Bury Your Dead?

[sixtyandaquarter]

There are thousands and thousands of cemeteries and graveyards scattered around the world, and thousands more burial plots.  Some of us live in regions where housing is substandard as far as living space and affordability is concerned.  Some of us may even be on, or know someone who is on, an organ donor list who may or may not risk waiting months or even years at a chance of being healthy.  Others are restrained at attempts to examine and research the possibilities of study involving corpse identification, particularly when a corpse has been shredded or left to extreme elements for too long, as well as research into illness after illness.  Why?

Some can point the finger to a supposed superstitious and barbaric ideology involving the ceremonies of laying the dead to rest.  Particularly in the ground.

Where I live, there's at least 10 cemeteries on this island alone.  The southern region has lots of land, and is a bit ritzy compared to my end.  My end is over crowded.  Houses, averaged size houses at that are being torn down and replaced by two, three, and in some cases four small subsized houses.  Imagine a normal house, big enough for a swing set (you know with the swings, the slide, that little tiny tinker toy looking cheap thing), a barbecue, and an area to sit and hang out.  That's being torn down, and three houses could be put up, where you can leap from window to window their so close.  You can share salt by throwing the shaker without fear of it spilling.  Yet we have 10 cemeteries, some of them no longer functioning in a good chunk.  One in particular is overgrown in one area, you can not access it by normal means (it's like hiking in an overly dense forest), and is about 40% of an 100+ acre plot.  Roughly 40 acres of complete worthlessness.

Thousands of people are awaiting the chance to even be placed on a list for organ donations and transplants from postmortem cadavers.  Yet, thousands more are buried whole, in the ground, while others continue to be crippled and worse thousands grow ill and die.

There are groups of researchers trying to use cadavers in fields to study decay.  Sometimes splitting the corpse up, in hopes of collecting data that would somehow help in body identification in case of yet another large scale disaster such as an earthquake, another 9/11, even a Katrina level catastrophe.  Tsunamis,  etc.  Bodies placed in water, in extreme heat, in mud - studying the effects of decay in hopes of finding ways to identify the remains at various intervals of time.  Likewise others are making attempts at studying the deceased in measures to aid in illnesses such as types of cancers.  Yet, they all need one thing.  A fresh corpse.  Any corpse could help in such research, and thousands are placed in the ground, untouched.  Unstudied.  Uneventful and unhelpful.

I could make jokes.  I really could, involving how if you really wanted to save the chickens and cows put to slaughter - we have a near endless food supply right here.  People do taste like chicken - remember that.  But outside of that one bad joke, there's a serious topic here.

We continue to identify the dead as a living person, we spend thousands and hundreds and thousands of dollars on pine boxes with cushions, and little nice embroidery.  We spend hundreds and thousands on stone markers.  Hell I don't even remember what my Uncle's looks like, let alone my sister (who honestly did die before I was born, but my mother had me go up there), and even friends who have died - I have no clue what it looked like.  I've been there.  I saw it.  I can't remember.  Maybe I'm fucked up?

Maybe I just have a different sensibility.  In the face of tragedy, a disaster where hundreds - shit even dozens of people might've died, or are lost, excavation of remains is an extremely tedious thing.  Identifying remains, is difficult at many instances.  I'd rather identify the remains of one person, than go rotting in the ground, I'd rather let someone else have my heart and live another 8 months than rot in the ground, and I'd rather never be in a cemetery if it meant having 4 kids share one bedroom.

I mean really, sometimes there's not even a body in the damn pine box - bricks or some other substitute has been used.  Cremations, a good chunk are actually turned to ash then buried, etc.

Is the need, mostly religious and/or superstitious, is it really that important?
I never saw the point of putting acres of land aside, so that in one maybe two - three if you were really nice and met your grandchildren, maybe four... after that I don't see the point of putting so many acres aside so that in X amount of generations later, you'll be forgotten.  No one will miss you.  No one will care.  You'll be another white marble stone marker, or whatever is used, and nothing else.  An eyesore to those who live near by, and for those driving by.
(don't forget most people don't actually like driving by or walking near cemeteries and/or graveyards).

 

[Untra]

Cemetaries do take up a lot of space. The corpses would actually be good for the soil if they wern't buried in varnished and sealed wood. Personally, I would be all for the burying of the dead if only they were put in thin wood cases that would break under the weight of the dirt put on top of them, so that worms and other decomposers could attain the nutrients.

