At my little country parish, we do burials in-house, including preparing the body. The friends of the deceased get to grieve by washing them, building their coffin, digging the grave, singing the funeral, lowering them by hand, and burying them.
After doing this, I can't imagine giving the body of a loved one to a funeral director to be burned.
For myself, I'm all for cremation, and I say that as a devout Christian. When I'm dead I don't want my family to make a big deal out of my mortal remains. That's not me, it's a shell that I left behind on my way home. Cremation emphasizes that I've moved on in a way that for me burial just doesn't.
That is a component, not the root.
> done in the traditional way—on a funeral pyre lit by the grieving loved ones who watch as the body is consumed?
Yes, that would be better. I still don't like cremation, but that is also a true sense of finality and closure. Would stink to high heaven, though.
> For myself, I'm all for cremation, and I say that as a devout Christian. When I'm dead I don't want my family to make a big deal out of my mortal remains. That's not me, it's a shell that I left behind on my way home. Cremation emphasizes that I've moved on in a way that for me burial just doesn't.
I am as well, but most traditional Christians do not believe in Ghost in the Shell. The body is an essential part of our being, and does not lose that aspect of our being after death. Cremation was previously only practiced by cultures that believed in a split reality—for example, the Norse pagans and Valhalla.
As Christians, we all believe in the bodily general resurrection and heaven being in "the same place" as we are now (assuming all Christians believe in one of the two forms of the Nicene creed).
Working from there, burial seems more appropriate.
It's not about what God can or cannot do, it's about treating the body with the honor due as a member of the Body of Christ. Someone who is burned to death does not die at a disadvantage at the last judgement.
> Intact burials are a tradition (which is totally fine), but not a commandment.
Correct. I see your point, but lean towards tradition in cases of questions.
Is cremation not being respectful? Burning something to retire it can IMO be very respectful.
I guess this is where we part ways somewhat—I'm a devout Christian who does not accept the output of the First Council of Nicea as authoritative. I understand it to be a good faith effort to standardize what had already become a very diverse religion, but I don't hold it in higher regard than any other post-apostolic interpretation of divinity.
That said, I'm not sure that Nicea is relevant when it comes to cremation—the Creed itself doesn't have much to say about death and resurrection except that there will be one, which I accept wholeheartedly, but which at the same time doesn't persuade me that the mortal body sown in corruption is something God expects us to feel attached to or to attempt to keep intact after death.
> I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
I don't see how this implies heaven being in "the same place" as we are now.
I also don't see how our bodies can be made perfect but only if we don't burn them up first. Seems like a major limitation of God's infinite power if he can take someone that's nothing but bones and make them perfect but someone who is a pile of ash is just too difficult.
> It's not about what God can or cannot do, it's about treating the body with the honor due as a member of the Body of Christ. Someone who is burned to death does not die at a disadvantage at the last judgement.
How is burying more honorable than cremation?
In concept, cremation is lovely. In practice, you need a bone grinder, a cremation chamber that requires you to break the femurs of the dearly departed to fit them inside, and massive filtration to prevent the entire area from smelling of burnt corpse. Burial requires a box.
Honestly though, I can't really try it with a small animal as I don't have a cremation retort capable of reaching the ~1,500-2,000F that are common on actual cremation retorts. I don't know what kind of oven you rock in your kitchen but mine tops out ~500F.
If you want to be buried on your land, for example, you have to check with the county office to make sure you're not going to leach corpse juice into a water table, and so that future people know not to build on your grave. That's it.
It doesn’t really matter either way. Whatever helps you grieve is the best way.
Everything you just mentioned sounds absolutely horrific to me. I would never want my family and friends to do any of that to me, nor would I do it for them.
Burying my friend was hard. It was sad. I had a constant reminder of my own fate in front of my eyes. It's a deeply human experience, and I think that everyone should go through it.
The death I see in my normal life is much worse. I recently had to put a baby goat down. Can you imagine looking a baby goat who adores you in the eyes, then shooting it between those eyes? That shit hurts deep.
tl;dr: it's life, don't run away from it.
No one is ignoring, outsourcing, or running away from it — the end result is the same, a person has died and people are grieving.
People grieve in different ways, how it's done is often tied to their communities and past practices. I would spend time with the deceased friends and family sharing our memories about them, often over multiple days together.
To me, fiddling around with the body and concerning others about how it's going to be put into the ground seems disrespectful to me — but I understand that's what some people do and that's fine.
P.S. you should put down goats by shooting slightly above the eyes, or to the poll.
Of course people grieve in different ways, but closure helps massively with the process.
> To me, fiddling around with the body...
You would not like what they do in funeral homes, much less crematoriums. It's more body horror than peaceful laying to rest.
> P.S. you should put down goats by shooting slightly above the eyes, or to the poll.
I use 10mm (placement matters less, cavitation causes instant brain-pudding), and was also using a colloquialism.