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Originally posted by Steve H:
Bodies get recycled. All the atoms and molecules in my body have previously been part of many other people's bodies. Therefore, whatever gets resurrected, if anything, isn't the body that died, because there aren't enough atoms and molecules to go round.

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Originally posted by Balaam:
Doesn't the Bible say we get spiritual bodies? So why are we so worried about the atoms of these earthly ones?

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Originally posted by Balaam:
Love it that you appeared on cue, hatless

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Originally posted by otyetsfoma:
As well as the "ilkly moor" problem about literal resurrection is the problem that in this lifetime my body constantly renews itself so that every so often (I have heard those that know these things say every seven years) my body has completely changed every atom. I am no scientist, but if that is true it makes it easier for me to accept the resurrection of the body, because there has been some contnuity of self, even as the atoms change.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Putting the body to rest in a grave is a powerful sign of one's faith in the resurrection, a direct emulation of what happened to our Lord. Cremating the body is a much less clear sign, to say the least. The RCC did finally allow cremation in the last century, but reluctantly so. She was accommodating those who had great difficulties of the financial and practical kind to make that sign, difficulties that have become much more pressing for people living in ever growing cities.

That God is capable of restoring a body even if it was dispersed all the way to its nuclear constituents nobody doubts. That also sometimes in the past a proper burial could not be given is obvious. But it does not follow that this sign is meaningless, and it is sad to see it dismissed so readily.

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Originally posted by Martin PC....
How very Thomist

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Originally posted by Freddy:

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Originally posted by Balaam:
Doesn't the Bible say we get spiritual bodies? So why are we so worried about the atoms of these earthly ones?

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Yeah.

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Originally posted by hatless:
It's not the problem of finding the atoms that bothers me about cremation, it's the ghastly aesthetics of the industrial process (Siemens initially, I believe) coupled with the weird curtain thing. I much prefer grass, mud and weather.

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Originally posted by Steve H:

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Originally posted by hatless:
It's not the problem of finding the atoms that bothers me about cremation, it's the ghastly aesthetics of the industrial process (Siemens initially, I believe) coupled with the weird curtain thing. I much prefer grass, mud and weather.

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When I pop my clogs, they can chuck me on the compost heap or flog me to McDonald's to make burgers with, for all I care.

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
There are also environmental considerations, something I'm not very knowledgeable about. It's generally illegal to be buried "naturally;" is it better for the environment to be cremated or to be treated with all those embalming chemicals and laid in the ground encased in concrete (which, of course, isn't an impermeable barrier)?

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Originally posted by Avila:

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
There are also environmental considerations, something I'm not very knowledgeable about. It's generally illegal to be buried "naturally;" is it better for the environment to be cremated or to be treated with all those embalming chemicals and laid in the ground encased in concrete (which, of course, isn't an impermeable barrier)?

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In the UK it is illegal to dispose of a body unofficially (ie without the paperwork) - though I was surprised to find that you can apply to bury someone on your own land, though it has to be declared on the deeds ever after and certain to bring down the property value!

Here embalming is not common - it is an extra expense, though it is used if bodies need to be repatriated or otherwise delayed in burial/cremation. I don't recognise the surrounded in concrete reference - here is it usually a standing stone at the head, although older tombs of the high and mighty were stone boxes.Natural or woodland burial sites are becoming more common where there are no grave stones or markers, but they still go in in a coffin whether wood, wicker, or even cardboard!

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Originally posted by churchgeek:
It's generally illegal to be buried "naturally;"

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Really? Where?

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As for land use, I hate the idea, personally, of taking up all that space when I'm gone...

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Other way round. Cemneteries are one of the grenest thigns we do. Havens for wildlife, sometimes in the hearts of cities. As they tend to be more opvergrown and less manicured and weedkilled than public parks they usually have a much greter dicversity of green planbts, which in tuen leads to greater diversity of animals, especially invertebrates, which attract different birds and mammals - old cemetreries are one of the most biodiverse environments we have. Slightly ahead of railway cuttings and neglected suburban gardens - all of which beat farmland hollow.