As for the headstones, I believe that after so many years, and depending on the person, the headstone should be removed and recycled. I'm not sugesting removing the grave site of abraham lincoln, but maybe of his second cousin twice removed.

I'm also pro cremation. I'm especially fond of people who have their ashes scattered. Those people also have the right idea.

I think that when people die, the best thing we can give them is our condolences. A fancy gravestone or an expensive casket is a waste of money; people should spend their cash on living life, and not buying a multi-thousand dollar box in which to be buryed in. Maybe if instead of buying an expensive urn or headstone, they chose to be buryed in a thin, pine/cedar box and have a large rock with their name engraved on it, and donate the remaining money to charity in their kins name.

Thats what I intend to do.

 

[Venetia]

We, the human race, I mean, have been enamored with death perhaps from the very first rudimentary settlements thousands of years ago. Entire cultures, such as the Egyptians, the Chinese, the South Americans, would devote entire lifetimes and coffer upon coffer of funds toward the preparation of the burial site.

Death is a mysterious thing, even now. It is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter how important you were, it doesn't matter if you were penniless. You will die. And regardless of any of our myths or theories about where our livelihood goes (aka "souls"), it still lays proof that the people still drawing breath have to deal with a tangible presence we left behind.

You're a person. You were born. You grew up. You drew breath. You knew people. They, in turn, knew you. You made, no matter how infinitesimal, an impact. People look to honor the dead, because they are honoring the fact that these empty shells once were alive, that they existed.

Personally, I'd prefer cremation whenever I go, for the simple fact that it seems sad to me to think of my body lying bereft and alone for decades or centuries in some little deserted park somewhere. But to other people, this is the best form of honor, because it proves that they once drew breath, that they existed, that they made an small impact on the world they knew.

If we were to ignore the immense importance of honoring the dead, it would not only be spitting on thousands of years of our very heritage, but it would be denying those people and their lineage the peace of knowing that their existence in the world is not totally forgotten.

Sometimes people go overboard on funerals, but who are you to tell them that they cannot? If it's a person's final wish, or a family's wish, to see that they/a loved one is honored in a traditional way, it would be a horrific plight on mankind to deny them that.

All a man truly owns in this world is his life. And when that's gone, should we simply shirk it entirely? Shrug it off as if it never mattered to anyone? To most people, that is a disgusting and insulting thought.

Yes, the practice of burial is an ancient tradition that is perhaps unnecessary in modern times. However, in denying it, we would be losing a huge and very fundamental facet of our very humanity.

---

Also, I'm not sure what you're getting at when you're talking about people who need organs or when scientists need to study cadavers. Are you saying that the state should just waive a family's right to own their loved one's body, and acquisition it, like a piece of property?

If I say I don't want my organs to go to anyone after I pass on, who are you to tell me I don't have that right?

And are you saying that, after a natural disaster, it's unimportant to confirm deaths and relinquish bodies to their families? That's absurd

Lastly, you have to pay for burial plots. If a family wants to lay an empty coffin because there is no body to bury, and they want to pay for that, that's their prerogative and no one has a right to deny them that. I don't really care if room is running out for housing. You can always move? Generally nowadays, cemeteries are built way out in the outskirts of a city so it won't affect housing. Old cemetaries--well, it would be a rather disgusting thing to do, to just build right over it. That's the whole dishonoring thing I was talking about earlier.

 

[Despain]

People think its strange but really I don't give a shit what happens to my body after I die. I've said in the past that I'd like to be dumped in the woods and let the animals have a nice dinner to celebrate my life, and it wasn't even entirely a joke.

I'm not really one to care too much about sentimental value in possessions. And when someone dies, that's all their corpse is--it becomes just a sentimental possession. Some people bury it and some people cremate it, but either way it's just some bullshit way of attaching a physical symbol to an idea. The idea is the memory of a person's life and personally I don't see the need for the symbol.

My girlfriend went to Maine the other week and brought me back a shell she found on the beach. How sweet. I threw it away. I don't think that a dead body is much different. In fact, it's even worse because it's much bigger and would begin to smell bad very quickly.

Give me to science. Or better yet, give me to a necrophiliac who otherwise might traumatize someone's family by digging up a loved one's grave. I don't give a shit.

