loss they feel if they have no clue as to what the deceased wanted - in other words, if they have to guess, and "might have got it wrong." I think this probably goes for secular funerals as well. I think that a large part of the consolation that people have from the funeral of a loved one is the knowledge that "it's what s/he would have wanted..."
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Not caring what happens to one's corpse=not caring about the physical? That seems a fairly large leap.
And I don't see where Eutychus says anything to minimise the grief or need for contemplation.
And as for saying his Christianity is quite different on the basis of his attitude to funeral rites ... breathtaking.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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