Bury or Burn?

[Marty_d]

Approximately 107 billion humans have been estimated to have lived (I'm guessing they only count Homo Sapiens).

 

Wherever people have lived, their remains will have existed. They've been recycled back into the landscape like any other animal. Point being, the dead don't care if their final resting-place is now used for other purposes. If the living do, well that's up to them.

 

 

[kgwilson]

Personally I don't give a rats. When I'm dead I won't know. The whole funeral thing is for the living & there are thousands of different ceremonies depending on what culture you are part of. Neither burn or burial are that great ecologically and the cost can be prohibitive with funeral directors, embalming, caskets, hearses, crematoriums, chapels, plots, walls etc etc. As soon as you die your carbon footprint increases dramatically until its all over. The only thing I like about funerals is the p!ssup afterwards when you get to have a yarn with people you may not have seen since the last funeral or wedding & won't see till the next one.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Approximately 107 billion humans have been estimated to have lived ...

I have it on good authority that half the humans who have ever lived are alive today.

 

It has to be true; I read it on the Internet.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I have it on good authority that half the humans who have ever lived are alive today.It has to be true; I read it on the Internet.

I got mine from the internet too... a few sources seem to quote over the 100 billion mark. One example (it's right down the bottom) - World population - Wikipedia

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Maybe mine was an alternative fact...

 

 

[facthunter]

Many "important"? people in history went to a great effort to build impregnable tombs with possessions (wives etc) going with them. None have really succeeded in achieving much. Clearly most gravesites will be desecrated. IF you get ashes who knows if they are YOUR loved ones. If there's an afterlife it's not necessary to erect great mausoleums in memory. but if you do You have the effect of rewarding stonemasons for their effort and if you're rich you can demonstrate it once again. by having the biggest of what was often done, a window or vault in the church of your choice. Having said that it's nice to have memories of people we knew and loved and even of those who haven't yet departed (and may go after you do), when they were at various stages of their lives having good images of them to look over at times. Pity photographs and files won't last forever, but nothing does. Ashes to ashes and Dust to dust. You come into this world with nothing and take nothing with you. Nice to have a few real friends to make it worthwhile. Nev

 

 

[octave]

Mmmm, bury or burn, I think I would like to be turned into nutritious soylent green to feed the poor. But seriously, I am for the furnace, mainly for economic reasons. Something I find interesting is walking around an old cemetery. When I see an old grave site perhaps from the 1800s that is in disrepair it makes me ponder the thought that when they died their loved ones wanted to make a memorial to the deceased that would last indefinitely but of course eventually anyone who knew or loved this person eventually died. Now there is no one left sufficiently connected to the deceased to maintain this memorial. Strangely enough I find this a comforting thought. Although of course I want my close family to remember me I do not particularly want to be remembered forever.

 

 

[facthunter]

I'm not interested in visiting any relatives graves except to read any relevant comment. on the headstones. I'm still finding out stuff on great great parents and earlier. It's not easy to get factual stuff but surprising just how much is available. Newspaper records, ship booking lists . Births deaths and marriages. etc. Nev

 

 

[Bruce]

I dunno if cremation is good for the planet. Read up about how the Easter Islanders starved after using all their canoe-timber for cremations.

 

I reckon being converted to blood and bone would be the best. You would indeed have an afterlife as plants.

 

 

[facthunter]

Well some of your molecules will end up as part of a plant. I suggested vertical planting/burial and tree planted on top as a good idea earlier on so I have to agree with the principle. Wouldn't work in the Sahara. You could put grandma in her place that way. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

You blokes are stuck in the old paradigm:

 

Dissolving the dead - alkaline hydrolysis a new alternative to burial and cremation - BBC News

 

 

[old man emu]

You blokes are stuck in the old paradigm: Dissolving the dead - alkaline hydrolysis a new alternative to burial and cremation - BBC News

A very interesting approach to decomposing a body. One could even request that the bone not be ground up, but placed in a small casket for burial. That would be the best of both worlds - removal of the soft material of a body, and the preservation of the long-lasting items.

 

You could even bury the small casket vertically to save space.

 

I like it.

 

OME

 

Post Scriptum - I couldn't stop saying to myself as I wrote the above:

 

Fe, Fi, Fo Fum.

 

I smell the blood of an Englishman.