People should remember me for who I am, and something as artificial as a grave with a bullshit inscription is only going to warp those memories.

 

[Venetia]

Well it's fine if you don't care about what happens to you, but that doesn't mean that other people don't have a right to have their own sentimental values respected.

Besides, memories fade and are forgotten easily. Sometimes people need a tangible reminder.

 

[Despain]

Well it's fine if you don't care about what happens to you, but that doesn't mean that other people don't have a right to have their own sentimental values respected.

If these people really knew me enough to have any sentimental attachment to me, they'd understand (or at least be aware) of the way I think about such things, and they wouldn't try and keep my body as some sort of grotesque trophy of my life.

Besides, memories fade and are forgotten easily. Sometimes people need a tangible reminder.

If the memories fade easily then they're probably not worth remembering.

 

[Venetia]

If these people really knew me enough to have any sentimental attachment to me, they'd understand (or at least be aware) of the way I think about such things, and they wouldn't try and keep my body as some sort of grotesque trophy of my life.

Nono, you misread me. I meant that people, in general, shouldn't be have to be expected to hold to your same ideals. Sixty was commenting about people in general, not the way individual, personal matters are handled. And I think that people should be allowed to be honored in whatever way they or their loved ones want to be honored.

If the memories fade easily then they're probably not worth remembering.

Not necessarily. Sometimes possessions can spark a recollection that wouldn't have sparked otherwise. Like, sometimes I have a hard time remembering my old friends' faces, I remember them a little, but it's fuzzy since it's been so long. And that really sucks, I want to remember that stuff, so I look at a picture, or even an old note or something they wrote, and instantly that memory is refreshed.

Just because a person's memories fade doesn't mean that they mean less to them. It just means that they've aged, and just like anything else, they need a little something to clear away the dust.

Being existentialist is good enough for some people, but if everyone were that way, then no one would ever regard or even know anything that's ever happened or anyone who's ever lived in the past. We would lose a large part of our history, if not all of it, that matters.

 

[FlippyD]

Responding to the OP, the first half of your argument sounds like you have a crappy city planner, not that cemeteries are a problem. I grew up near a huge cemetery, and the rest of the neighborhood was spacious, with plenty of acres for new houses to be built on if needed. In college I lived in a small southern city with two cemeteries. One laughably small (a medium sized city block) and the other far out in the boonies. Now I live less than a block away from a huge cemetary (with two more a 10 minute train ride away), but again there's no real lack of space around here. If I were you I'd have a talk with your local city council about the space problems.

The other argument, about identifying bodies and such makes sense, to a point. But I don't want to argue for or against it too much because I'm not sure exactly what your point is. It sounds like you started out, angry at the space issue in your area, and this was exacerbated by identifying the issue with cemetery space alongside religion. Your suggestion then, is that the bodies (instead of being buried) would be better put to use for science, so they could be used to help those still alive and suffering. This is true, and a noble thought (in a way), but such a change cannot, should not, and will not take place unless public opinion concerning death changes. You'd be praying on the upheaval of several centuries worth of cultural rules about death.

As for missingno's point on the memorial aspect of death, you have to realize that most humans fear death because they want to be remembered. Personally, I'd rather go the opposite way because life and humanity is terminally insane and not being remembered is the perfect way to distance myself from the snafu of existence, but at the same time I can understand why other folks want headstones, and crypts, and giant fucking pyramids. People want to be remembered because (I believe) in their minds it's a way their memory and life can live on. It's all they have left as proof of their existence, and bless their hearts, most of them don't know that without proper care and treatment even the most laborious of memorials would be destroyed in 100 years. Given enough time there will be no proof of human existence at all (well... save plastic.)

So, like 60.25, you may hold certain ideas to be your truths, but the rest of humanity has no reason to agree with you. I think you're taking a willfully simple view of the situation. I don't agree with them either, but I can see where they're coming from.

 

[Venetia]

People need memorials not only because they want to be remembered, but also because some people want something tangible around to remember them.

Responding to the OP, the first half of your argument sounds like you have a crappy city planner, not that cemeteries are a problem. ... If I were you I'd have a talk with your local city council about the space problems.

