4 ms·

A stable society stands on a set of shared principles, not on blind respect of each other traditions, no matter what those are. That no-cremation rule was made

by akomtu 4y ago

A stable society stands on a set of shared principles, not on blind respect of each other traditions, no matter what those are. That no-cremation rule was made for a good reason, but that reason can't be explained to masses, hence the "just do what the sacred book tells you!" A dead body isn't completely dead, so it's better (more respectful, indeed) to keep it for two months, and then it can be burnt. But you can't keep the rotting corpse for so long due to diseases, so it's better to bury it, and once it's there it's silly to dig it out and burn. To skip these endless arguments, and the futile attemps to reason with common folk, the instructions are put into a sacred book.

prewett 4y ago
I don't think viewing religious tradition as "we don't want to explain our reasoning to you plebs" is doing justice to the religion. I believe Catholicism does have a reason that is understandable by common folk: since Jesus will resurrect the faithful to be with him in the new heavens, earth, and Jerusalem (which are seen as physical, not an abstract "Heaven" like modern American evangelicals tend to see it), there needs to be a body to resurrect. (I'm not Catholic and never sure what Catholics actually believe, so I might be wrong here)
- NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
  Well, formulated negatively, it can be said that the Church historically discouraged/forbade cremation because it has been employed by people to mock and deny the doctrine of the Resurrection. More practically, it is a practice which unnecessarily damages the sacred bodily remains and prevents them from future veneration. So it's much more difficult, if someone should become a saint, to distribute relics of a cremated body rather than bones and significant, identifiable parts of a buried/exhumed body. It's not like God won't find a way to resurrect bodies that have been dismembered, burned, disintegrated, destroyed, or what have you. He's God, it's no big deal. Glorified bodies are understood to be spiritual, otherworldly, and beyond our imagination, but there's also been a lot of work to describe what they're like and how they work. Cremation also led to abhorrent practices such as scattering ashes, or keeping them on a mantle, and in modern times, turning them into personal jewelry or launching them into space. The Church didn't like that stuff either. Personally speaking, my dear uncle's cremains are on my cousin's mantle and essentially inaccessible to me, since we're not on speaking terms. I'd really like to visit my uncle's grave, but he doesn't have one! So even today, the Church forbids cremation if it's for the wrong reasons. But it's tolerated widely because it's often cheaper and expedient.
vintermann 4y ago
I don't think that's how it happened. You can make arguments for all sorts of burial practices. It was a classic argument, recounted by Herodotus: When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them what price would persuade them to eat their fathers’ dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then he summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding by interpretation what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. Herodotus used this anecdote, rather dubiously I think, it as an argument that everyone should stick to their own customs and not think too much about what other people do. But I think Darius himself, if it actually happened, used it more as an argument for tolerance, agnosticism - and cruelty. Because it's a bit cruel to shock the poor Greeks and Callatiae like that, isn't it? And rulers of most large (and thus multicultural) empires always seemed to be a bit on the cruel side to me. What do you do, when you encounter people, for whom everything you consider important, sacred, meaningful, just doesn't register at all, and they care about completely different things? Do you shut it out? Or do you allow yourself to drift towards indifference and nihilism, that maybe none of that stuff matters at all? As I recall, Popper called it "the strain of civilization", how it gnaws on people to have to deal with so many people who don't share their basic values of what's important in life. And how they can resort to isolationism and cruelty to cope with it. The Christian church's innovation was to seek a tight core of meaningful beliefs, with divine justifications of course, but be fairly tolerant of more secondary sources of meaning, those coming from custom and culture. Like Paul, who insisted that no food was forbidden to eat, even food that had been served up to idols, but that he'd nonetheless respect the dietary customs of the people he ate with because it was important to them ("Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.") It was really the first truly multicultural faith, since up to then, faith, customs and culture had been one and the same. So it's not so out of character, really, that the Catholic church a few years ago ruled that the Madagascar custom of exhuming the dead and dancing with them wasn't contrary to the faith, since it was "just" a cultural practice and didn't necessarily imply any beliefs incompatible with Christianity.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
A stable Society stands on shared principles, but those shared principles need not intrude into every aspect of life. In fact, I believe a stable Society is one which is very careful about which values it selects as universal

