death and rituals
 

I just spent the last week being involved with the wake and funeral of my wife's grandmother. While I was sitting around the wake for 4 hours I had time to reflect on how odd a custom we have surrounding death.

We prepare the dead body so it's okay to look at and then we hang out with it and chat for a few hours. Weird....anyone have any insight to other cultures death rites and rituals? Any insight into how ours got started?

wow we are having a whole discussion in my Cultures class about that next week.... so i'll get back to you

I think you're supposed to talk about the person, and remeber them or something...

I think funerals are a waste of time. When I die you can throw my lifeless body in the middle of the road and let it be run over 50 times by a huge semi truck for all I care.

Most people need the closure of a funeral. Almost like a last visit or something. I'll never understand it.

I hope my family resists spending money on a typical funeral when I kick it. But I suppose they will do whatever they deem best without my input. Unless I haunt their asses.


I think there are some silly ways to handle death. Some cultures celebrate it, some mourn it, some don't really acknowledge it. I can't beleive how many different ways people handle death. I hope I find a good one.

I'm morning the death of the old TFP
and celebrating it's life too.

And that's how I do it for people too.
You were blessed to know them, memories are fond.

damn Rogue...you sure have a way with words.

The weirdest thing I have heard occured to a friend of my. His grandmother had passed away, and so his mother decided to go back home to be at the funeral.

The whole celebration of this individual occured but what was odd was what happened at the end. They placed the body on top a flammable stand, and the cremation began.

Those who attended the celebration watched the entire cremation nearby.

Would you want to witness someone's cremation? Not me!

When I die, I want to start a new funeral tradition.

I want my body to be stuffed with explosives. I will then be flung from a trebuchet (similar to a catapult). At the highest point in my trajectory, the explosives will detonate (timer? remote control? I haven't worked that part out yet), raining gibs down on the crowd below. True, people will not like it, but they will always remember me.

An accelerometer is what you want. The sudden movement up will start it up, and when you stop moving up(highest point of trajectory), it'll set off the explosives.

i dont know of other cultures, but it is so pointless for us to be doing this. We were born here, we should die and decay here. It makes no sense to have your lifeless, worthless body kept up in a box that is sealed off.

atleast give back the the environment, hell, what are you gonna do with it?

a funeral has more to do with the living mourning their loss
than the person who died. after all they're dead
I've never seen the point myself, as I mourn inwardly and alone
however most people like to be with other loved ones for support, sympathy, pity, or whatever personal needs they have.
when I have to go to a funeral most people think I'm cold and unfeeling, which couldn't be further from the truth.
I just don't know what to say to people in mourning because I'd rather not be spoken to in my own grief
I hope at my funeral people do what ever they feel they need to
after all it's a party for them, not me.....I'm dead.

Funerals are overrated. The person who has died can't feel anything.

If you(we) really care for someone, let's show it while they are still alive.

If someone dies, just cremate/bury the body quickly and be done with it. No elaborate rituals and such. Atleast until the body is desposed off.

I dont know who said it but "Tradition is the illusion of permanence"
I reckon funerals are a certain way (like alot of other things) simply because our fathers etc did things that way.

Lotsa people say shit like they want a party when they die so my Q is this: do youz know anyone that actually had a party instead of a funeral when they died??

Magipe0001: A New Orleans funeral or an Irish wake fit that description pretty well. Usually involved lots of music, some drinking, and lots of laughing. It's a celebration of the departed's life, not mourning their death.

And when I go, I plan to have a bar at my wake. Why not? You can't take it with you, can you?

we are all energy, our useless energy when we die should be given back to the universe and our loved ones that are left behind should party and enjoy what was our life.

wallowing in sadness comes naturally to us.
we love to wallow in negativity and feel sorry for ourselves
- among other things, of course.

the ones that are an excuse for a party obviously work better.

I had a sub in my human sexuality class a while back.. Happened to be the guy who teaches the Sociology of Marriage and Family class. I can't remember which country it was, but he said that in some areas of the world, when the father of a family dies, the oldest son is to eat his genitals.

Apparently, in that culture, it is believed that eating the genitals of your parent gives you their knowledge and wisdom and such. When the mother dies, the oldest daughter is to do the same thing. I wish I could remember what country it was. All of this was seriously told to us, so please, don't think I'm yanking anyone's crank. I don't think I'd want to eat my mom's bits though, personally. :eek:

Death is overrated, I'd just rather not partake in a funeral unless absolutely necessary,
At mine... they better be playing some heavy metal, get rid of the up-tightness, lose the suits and partying or else I'd get extremely pissed.

I think that it's worse to live a long life, yet not truly live in all those years, than it is to truly live for a short period of time. There was a relatively young reporter who died in Iraq not that long ago of an aneurism. His brother, who spoke at his funeral, said that he was not really upset, because his brother had lived more in his 30 something years than most people do in their entire life. Funerals and such should really be celebrations of the dead one's life, not mourning because of their death, although this might be hard to do. I think the dead person would rather see his or her family and friends remembering them fondly rather than being upset.

Funerals and funeral customs are not for the dead,

They are for the living.

As human animals, we use ceremony to cope with the big events of life, including death. Buddhist monks will sit with the dead waiting for the spirit to leave the body before the person is *really* dead. The aboriginies of the South Pacific would eat their dead relatives so that they would achieve immortality by living on in the tribe.

Today we enbalm and preserve our dead in concrete vaults and rust proof caskets so that they don't actually 'die', even though our brains know that they are dead.

The ancient people of what is now Turkey used to build these huge scaffolds upon which all of the dead of the town would be placed, for vultures to come and eat from. The vultures were seen to be emissaries from the underworld and sort of a thumbs up from their god/s that all was well in the world.

Still, can you imagine the stench?