 

Be he live, or be he dead,

 

I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

 

 

[facthunter]

No wonder kids have nightmares, with that, Dicken's stuff and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Plus, God will get you if you think sinful thoughts. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

…an army of therapists have been kept in work.

 

 

[Marty_d]

No wonder kids have nightmares, with that, Dicken's stuff and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Plus, God will get you if you think sinful thoughts. Nev

I don't know that kids have nightmares about nursery rhymes and fairy tales, they know the difference between reality and stories. (Obviously if their parents are god-botherers, the line between stories and reality gets blurred for them!)

 

I re-read an old Biggles story the other day - funny how times have changed, I thought "Biggles is an ar*sehole!" - he's rude to his ground support staff, short tempered with his friends (it's a wonder he has any), and considers anyone not English to be "ignorant savages".

 

But back in the late 1970's I devoured Biggles books with wide eyes.

 

It's funny the old rhymes and chants still crop up at my kids' primary school as we used to have. When working out who to pick for something, they still go "Eeny meenie miney mo...." only it's "catch a TIGGER by the toe" now!

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

As a teacher I was always fascinated how kids learn stuff.

 

Handball seems to be a universal game; no matter which school you go to, the kids are playing it during their break time. It always amazed me that there's no refeeee and very few disputes. (If only grown-ups could play so well together.) I've often asked them how they learned the rules. The usual response is a condescending: "Eveyone knows how to play handball!"

 

We seem to unconsciously absorb much of our culture, not just the rules of handball. Most new kids arriving at a school rapidly adjust their behaviour to the prevailing norms.

 

 

[old man emu]

It's difficult for a kid who changes school. Handball rules vary between schools.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

It's difficult for a kid who changes school. Handball rules vary between schools.

I haven't seen a great deal of variation, and in my experience most kids quickly adapt. It's the adults who have he most trouble adjusting.

 

 

[nomadpete]

I wonder why it came to be that in spite of devouring all that Biggles culture, you (and I) failed to absorb all that Anglocentric racism?

 

Maybe as a child I was absorbing the adventures, and skimming over the bigotry?

 

 

[Marty_d]

I wonder why it came to be that in spite of devouring all that Biggles culture, you (and I) failed to absorb all that Anglocentric racism?Maybe as a child I was absorbing the adventures, and skimming over the bigotry?

Maybe even then we could see that things had changed. Mind you, my parents were casually racist, but most people of their generation probably were. Maybe my kids will say the same about me. I think the newest generation are far more accepting of differences in gender and sexuality than mine ever were.

 

 

[Yenn]

I am not racist. I just hate the Japanese. Well I have got over that now but it was true for probably over 50 years.

 

I cannot see what is wrong with racism. Do you really believe that all other races are as good as you are. If so I think you must have ignored world events for all your lifetime.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I wonder why it came to be that in spite of devouring all that Biggles culture, you (and I) failed to absorb all that Anglocentric racism?Maybe as a child I was absorbing the adventures, and skimming over the bigotry?

Pete I reckon we absorb it all, to varying degrees. British black and white movies about how they won the war are still playing on the teev. Seeing them today I am acutely aware of how I have changed since I first saw them.

 

 

[facthunter]

I would say abilities are far more even than most like to think. What race doesn't think they are the best, or don't want to be seen as superior? You fear what you don't understand, also. There's good and bad in all. No race has a monopoly on anything, good or bad. Nev

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Maybe even then we could see that things had changed. Mind you, my parents were casually racist, but most people of their generation probably were...

My Aboriginal students once asked me if I was racist (it was a sincere question, not an accusation; they'd chosen me as their anti-racism officer). I told them that I was trying hard not to be racist, described my childhood in a racist country town and how our mother kept us in line with the threat that "a black man might get you". She herself had been raised with this same threat. Her own mother had been traumatised by the terror campaign of Jimmy Governor, who was captured not far from their farm.

 

Jimmy Governor - Wikipedia

 

I think it takes generations for some attitudes to die out, particularly if parents (knowingly or otherwise) are passing on their prejudices.

 

I think the newest generation are far more accepting of differences in gender and sexuality than mine ever were.

I'd agree with that Marty, but don't assume that trend will continue. Most people are easily manipulated.

 

 

[Bruce]

I reckon a racist is somebody who won't give a chance for the black guy to try out. It's not racist to expect poorer math skills from Aborigines, that's just being realistic. It would only be racist if you stopped a black kid from entering a maths competition.