Heh, Sixty lives in NYC so good luck with that happening :wink:

I think, there, it's more about dealing with their already severe lack of development space, rather than just expanding like other cities.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Also, I'm not sure what you're getting at when you're talking about people who need organs or when scientists need to study cadavers. Are you saying that the state should just waive a family's right to own their loved one's body, and acquisition it, like a piece of property?

I'm saying people should think a bit more about just being buried in the ground for no actual reasonable reason.

If I say I don't want my organs to go to anyone after I pass on, who are you to tell me I don't have that right?

Simple, you are no longer alive and have no rights.  What do you care?  Your not going to get up and start going for a walk and get all pissed off when you find your left kidney gone.

One body can save 17 lives lets say.
Seventeen vs. 1.  The rights of that is.  The right to live and be happy vs. the rights to... rot.
Yeah, I can't even think of any argument for the 1, and I hate that whole "good of the many outweigh the good of the one" argument.

And are you saying that, after a natural disaster, it's unimportant to confirm deaths and relinquish bodies to their families? That's absurd

No actually I'm saying the complete opposite and that cadavers that are donated to body farms actually serve in looking for this purpose, and most attempts to research into this must be done on homeless which are in awful state of affairs, or actual disaster corpses - which is real great to study from, when you want to see what happened before hand :\

ixis, if I sounded angry at the whole house spacing issue I'm not I'm actually comfortable for it.  It was merely an attempt to show that land is needed, and yet cemeteries are everywhere taking up space.  I could have used golf courses instead, same deal.



As for memorials and wakes and services and all that, it's selfish reasoning.  I want to remember you.  You are dead.  So I'm going to ruin a spot of land.  I'll visit 3x a year... at first.  Then 2x.  Then 1x.  And eventually, well I won't visit cept if I'm in the neighborhood or someone else is dying or just died or something.

We have an issue with death because we refuse to believe the person is dead.  Look at deaths of spouses, the other will still refer to them as if they are alive.  Which is extremely understandable!  "Jenny loves cookies" instead of "Jenny loved cookies".  But eventually time heals all wounds (to some degree), and it really is "Jenny loved cookies" now.  We have photos of Jenny, we have memories of Jenny, we even have little quirky things like some kind of weird record Jenny liked we some how snagged, etc..  Do we really need to visit a corpse, or equally absurd, a physical representation of Jenny's death.
Not her life.  Not who she was.  Just her death.  A tomstone marker has a name, a set of dates, and on occasion a quick description.
"Jenny Doe, 1982 - 2013, beloved sister and wife"
This is not a remembrance of a life.  This is a "look whose dead and try to find the sister" for those walking by, and a falsity that we can "let go" and "move on" and that we "did them right" Funny how the whole purpose is laying the dead to rest, when it's all about our own grieving and acceptance.

 

[Venetia]

Also, I'm not sure what you're getting at when you're talking about people who need organs or when scientists need to study cadavers. Are you saying that the state should just waive a family's right to own their loved one's body, and acquisition it, like a piece of property?

I'm saying people should think a bit more about just being buried in the ground for no actual reasonable reason.

If I say I don't want my organs to go to anyone after I pass on, who are you to tell me I don't have that right?

Simple, you are no longer alive and have no rights.  What do you care?  Your not going to get up and start going for a walk and get all pissed off when you find your left kidney gone.

I'm never donating a single thing to science or otherwise. In fact, I don't even want an autopsy after I'm dead. Even if I'm murdered. I don't want any asshole whose job it is to wash/prep/cut up dead bodies to ever get near mine. I hate my job and it's boring as hell. They probably feel the same way. I don't ever want the only vessel I leave behind to be pawed at and left out while they grab a cup of coffee (I've visited morgues; sometimes they'll just leave bodies lying around totally naked and half-dissected while they go on break or they'll sit there and joke about scars and weirdly shaped appendages or whatever).

I want to be creamated in the same fucking clothes I'm wearing when I die (however my dream is to die in an explosion so this is done for free). It's not normal to do that, but they will on request.

Why am I so weird about that? I don't know. I really don't. But it's my fucking body and if I have rights over anything, even dead, I have rights over that. It doesn't matter what my reasons are. I'm allowed to be selfish about MY VERY SELF.

What you're talking about is some kind of weird socialism, except instead of money, it's organs.

In socialism, the government goes "YOINK!" to your paycheck, then divides it out based on need. In your theory, the government goes "YOINK!" on a dead body, and doles out organs. You don't find that idea a little disturbing? I'd fucking amscray the SECOND anyone tried to put any sort of legislation like that forward.

