Atheists leaders have recently adopted a ruling on the disposal of the dead by the cheapest means available, and where allowed by law, the bodies are to be placed in a large trash bag at the curb for transport to the trash landfill. It’s not a new idea.
Logic is at the core of Atheist spirituality, just as it is for Vulcan religion.
Are Atheists now following after Spock??! (Spock is the Vulcan science officer of the star ship Enterprise). In its 4th season, Star Trek writers decided to better fill out the history, religion, and character of Vulcan society, along with rediscovering the teachings of their most revered spiritual leader, Surak. In a classic episode of Star Trek, the original series, Spock finds himself leading his first away mission on an alien planet. On that planet they encounter giant, wooly, spear throwing aliens who manage to kill several of the crew members. When the rest of the team returns to the shuttle craft the human crew decides that they wants to retrieve and bury the bodies of their fallen comrades. Spock however considers this to be an illogical and dangerous waste of time and resources.
They should get with the times, reduce, reuse, recycle.
Landfill is not the way forward, auto signup to the transplant list would be nice, you have to carry a card to say you don’t want to be harvested. The rest could be used as some sort of biofuel or for really realistic haloween props.
You couldn’t use a trashbag on the road anyway. You’d need a medical grade body bag. It would need to be rat proof. Nothing for spreading disease like corpse juice running in the streets.
The thing is, people aren’t all that logical, I think the need to say goodbye in a formal way and have somewhere to go a remember your dead is a large part of the greiving process.
“atheist spirituality” seems almost an oxymoron. i can believe an individual may have proposed something like the OP indicates. but, i find it hard to believe that atheists as a group have put forward such a proposition. particularly since atheists tend not band together for purposes of furthering their beliefs or lack thereof. speaking for myself (an atheist) i have no problem with burying the dead (and i can assure you that no other atheist speaks for me.) i think it would make much more sense to bury the dead in biodegradable boxes and without “prepping” the body. then the remains can return to the earth over time. the fixation with preserving the remains is a relatively new phenomena. seems modern sensitivities are offended by the idea dead humans decomposing.
On a more serious note, embalming and buring bodies is in incredible waste of space and natural resources. Bodies SHOULD be recycled. Burning would be nice but that’s a lot of smoke, perhaps composting?
No matter what your religion is we all can agree that a body is just a body, right?
I remember when Sybok hijacked the Enterprise and went to the center of the galaxy, across the great barrier and met “god” on a barren planet.
Bones said, ”I doubt any God who inflicts pain for his own pleasure!” (me too)
Sybok was always saying “Your pain runs deep” to people and tring to brainwash their pain away. (a great representation of false leading)
However, when Kirk was offered to have his pain taken away in the presence of brainwashed Bones he said, “Damn it Bones, you’re a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can’t be taken away with the wave of a magic wand. They’re the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. [to Sybok] I don’t want my pain taken away! I need my pain!“
Atheist Gene Rodenberry might not have been pleased by this, because Kirk just gave a great answer to the timeless question, If there is a loving God, why is there pain and suffering?
I’m against burying and don’t want to be buried myself. That Parsee thing in India seems like a good idea to me. I guess you couldn’t do it on a large scale in modern cities, but you could do some of the things that Pseudonym suggested.
The only thing that I like about burying are the old cemeteries. It’s interesting to walk around them, imagine how people lived.
Im not really against burying, if you like that way you can bury your body after your death. I dont really care what they want to do with my body after my deth, but I would still like to have some kind of funerals if there is no priests.
I’m against burying because it’s a waste of resources. The make coffins out of perfectly good wood, then they just throw it in the ground. And if you remember primary school biology, trees are made of wood and we need trees to produce oxygen so that we can breathe. When the dead taking all that wood underground, it is like they are strangling us from the beyond.
Plus, dead people take up space for cemeteries, prevent their bodies from decomposing and provide all these cool trials lines that you can’t ride on because people would think you to be an extreme clown satanist.
Edit: on a sidenote, how would one go about making it sure that he wouldn’t be buried or cremated after his death, but be disposed of in a more ecologically-friendly manner?
Wouldn’t that depend on where you live? Here in the US you can stipulate in your will and express your wishes prior to death how you’d like your remains to be handled. The odds are reasonably high that your wishes will be followed.
In a state controlled by a particular religion with specific rituals for handling death, it’s probably a lot harder to get any variation.
I always joked that I wanted my body donated to police ballistics testing. That is until I found out that actually is where you might end up if you request that your body be donated to science.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Klaatu may refer to:
Klaatu (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Klaatu barada nikto, an iconic phrase from that film
Klaatu (band)
Klaatu (Star Wars)
Klaatu (comics)