Preferably, launched into the sun.
Jay520 said:
"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." You're saying that being buried is selfish since it blocks off resources. But as I've just shown you - which you just agreed with - it's not selfish because you don't hold any resouces. Everything eventually gets back to the Earth one way or another (via soil or the ocean, or in a hundred years or in one day, it doesn't matter). As for the coffin versus the tree, I guess that has some connections with morality, but I was mainly talking about the value of these objects. You say a tree is more valuable than a coffin because the tree is alive and the coffin isn't, but I question this stance. Man-made objects can be incredibly valuable to many people. They may not be inherently important on their own, but they can be symbols for deeper meanings. For example, people assign great significance to any object that allows for the artistic expression of emotions, or that behave as symbols for deeper, spiritual connections, or that allows for breakthrows in human advancement, etc. Sure, these objects may not be alive, but they are important nonentheless. So no, I don't see why a tree is more valuable than a coffin just becaues it's alive. The only way you could take this stance is if you asserted that all man-made objects are less valuable than living organisms, which I doubt is a stance you want to take.You wouldn't say some random tree is more valuable than the Sistine Chapel, would you? Do you believe all art is less valuable than a patch of grass? |
I'm taking more of a philosophical approach to this. The reason for what we do is almost, if not as important as what we do. I think coffins are selfish because we make them for one function: for a dead body. We don't make them to serve as homes for tiny creatures thousands of years from now.
I'm also not trying to say that any living thing is more important than a manmade or nonliving thing. I would take more of a utilitarian approach to the situation. If the benefit of killing an organism outweighs the detriment, then the killing of the organism is justified.
We need to ask ourselves in which situation is the tree best used, as a tree or as a coffin? In order to figure this out we ask ourselves, what is the function of a tree? That is to say, what makes trees special; what do they do better than any other type of plant? Trees create oxygen, provide food, and hold together the soil with their roots. But these are things that other plants can do just as well, if not better. What makes trees unique, I think, is their unsupassed ability to create habitat for animals. One tree alone is an entire ecosystem. A tree can support a very diverse amount of life, from microorganisms to insects to birds to mammals. And when you add many trees, it becomes a very different environment than that of an isolated tree; it becomes a forest. Forests have unsurpassed ability to sustain a wide range of life both plant and animal: Rainforests easily have the highest rates of biodiversity, significantly more than any other type of ecosystem. And I assure you that biodiversity is in fact a good thing. Sadly, rainforests are being cut down at alarming rates.
So now that we have uncovered the function of a tree, let us uncover the function of a coffin. Coffins do in fact provide a home for insects and microorganisms (after the wood stain and its various chemicals has eroded away into the soil). However, fallen trees provide a much more suitable home for decomposers, seeing as how decomposers have been making their homes in fallen trees for a few hundred million years. Therefore, the function of a coffin is not to provide a home for decomposers. Coffins provide a home for the dead and decomposing. What it is that coffins do best is preserving and protecting human bodies.
Now that we know the function of the tree and the coffin, we can answer the big question: In which case is the wood best used? Which use of the resources is more important? Then we can figure out whether the use of coffins is moral or not.
Keep in mind this is a situational thing; I'm not saying that we should never cut down trees. I'm saying in order for the cutting down of trees to be justified, the pros have to outweigh the cons.
Been away for a bit, but sneaking back in.
Gaming on: PS4, PC, 3DS. Got a Switch! Mainly to play Smash
Whatever option costs my family the least amount of money.
I don't really care.
I'd say, let the state bury my body/cremate it, whatever they do...
and just have a funeral with a picture at someones house with some awesome food.