One body can save 17 lives lets say.
Seventeen vs. 1.  The rights of that is.  The right to live and be happy vs. the rights to... rot.
Yeah, I can't even think of any argument for the 1, and I hate that whole "good of the many outweigh the good of the one" argument.

How about their last living wish? How about their beliefs? How about not pissing on their last shred of dignity/honor? (And don't say, "oh, their saving lives is honorable!" because people have different ideas on honor.)

I've had people in my life who could have been saved by donated organs. But they never asked that some guy's wife who just died should give it to them just because they're not using it. It's a charity, given by those who will it. If you force people into charity, it's not charity anymore, is it?

Do we really need to visit a corpse, or equally absurd, a physical representation of Jenny's death.
Not her life.  Not who she was.  Just her death.  A tomstone marker has a name, a set of dates, and on occasion a quick description.
"Jenny Doe, 1982 - 2013, beloved sister and wife"
This is not a remembrance of a life.  This is a "look whose dead and try to find the sister" for those walking by, and a falsity that we can "let go" and "move on" and that we "did them right" Funny how the whole purpose is laying the dead to rest, when it's all about our own grieving and acceptance.

That might be the way you see it, but it might mean something entirely different to someone else.

Imagine this frame of mind. "I was close to your body in life. So sometimes I'll still want to visit your body." They're not celebrating the person's death, they're visiting the actual vessel that they shared their life with. It's not a vase they touched or a picture they took, it's THEM, as close to THEM as you can get because it ACTUALLY is the body they inhabited!

Yes, it's for the people who care about the dead most of all. But is that so wrong? People grieve in different ways, and this way is as old as humanity itself. Some things like this, ancient things, I think people would be worse off without (as a whole).




I'm not saying that I don't see it your way, I do. It's nice to think that harvesting organs in a socialist manner could save lives. I just don't think they're ideas that would benefit humanity in a cultural or historical way. Which, really, is the only thing that lives on after our generation, our civilization, is gone ...

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Well we have a very high difference of opinion involving rights and property of the dead and last wishes, a comfort for someone who simply won't matter in 5 years.

Benefiting in a cultural or historical way is a complete trivial and unneeded thing.  We decide what does that, based on how we see things in hindsight.  9/11 had a huge impact.  Has it changed your daily life so many years later?  The tsunamis that hit a few back, huge impact according to the news outlets and the social demand - did it change anything for you?

There's simply just more economical and viable options than placing a package of meat in the ground.  I could make that meat and soylent green joke, but then it becomes more about stupid humor than seriousness.  Some would be completely shocked at what one could do to the human body.  Besides soaps and things of that nature, shampoos too, and even perfume, the human body fat can be boiled and processed into a fuel.  Our hair could be turned into wigs for cancer patients or just bald people.  Our skin graphed onto burn victims.  You could actually make a bomb out of a corpse.  An actual bomb.

The things living beings naturally leave behind are wasteful.  We leave behind fecal matter in our lives, which is completely wasteful unless you live where dung beetles and such are a high part of the naturality.  We leave behind skin and hair everywhere and nail, and in many places that's not really fueling anything.  Parasites that exist only for that purpose and that's it.  Then we leave behind everything.  The entire vessel.
And... it serves no purpose that nothing else could.  It even gets replaced with bricks at times.

The body isn't important.  The emotional attachment is.  And if you visit the dead and actually feel like your with them, that's the emotional response.  Their physical being is half gone already.  Bones removed and replaced with PCP piping, organs gone and replaced with sand or straw.  You don't need the body, and if you do you're a shallow person.  You can't remember and thank in your head someone unless you have a body?  That's ridiculous.

You wanna remember someone, do what I do.  I keep a photograph - if I have one.  And I every now and again look at it, and save myself the trouble of having to trek through a cemetery filled with hundreds of pine boxes that haven't been seen or visited in years and decades to do the exact same thing I would do at home in a cemetery however many miles away.

Besides,
last wishes are selfish and only an attempt to reconcile the departing's natural fear of dying.  You want it for your ego, one last stroke before you blink out.  After wards, it really doesn't matter.  You are gone.
You. Are. Dead.  Your last wish might as well have been to throw you in a blender and sell it to girl scouts, it's not gonna do much for the really real world.

