[dijit]

There's a limit, surely. After 3 generations of nobody having known you living: surely your body must have reverted to general property.

I don't want to start a holy war, I understand sentimentality. But if you dug up my great grandfathers great grandfather then honestly I have absolutely no connection to the man and his body could be anywhere on earth. It's not my property and despite sharing some of my genes it's part of the earth at that point.

What once was a man merely returned to the atoms and microbes of the planet that bore it.

[b800h]

That would be massively influenced by culture. An atheist materialist from the West is going to have a totally different view to someone from a culture where burial has all sorts of codified behaviours and beliefs associated with it.

[dijit]

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that at some point bodies are returned to the earth.

Otherwise the whole planet is a gravesite and we cannot farm/build or exist without unintentionally desecrating graves.

[smogcutter]

No one’s talking about farming, they’re digging up actual graves.

[dijit]

Are you intentionally missing the point?

[smogcutter]

No, you just weren’t making as much of one as you think.

[dijit]

Ok, if you understood the point how about arguing that instead of trying to derail the conversation.

I expect better honestly.

[InSteady]

Many indigenous cultures care deeply about their ancestors. And not just the most recent batch of them. Your idea that the remains of the dead should become "general property" that can be harvested, used, and/or abused as anyone sees fit is both absurd and offensive. Sorry, but we are sentimental creatures pretty much as a rule. We do get to pick and choose what we are sentimental about (to some degree), but it turns out a lot of people care about their ancestors and perhaps even the ancestors of other people in their community/culture who they aren't directly related to.

>What once was a man merely returned to the atoms and microbes of the planet that bore it.

Bones last for centuries, millennia, and longer. In fact bones are the very thing we are discussing (in the form of teeth), and they are obviously very much intact beyond your arbitrary 3 generation cutoff. So while your sentiment may be noble and erudite, it's not relevant at all.

[dijit]

thats kinda my point though. If you accidentally come across 300 year old human remains then of course care should be taken.

However after 8 generations there is already so little connection left, keeping in mind 8 generations is roughly 160-240 years.

Yes, we are sentimental creatures, however if we hold that human remains are permanently sacred then we will run out of habitable space on the planet if we continue to bury our dead.