by akomtu 4y ago

prewett 4y ago

I don't think viewing religious tradition as "we don't want to explain our reasoning to you plebs" is doing justice to the religion. I believe Catholicism does have a reason that is understandable by common folk: since Jesus will resurrect the faithful to be with him in the new heavens, earth, and Jerusalem (which are seen as physical, not an abstract "Heaven" like modern American evangelicals tend to see it), there needs to be a body to resurrect. (I'm not Catholic and never sure what Catholics actually believe, so I might be wrong here)

NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
Well, formulated negatively, it can be said that the Church historically discouraged/forbade cremation because it has been employed by people to mock and deny the doctrine of the Resurrection. More practically, it is a practice which unnecessarily damages the sacred bodily remains and prevents them from future veneration. So it's much more difficult, if someone should become a saint, to distribute relics of a cremated body rather than bones and significant, identifiable parts of a buried/exhumed body. It's not like God won't find a way to resurrect bodies that have been dismembered, burned, disintegrated, destroyed, or what have you. He's God, it's no big deal. Glorified bodies are understood to be spiritual, otherworldly, and beyond our imagination, but there's also been a lot of work to describe what they're like and how they work. Cremation also led to abhorrent practices such as scattering ashes, or keeping them on a mantle, and in modern times, turning them into personal jewelry or launching them into space. The Church didn't like that stuff either. Personally speaking, my dear uncle's cremains are on my cousin's mantle and essentially inaccessible to me, since we're not on speaking terms. I'd really like to visit my uncle's grave, but he doesn't have one! So even today, the Church forbids cremation if it's for the wrong reasons. But it's tolerated widely because it's often cheaper and expedient.

vintermann 4y ago

I don't think that's how it happened. You can make arguments for all sorts of burial practices. It was a classic argument, recounted by Herodotus: When Darius was king, he summoned the Greeks who were with him and asked them what price would persuade them to eat their fathers’ dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then he summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding by interpretation what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. Herodotus used this anecdote, rather dubiously I think, it as an argument that everyone should stick to their own customs and not think too much about what other people do. But I think Darius himself, if it actually happened, used it more as an argument for tolerance, agnosticism - and cruelty. Because it's a bit cruel to shock the poor Greeks and Callatiae like that, isn't it? And rulers of most large (and thus multicultural) empires always seemed to be a bit on the cruel side to me. What do you do, when you encounter people, for whom everything you consider important, sacred, meaningful, just doesn't register at all, and they care about completely different things? Do you shut it out? Or do you allow yourself to drift towards indifference and nihilism, that maybe none of that stuff matters at all? As I recall, Popper called it "the strain of civilization", how it gnaws on people to have to deal with so many people who don't share their basic values of what's important in life. And how they can resort to isolationism and cruelty to cope with it. The Christian church's innovation was to seek a tight core of meaningful beliefs, with divine justifications of course, but be fairly tolerant of more secondary sources of meaning, those coming from custom and culture. Like Paul, who insisted that no food was forbidden to eat, even food that had been served up to idols, but that he'd nonetheless respect the dietary customs of the people he ate with because it was important to them ("Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.") It was really the first truly multicultural faith, since up to then, faith, customs and culture had been one and the same. So it's not so out of character, really, that the Catholic church a few years ago ruled that the Madagascar custom of exhuming the dead and dancing with them wasn't contrary to the faith, since it was "just" a cultural practice and didn't necessarily imply any beliefs incompatible with Christianity.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

A stable Society stands on shared principles, but those shared principles need not intrude into every aspect of life. In fact, I believe a stable Society is one which is very careful about which values it selects as universal