| mysticwolf said: Not trying to make anyone feel guilty or anything, but personally I think its messed up how people decide that they want their bodies locked up in a coffin underground for eternity. It seems so... selfish. Call me a tree-hugger, because I am, but it's extremely selfish. We take resources from the earth all our lives (as do all other organisms), but then when we die we want to keep even our body and lock it up from the world that so graciously gave life to us? We humans are selfish even in death. On a more positive note, humans also display the most altruism of any other species. But that doesn't make up for what we do. I couldn't stand the idea of having my body locked away in a box. I've had enough of boxes. We live in a box, we drive around in a box on wheels, we stare into a box for many hours each day, we go to sleep on top of a box, and when we die we are placed inside a box. But not me. For me, the choice seems obvious: Give my body freely back to the planet that enabled me to live. I would have my body thrown out into the middle of the ocean, give back my body to the place where life started. But I think that may not be possible legally, as my remains could well end up on the shore of some country, and that might not go so well. I wouldn't like the idea of cremation, because most of my body would simply be lost as heat, not really helping the environment when all the nutrients in my body are burned into ashes. I want to be picked at, gnawed on, chewed up, etc. Basically I want my body turned into animal tissue and poop. What about you? Feel free to share what you want to happen to your body when you die. I won't criticize you, unless you want me to. |
Actually, being buried doesn't really steal resources. Unless you're in an air-tight coffin, your corpse will become a home for insects and bacteria to thrive. But even if the coffin is air-tight, it's not going to last an eternity. Eventually, even if it takes a million years, the coffin will deteriorate and your atoms will be free to roam the Earth and do stuff.
In any case, even if you are in a impenetrable coffin (which is impossible), you still aren't taking anything. Your body is merely a particular system of arrangement of atoms from the universe. You aren't taking any atoms from the universe; you just arrange them in a particular system. No, scartch that...you aren't even arranging any atoms; rather, the atoms arrange themselves in a system that is "you". You are the result of movements by the atoms, rather than the other way around. And after you die, those same atoms will exist to do whatever it is they do. Explain how this is selfish?
Yes, I want you to criticize me.