 

[FlippyD]

Actually sixty, people who are deceased DO have rights. Otherwise, things like wills don't really work. Not to mention the family of  the deceased has rights. If a cadaver is an object then the family of the deceased has the rights to that object.

Furthermore, if you introduce a law that essentially calls "free reign" over organs for those passed away guess what kind of activity is going to increase? In fact, I'd go so far to say that you'd wind up hurting more people in waiting lists then helping them. Bob needs a new kidney, but Sally needs a new liver and a new kidney. Bob's liver is just fine, so let's let him drop so Sally at least has half of the organs she needs.

Also consider Sixty, that keeping around dead bodies in areas that are easy to locate and find is extremely useful for legal situations. For instance, let's say there's a serial killer running around, the trail goes cold for a few months until a big break. Now the investigators have a lead, but they need more evidence to get a warrant on the suspect. The detectives might have to re-investigate the cadavers again to look for new clues (should the families agree to it.) In this instance it'd be nice to have all of that information in one small easy to access location instead of organs shipped out to the four corners of the US.

EDIT: Screw the second half of my argument. It sucks. Basically you can't tell the dead or their families what to do, even if the cadaver won't matter in 5 months. Furthermore, you nor the government should have any say in what the people do with their dead bodies. It's bad enough the government tells us how to achieve orgasm and curbs what poisons we put in our bodies, I'll be damned if they tell me what to do with my body after I'm gone.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

A living will is important.
It decides what happens to your property.  Your belongings, your money, what happens to your body.  I'm not challenging that.  What I'm doing is calling part of it redundant.

I'm not asking for a forced habit of organ harvesting, what I'm challenging is the need for burials in lands that can easily be used and wasting resources that could promote better health and identification for the living vs. the selfish need of a "last wish" and "memorial".

Excavation of graves is not as common as TV would have you think, and often a lot more difficult.  You have to prove 100% that there is no other way.  Some bodies have gone 3 years waiting for burial because of investigations involving their death, while that's not normal now it's happened.  Replace burial with harvesting since that seems to be the theme (?)

The arguement is about social taboo involving death.  We're so terrofied of it in a markably ignorant way.  We suffer through it for no apparent reason when we're alive.  We move the dead out of our way - I live in NYC where there are many, many cemeteries yet almost everyone I know is buried somewhere outside of NY State.  Buried in New Jersey.  Why?  I have no fucking clue honestly, except that we didn't want the dead around us - but we didn't want to let go.

Focus less on what I somehow apparently gave across as "you must!" as opposed to "whats better?".  With the option to give yourself to a better cause vs. the option to be placed in the ground and in 8 years totally be forgotten by 99% of everyone you knew, and practically almost everyone at your funeral and weak who showed up will not visit you again.

We do these things for ourselves and because cultural traditions demand them.  It's the same as cutting yourself a thousand times to show you've become a man by wearing thousands of scars across your body, or to be a woman getting whipped by your male relatives to show you know your place in the community, and tatooing your face to belong to a tribe, it's tradition so engraved in our culture that... well it's just part of who we are and how we define ourselves.  We demand things, because we've been told we not only can, but mostly have to.

It's weird to challenge things for some people like death.  Some people are extremely uncomfortable doing so, the idea of pulling up dead bodies from hundreds of years ago really disturbs them.  Forget that most of the remains could be entirely gone, and the only thing remaining is a stone marker that you can't read it's in such a state of shambles, it still bothers them.  It challenges their definition of death.  It's unpopular, but it's not without it's merits to say there's a thousand better things to do with a chunk of meat and a pine box.

 

[Venetia]

Besides,
last wishes are selfish and only an attempt to reconcile the departing's natural fear of dying.  You want it for your ego, one last stroke before you blink out.  After wards, it really doesn't matter.  You are gone.
You. Are. Dead.  Your last wish might as well have been to throw you in a blender and sell it to girl scouts, it's not gonna do much for the really real world.

That's your belief, not mine. And if anyone ever tries to push that belief on me, I'm fuckin outta here (the country, I mean).

 

[FlippyD]

As I said before I personally could give less than two shits about being remembered when I go, but are cemeteries really taking up that much space? If anything, I mostly read about cemeteries not having enough space. And I really think your problem with the space is one unique to where you live. If there was less cemetery space they might've built too many playgrounds or something.

