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by lo_zamoyski
802 days ago
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> you're dead and no longer exist. That's an assumption, not a fact, and there are very rigorous philosophical arguments for personal immortality. But even given personal survival of death, and given that the remains are not technically a body anymore as a body is part of a living person (a severed hand, as long as it remains severed, it not a bona fide hand), it is still a show of respect for each person and the memory of them, of the fact of their existence. It isn't a matter of what they would or would not have wanted, or do or do not want, but our own relationship toward people. How we treat remains has enormous importance and consequences for our sense of human dignity; it both reflects and shapes that sense of dignity. Treating a corpse like trash translates into a devaluation of human life and the life of the person who has died. The implication is entailed. But treating it with respect also entails a conclusion: this was a person, and that we treat their remains with respect must mean that respect is due, and it is due because they are the remains of a human person. We consider attacks on statues and other images of the dead hateful and disrespectful. How much worse is it to attack and disrespect someone's remains! Religious images, also clearly not remains, are likewise disposed of in a respectful manner according to religious law and custom because of what they depict. |
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The Greeks felt you pass twice, first when you die and then when no one who said your name is still alive. So this might extend that second phase a little for this cohort.