The recent abandoning of burial in favour of cremation is nothing to do with environmentlaconsiderations. Its partly cost - creamation is much cheaper - and partly that our non-Christian secular majority are re-accquiring the pre-Christian fear of living among dead bodies.

In the ancient Roman world you had to bury or burn your dead outside the town because you didn't want to release all those vengeful spirits anywhere near the houses of the living. Christianity inverted the geography of the city, building churches on the graves of dead Christians, then building houses around the churches, so the dead are literally at the centre of life. In Britain the 19th century began the process of shipping the dead out of town again.

Though very often our towns and cities expanded so fast they caught up with the previously suburban cemeteries whiuh are now beuatiful green spaces in the inner suburbs. And Nunhead Cemetery in South-East London is the best of them

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Ah but you make a powerful statement of faith, a superior one in fact by being laid to rest in a cave, wrapped in spiced linen, like a good Roman. It's obvious isn't it? I mean, being put in a box and having six feet of dirt thrown on you, how second rate a Christian is that of you?

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I asked someone about cremation once and the resurrected body. They said it didn't matter because we would be given an new body.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I asked someone about cremation once and the resurrected body. They said it didn't matter because we would be given an new body.

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You might want to consider John 20:26-28 there. I think it is rather clear that our bodies cannot be "new" as in totally unrelated to our current ones. A human being is not a spirit which happens to direct a body, like a driver would a car. We are embodied, what we are is closely entwined with our material being. There is an ability to continue being oneself in spite of changes to the body. If I lose an arm, I remain me. However, I do not merely remain me. That loss will inevitably change me. If God is going to resurrect us, then He must resurrect us in our bodies. Perhaps not precisely in the particular atomic arrangement we have occupied just prior to death. But also not simply in some form totally unrelated to it. Because otherwise we would rapidly become someone else entirely, if we would not simply cease to function as a being in something similar to a transplant rejection.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
But after two thousand years in a grave, there aint gonna be much there to resurrect. If anything. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.....

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Originally posted by IngoB:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
But after two thousand years in a grave, there aint gonna be much there to resurrect. If anything. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.....

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Ezekiel 37.

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Originally posted by Steve H:

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Originally posted by hatless:
It's not the problem of finding the atoms that bothers me about cremation, it's the ghastly aesthetics of the industrial process (Siemens initially, I believe) coupled with the weird curtain thing. I much prefer grass, mud and weather.

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When I pop my clogs, they can chuck me on the compost heap or flog me to McDonald's to make burgers with, for all I care.

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Really? Where? [Confused]

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...

My youngest has said he will have me turned it to cat litter. [/QB]

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Originally posted by hatless:

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Originally posted by Steve H:

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Originally posted by hatless:
It's not the problem of finding the atoms that bothers me about cremation, it's the ghastly aesthetics of the industrial process (Siemens initially, I believe) coupled with the weird curtain thing. I much prefer grass, mud and weather.

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When I pop my clogs, they can chuck me on the compost heap or flog me to McDonald's to make burgers with, for all I care.

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The dead don't care, and the grieving don't have to either, but if it was me, I'd prefer not to recycle my loved ones via McDonald's. No method avoids the challenge and absurdity of death, though.

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Putting the body to rest in a grave is a powerful sign of one's faith in the resurrection, a direct emulation of what happened to our Lord. Cremating the body is a much less clear sign, to say the least. The RCC did finally allow cremation in the last century, but reluctantly so. She was accommodating those who had great difficulties of the financial and practical kind to make that sign, difficulties that have become much more pressing for people living in ever growing cities.

That God is capable of restoring a body even if it was dispersed all the way to its nuclear constituents nobody doubts. That also sometimes in the past a proper burial could not be given is obvious. But it does not follow that this sign is meaningless, and it is sad to see it dismissed so readily.

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