Comments on: Cremation and the Structure of Biblical Reasoning

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:40:19 +0000

“let the dead bury their dead” . We should concern ourselves about the persons soul (before he croaks) rather than worry about his body after its too late.
Slavery was accepted back then and it wasn’t a bad thing like it is now. We who work for a “living” are enslaved to our jobs without the benefit of having our home and provisions provided for. Call it what you want but it is still slavery.

By: John Wickey

John Wickey — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:46:10 +0000

I don’t follow the comparison of cremation with slavery, other than the unclear way in which they are treated in Biblical texts. The person who has deceased is presumably alive in a glorified body in the Kingdom of Heaven. To treat the body as nothing of special value in that context seems to me to be sacreligious. The early Christians treated the remnants of the martyrs after their executions as holy relics to be preserved and venerated. I think that this is the more appropriate attitude toward the bodies of Christians who have died.

By: david carlson (dac)

david carlson (dac) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:54:46 +0000

burial practices in the bible – descriptive events
how to treat others in the bible – prescriptive instructions

By: Tyler Patrick

Tyler Patrick — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:24:21 +0000

I think both the issues of slavery and cremation center around the issue of human dignity. We say that slavery is wrong because the image of God is on a person. The logical question is whether or not the dignity of a dead person is violated by cremation (I would argue that it is not).

We see that burial does seem to be the norm in scripture. Yet, the end result of the buried or cremated person is the same: they will be resurrected by God. If God created man (and even more so the universe), then he can just as easily raise the person cremated as the person buried.

By: Rev. Mike

Rev. Mike — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:25:40 +0000

From http://www.ehow.com/about_5196905_cost-average-funeral.html:

Funeral Costs
According to FuneralTips.com, in 2009 the average funeral cost is around $7,500. While the casket alone can range between $600 and $10,000, the average cost was about $2,300. The basic service fee for the funeral director was $1,400, plus $600 for embalming, $400 for calling hours, $450 for a ceremony, $625 for transportation and $500 for miscellaneous expenses including writing and placing the obituary, obtaining the proper permits and providing a register book.

Cemetery Costs
Cemetery expenses in 2009 include purchasing the plot for an average of $1,000 and opening and closing the grave for $500, according to FuneralTips.com. Gravestones can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a small, simple stone to several thousand for a more elaborate monument. The average gravestone cost is $1,500.

On average, over $10,000 to put a body in the ground. Versus this at http://www.ehow.com/about_5453254_average-cost-cremation-services.html#ixzz0vCOuEEYd:

Cost
When considering the cost of cremation, one of the biggest factors is the region you live in. More densely populated areas have higher costs. A lot of this comes as a result of high demand and local competitors driving up the price. The range of the cremation process itself runs from $360 to $1,100, with a more concentrated average ranging between $700 and $1,000.

Funeral Home Expenses
The cost of cremation itself is one of the cheaper elements of what can be an expensive enterprise. With the most limited services of the funeral home staff, you could still be looking at paying between $1,000 and $1,200. This is even with them not holding any services at the funeral home or at graveside. What they will do is handle the body, transport it to a crematory, deliver it to you and arrange the basics of the process for you. If you’re looking to cut costs, you can deal with the crematory directly and eliminate that fee.

Additional Costs
Even though the price of cremation is lower than burial, other expenses must be considered. Transporting the body can cost hundreds of dollars, depending on the destination. If you’re going to keep the ashes, you’ll need something to store the ashes in. An urn can cost anywhere from $100 to an astronomical amount depending on how lavish you want it to be. A lot of the costs can be kept relatively low, but it does have the potential to become expensive.

In other words, as little as $300 or $400.

Does good stewardship enter into the conversation?

By: david carlson

david carlson — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:25:40 +0000

I don’t see that big of an issue.

There are countless versus in the bible that discuss how we should treat each other, how we are all one in Christ, that all have sinned, that may lead one to the conclusion that to treat another (in particular how slavery is done today) is wrong from a biblical standpoint

There are no such versus when it comes to cremation v. burial

By: Adam Baker

Adam Baker — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:02:08 +0000

What’s interesting to me is that in both situations the matter is really about the moral *interpretation* of the institution, which seems a cultural and/or personal matter.

Slavery seems abhorrent to us here because we (Westerners, and Americans especially) don’t really have a conception of human dignity apart from economic autonomy.

Cremation is off-putting to some people because it seems … incompatible? … with the resurrection to me. I actually have the opposite interpretation. Cremains in an urn are a lot more permanent than a body decomposing in a humid climate. (John Henry Newman’s body totally dissolved into the ground, for instance.)

Making a big deal of it, from my perspective, would only seem to scandalize the faith of people who have lost a relative in a fire, or who for some other reason don’t have the body.