And while it's true culture has a hand in dictating what we do with the dead, I don't think you could ever completely change the culture's opinion on what to do with the dead. Even in a society without religion saying "we should burn/bury/dance upon the dead" there will still be people who will want to honor their dead friends, even for a little while. Sure, most might argue it's for religious or cultural they they're burying their loved ones, but in a way it's as you've described: a personal reason, and a method of grieving. If people knew what really went on at funeral homes they wouldn't dare use them. And, if given enough time people won't care, but you can't culturally change the strongest of human emotions. People want to hold their babies when they're first born, and they want to be close to their dead when they've recently died. If we were to go about changing the culture in the direction you suggested, I think changing the way grieving is carried out would be the first thing to do. (Actually, I really don't know. I think the discussion has kinda run it's course.)

Venetia's right though. I think in your postulations you've come off as saying how "belief in X is silly, thus we should do Y." What you want will require you to change cultural opinion, and you get anywhere with an objective point of view. The "problem" as you see it is a subjective one.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I'll respond later in detail if anything is posted in the meanwhile, because I don't have time to click those links right now.

I just wanted to respond that I am in no way saying change the grieving process.  Wakes freak me the hell out, but I fully support them.  Viewing of the dead and saying goodbye is a natural thing we've symbolized in like rites.  Continue doing so, by all means.  But a grave has no meaning to grief.  It is linked to memory and duty.  Nor am I saying that there should be a mandatory action.

If there was I'd riot.  There is a HUGE difference in believing what is better and should be ENCOURAGED vs what is better and should be ENFORCED.  I do agree though that, yes I am basically saying "belief in X is silly, thus we should do Y." but in no way am I pretending to mock around an enforcement and would find the idea insulting.

But cultural change is evident.
We spend less time with the dead than we ever have in the Western world, yet we spend more money.  It's become a fashion plate.  Graveyards gave way to cemeteries thanks to the rise in disease and war, where not everyone could be buried in church yards, so public land was used.  That was an awful thing for many, yet now it's perfectly fine to be buried in public land without the church.  Cultural change involving the dead happens in bounds, I'm just suggesting like hundreds others have for the last few decades, the next leap in our taboo with the dead.

 

[Stardust]

OK, I have a lot to say, partially because a graveyard borders my backyard, because two of my grandparents have died, and also because I like to study how humans think.

I don't think people were initially buried for religious reasons.  It probably began because the dead person contained some disease, and we figured out that leaving them around or burning them is a bad idea.  It eventually became a tradition, although it was more for safety of the living at first.  This may have been a very early thing, or it may have been started during the plague in Europe.  It was at this time that the Catholic church was very prominent and was basically the ruling body, so it was probably required that bodies be buried.  They were probably told something like "If you don't bury them, they'll rise and kill you," or something, which is partially true.

First of all, the graveyard behind my house is around 300 years old and belongs to a church that gets used once a year.  Those 300-year-old graves aren't being used for anything at this point, and it seems pointless to waste that space by now.  It does make my house a good location for Halloween parties, but it's otherwise unused except for renewals every few years where the graves are made clearer.  That can be cleared out and I have no problems with it because any family they had probably has no clue that they're buried there.

Now, I don't agree that we should clear out recent graveyards or require people's bodies to be rationed off for whatever.  A grave is a part of the mourning process for many because you feel like you're doing them one last honor.  It allows for closure, which wouldn't come without the ceremonies and grave.  I think that the grave stone is used to locate your loved one so that you feel close to them, but it's more spiritual than you're thinking. 

I'm going to go into religion, but I promise it will be brief.  It's pretty much accepted that a person's soul lingers for a while after death.  It's only natural that, by being close to them, we feel that their soul will be close to us as well.  We like to preserve our loved ones, and we do that through the idea of a soul.  I haven't gone to either my grandpa's or grandma's funeral, mainly because I don't like seeing people cry like that.

Into my own history for a moment (I promise this is related).  Now, my grandpa died when I was young.  He was a smoker and he had a lot of breathing problems.  He died, but I was too young for my parents to let me go to the funeral.  I didn't get closure until I saw him in my dream.  He was in his bedroom, and when I saw him I burst into tears.  The dream ended with my grandparent's house becoming a boat and my grandpa telling me he has to leave, at which point he "sailed off".  This was an extremely efficient form of closure, and I no longer feel like his grave is significant because I have that.

