[jart]

> Only humans treat the dead with the same respect, consideration and even tenderness they treat the living.

Humans probably learned it from elephants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition#Death_ritua...

[JohnJamesRambo]

I doubt we learned it from elephants, rather it is a product of higher consciousness. Empathy with another being and realizing it can be lost.

[yakubin]

It isn't an inevitable product though. E.g.[1]:

> Mongolian culture is famous, along with Tibetans, for "sky burial," which leaves the body of the deceased on a high unprotected place to be exposed to the elements and devoured by wildlife. It's part of a Vajrayana Buddhist outlook about the needlessness of "respecting" the body after death.

Personally, I'd prefer if this was what would happen to my body than any Western ritual. Alas, in the West we have laws which, in practice, impose religious precepts long after the states are secular on paper.

[1]: https://www.bustle.com/articles/97030-5-interesting-death-an...

[ekianjo]

> It isn't an inevitable product though. E.g.[1]:

Yes, and there are still tribes that eat the flesh of the dead - this was a major cause of what we identified later on as prion-related diseases: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/06/482952588/wh...

[KONAir]

Serious question; How is Mongolian "return to nature" similar with Tibetian "We have no space for burial grounds" similar? Isn't this more of a case of flexible religion or more of a flexible "monk" trying to fit in as many traditions as possible into one religion?

[yakubin]

The practice is similar. The motivation is different. The quoted paragraph may be phrased a bit poorly. I don't think the Mongolian practice has anything to do with Buddhism.

[phenkdo]

It's not Buddhism per se, The Zoroastrians (religion of pre-islamic Persia) also practice this by leaving the bodies in "towers of silence" for birds of prey to devour them.

[yakubin]

Yes. I think the author of the paragraph wrote about Buddhism in the context of Tibetans. It isn't applicable to Mongols as well.

[selimthegrim]

Mongols and Tibetans probably got it from them given their original location in Bactria/Margiana

[spockz]

I would say that by now the laws more represent social norms and habits rather than religious precepts. (Even though they come from those precepts originally.)