End Graveyards Now!

I think graveyards actually reflect our religious denial of death.  With Islamo-Christianity, followers pretend that death isn't real.  Similarly, when we bury our dearly departed in the graveyards, we're in similar denial.  We pump them full of chemicals so they won't decompose naturally.  We dress them up in their finest as if we expect them to get up any minute for a night on the town.

I've always thought it's so twisted.  When I die, take whatever organs you can salvage and cremate the rest.  If you need a ceremony to say goodbye, have a set of pictures of me out on display.

My personal cemetary favorite taboo is the fact that funeral parlors sometime seal caskets to keep the creepy crawlies out, yet forget that the body is made up almost primarily of creepy crawlie things that can live completely independantly of "us" . . . so the gasses finally build up in the air tight casket and basically blow up the whole damn casket underground. Sure, it's not a true explosion, but the visual is fairly macabre.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmOF2bkBWIk

What was the video maker trying to say with that part about ghost sightings? That ghosts are harmful to the enviornment? Wow! I didn't even knew they littered.

The video would have been better if he'd eliminated the ghost part and instead made a case for cremation and organ donations.

I might be biased, as I work in a funeral home, but I've always found cemeteries to be very interesting places. I love to see how each headstone almost tells a story of a life. I live near a cemetery that was established in the 1820s, and you can see how culture and tradition has evolved through time.

One of my reasons for entering the funeral business was that I had so little understanding of death. Before I had found Deism and had attended the funerals of friends, family, etc.,  I always had a hard time believing that there was no possibility that the end of life on this planet was not the end. Everybody would say "Oh, that's not her, thats just her physical body.", but I've always found it hard to separate the tangible person from the, for a lack of a better word, hypothetical soul. On the off-chance there was nothing after this life, I sure wouldn't want people telling my kids that the only thing that ever was/will be me is fit for the garbage bin.

To get back on topic though, I find most current funeral practices to be fitting and dignified. The notion that funerals are meant to make death not seem real, however, is not entirely true. Any funeral director will tell you that the reason for open casket ceremonies is not to create the illusion of sleeping, but to help the family fully come to terms with the death. Granted, it's not the best thing in all cases (such as a violent or accidental death), but it is a really helpful practice quite a bit of the time.

For example, if a lady was dying of a terminal illness, and had been in bad shape for months, that person is not too worried about their appearance. The family has seen her in her worst state, and the practice of restoring the decendent helps the family have their last memory of her as a clean, well dressed, dignified Aunt Peggy, the one they knew in the good times of her life, not the ill, unkempt one that had to go through all kinds pain and suffering.

I can say from personal experience that this has much of a more profound effect than pictures alone. *Not to say that memorial services are bad, I just know how helpful to the grieving process this can be*

I completely agree with John, that when I die, slavage my organs if you can and cremate the rest,  but I don't want to ban graveyards. People have a right to disagree with us. People should be free to indulge in whatever silly belief, superstion, or practice they fancy as long as they don't force anyone else to do likewise.

i wana be burned in a vikeing longship so a can go to valhalla and cozie up to all them 72 blonde virgins ...

Personally, I want to be cremated, then have my ashes put into fireworks and shot off out in nature.  That is, unless I happen to die around the same time frame as Fred Phelps.  If that is the case, I wish to be put through a woodchipper in the back of an airplane, with the cargo bay doors open while flying over Freddy's funeral procession.

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." - Albert Einstein