My grandma (other side of the family) died in 2006.  She had diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney failure, and had lived on dialysis for 10 years.  In the last year, she had a blocked artery and had surgery.  Then, we found out that she had breast cancer, which has spread.  She was on chemotherapy for a while, but she was tired of living.  She quite her dialysis, her way out, and she still lived for 6 days.  During these 6 days, I didn't go to see her.  I can't stand that last breath and crying, but I did get to tell her that I loved her over the phone, and I didn't go to her funeral, either (I regret not seeing her or going to the funeral, but I can't change that now).  She died, and on her gravestone it says "You are finally freed from your suffering".  This means a lot to us, and it reminds us constantly that she's happier now.  I still need that grave because I haven't had any closure like I have with my grandpa.  I've been waiting, but nothing has come to give me that closure.

Now, a little ways away from my two grandparents, a new grave was put up.  This one is for a child that died during birth.  It was HUGE, with all sorts of decoration and ornamentation (and a train that whistles, which got my attention).  This person existed for less than a day, yet here is this grave (bigger than most of those around it) for this being that has done nothing.  It was a complete waste of money.  I feel bad, because they obviously put a lot of hope in that child, but they shouldn't have gone to that extreme.

So, in conclusion, graves are nice for people who haven't received closure.  I sometimes make stuff for my grandparents grave, and it makes me feel like I'm still connected to them.  Everyone has their own way of obtaining closure.  For me, it's a dream (and possibly a funeral, although I doubt it).  For others, the ceremony helps.  I feel sad that people die, but I find it harder to cry over death.  If a pet dies, then it dies.  I can't stop it, so why bother crying over it?  I think my beliefs influence how I deal with death.  Because I believe in an afterlife, I can deal with death calmly.  Watching someone die breaks my heart, but I don't mind death itself.

 

[Despain]

I'm never donating a single thing to science or otherwise. In fact, I don't even want an autopsy after I'm dead. Even if I'm murdered. I don't want any asshole whose job it is to wash/prep/cut up dead bodies to ever get near mine. I hate my job and it's boring as hell. They probably feel the same way. I don't ever want the only vessel I leave behind to be pawed at and left out while they grab a cup of coffee (I've visited morgues; sometimes they'll just leave bodies lying around totally naked and half-dissected while they go on break or they'll sit there and joke about scars and weirdly shaped appendages or whatever).

Why would you care? You're DEAD.

I'm totally with sixty on this and he's doing a good job so I actually don't have much to input here.

I want to write up a long reply to Guardian about the whole "closure" thing, but I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not a normal human being in regards to empathy and feelings. If one of my grandparents died tomorrow, I seriously don't think I'd shed a tear or even bat an eye. Even if my mother died tomorrow I doubt I would grieve very much. I might cry for a little bit with the whole trauma of it, because it would make for a very large change on the way I live my life, but the actual sadness and closure and stuff, I just don't do it and I don't get it.

When people are dead, they're dead. I don't understand why it's a big deal to the majority of people.

 

[Stardust]

Closure is hard to describe to someone who doesn't/hasn't felt it, just like it's hard to define love.  For me, at least, it's feeling like I haven't been able to tell them everything.  I want to tell them and show them what's going on in my life, but I know I can't, and it hurts.  For my grandpa, I've said goodbye, so it's not as huge a deal, but I feel like I still have something to say to my grandma.

I'll use an example.  In an episode of Scrubs, one of the nurses, Laverne, gets into a car crash.  It becomes known pretty quickly in the episode that Laverne wouldn't survive.  Her physical body is too bad, but her mind is too damaged.  They had her on life support so everyone could say goodbye.  The head nurse, Carla, didn't want to say goodbye.  Instead, she imagined Laverne following her around and talking to her throughout the episode.  It wasn't until Carla told the real Laverne what she felt and how much Laverne meant to her that her imaginary one disappeared.  After Carla says goodbye, Laverne dies.

That's an extreme example since most people don't hallucinate, but it is a good example because you can see what Carla is feeling.  I think it's mostly the same for all cases where closure is needed.  For me, I never officially told my grandma that I loved her because it was via phone instead of face-to-face.  I feel like she's following me and that she won't be able to rest (or at least in me) until I get to say my final goodbye.