My next topic of ramblings thoughts might seem morbid to some, but I assure you it is anything but, by the time I conclude them. However, I must start at a point of deep sorrow, as this is where my initial thoughts began.
It was at the funeral service of a family member of a very close friend of mine, that my mind naturally began to run through events of this person's life and the impact they have had on my own. Thankfully, I have not attended many funeral services before, I believe the last one, was after the passing of my great-grandmother, and that was when I was still young. Attending a funeral as an adult however, my thoughts then of course began to bring into question of my own mortality. Not that I am planning on leaving this world any time soon, but the fact that I now have friends whom their parents are reaching old age, really hit home.
As the casket was slowly lowered into the Earth, I couldn't help but think to myself, "When I die, that is not where I want my final resting place to be, buried beneath the cold, hard dirt. That is not where the human spirit, or soul, can finally find it's freedom. I want it released, returned, back into the cosmos". And what better way to free the spirit from the body than with a roaring fire!
From a religious stand point, cremation seems to have many negative connotations associated with it, maybe because it has many ties with pagan traditions. This got me thinking; between the two alternatives, why is one practised more than the other?
For me, cremation conjures up imagery of great pyres. Maybe it is encoded genetically into me, but there is something that feels oddly satisfying with such a structure. I can see how my ancestors would have seen a great pillar of fire and smoke, reaching up to the heavens, to deliver the soul of the deceased to the gods.
In the three popular religions, cremation is very much discouraged (Christianity and Judaism) or even forbidden altogether (Islam).
In Christianity, the entire belief system is founded on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the belief that in order to be resurrected, the body must still be intact. Of course, if God was all powerful, the lack of a physical body should not be enough to prevent a resurrection. I understand the symbolism of the body being returned to the Earth from where it was originally taken, but why stop there? That is like still believing the Earth is at the centre of the Universe. Surely it is the Universe where the body should be returned to.
Like Christianity, Judaism also believes the body to be an important part in the resurrection and although cremation is not banned, recent events involving the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, can make cremation a very unsettling thought for the people of the Jewish faith.
In Islam, it is believed that the body is sacred and that "breaking a dead's bones is like breaking it as if he is alive", so the idea of cremating a Muslim is no different to harming or killing a Muslim, "And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell to abide therein, and that Wrath and the Curse of Allah are upon him, and a great punishment is prepared for him".
On the other side of the argument, both Hinduism and Buddhism practice cremation. Like the Christian idea of returning the body to the Earth, Hinduism believes in returning the body to the Universe, and that the body is made up of the five elements (air, water, fire, earth and space) and that cremation releases these elements back into the Universe to be used again.
I am not a religious person, but this common theme of a death and rebirth cycle has its foundations in science. The Universe is in a constant state of destruction and creation and all we have to do is look at the stars to understand our place in it, for it is in the destructive power of stars that our own origins begin. All of the known naturally occurring elements in the Universe, the elements that make life on Earth possible, are a result of when a star dies, in what is known as a "supernova".
The life-cycle of a star begins in a giant gas cloud nebula, also know as a stellar nursery, where the gaseous clumps within the nebula begin to form around a centre of gravity, eventually forming a protostar. The ability of the new born star to create all of these elements, depends on the size of the star, as it begins to grow and expand.
A nebula is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, and it is a combination of these two elements that the stars begin their life, hydrogen being the most simplest element in the Universe, and helium being the second. And it is from the nuclear fusion in stars of these most basic of elements, that all the remaining elements are created.
A star will spend most of its life burning through its supply of hydrogen, and in the process of nuclear fusion, creating helium, but it's not until near the end of its life that the other elements are created, and can only be created in the very large stars such as a red giant, as the star begins to exhaust its hydrogen supply and begins to rapidly expand and increase in temperature. Eventually all the hydrogen at the star's core is used up and it will begin to collapse in on itself, leaving behind a hydrogen and helium shell.
As the core continues to collapse and the temperature increases, now the helium nuclei begin to undergo nuclear fusion, creating carbon and oxygen molecules. This in turn leads to the exhaustion of the helium and the beginning of carbon nuclear fusion, creating four new elements; magnesium, neon, sodium and aluminium, while leaving a shell of carbon. This process is repeated again and again, creating more and more elements, as the star continues to collapse, all the while getting hotter and hotter.
The final stage is when there is nothing left but an iron core at the star's centre, with the shell layers of all the elements covering it. When the star reaches this stage of its life-cycle, and there is no more energy being released to counter-act the force of the star's own gravity, the star implodes in a supernova.
This nuclear fusion process only creates the first 26 elements. The remainder, like gold, copper, uranium, are created in the supernova itself. And when the star goes supernova, and the star is ripped apart and all those elements are spread out amongst the newly formed nebula, the debris is used to form new stars, and planets, like that of Earth and our own solar system.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” - Carl Sagan
So from a scientific view point, why not recreate this universal cycle of life and death with a cremation, releasing those very elements, forged in the heart of stars back into the Universe that first created them. Why leave this mortal realm with a whimper, when you can go out, like a supernova, with a bang, and return to the Universe to begin the cycle all over again.
"Our story is the story of the universe. Every piece of everyone, of everything you love and everything you hate, of the thing you hold most precious, was assembled by the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths. And when you die, those pieces will be returned to the universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth." - Brian Cox
It was at the funeral service of a family member of a very close friend of mine, that my mind naturally began to run through events of this person's life and the impact they have had on my own. Thankfully, I have not attended many funeral services before, I believe the last one, was after the passing of my great-grandmother, and that was when I was still young. Attending a funeral as an adult however, my thoughts then of course began to bring into question of my own mortality. Not that I am planning on leaving this world any time soon, but the fact that I now have friends whom their parents are reaching old age, really hit home.
As the casket was slowly lowered into the Earth, I couldn't help but think to myself, "When I die, that is not where I want my final resting place to be, buried beneath the cold, hard dirt. That is not where the human spirit, or soul, can finally find it's freedom. I want it released, returned, back into the cosmos". And what better way to free the spirit from the body than with a roaring fire!
From a religious stand point, cremation seems to have many negative connotations associated with it, maybe because it has many ties with pagan traditions. This got me thinking; between the two alternatives, why is one practised more than the other?
For me, cremation conjures up imagery of great pyres. Maybe it is encoded genetically into me, but there is something that feels oddly satisfying with such a structure. I can see how my ancestors would have seen a great pillar of fire and smoke, reaching up to the heavens, to deliver the soul of the deceased to the gods. In the three popular religions, cremation is very much discouraged (Christianity and Judaism) or even forbidden altogether (Islam).
In Christianity, the entire belief system is founded on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the belief that in order to be resurrected, the body must still be intact. Of course, if God was all powerful, the lack of a physical body should not be enough to prevent a resurrection. I understand the symbolism of the body being returned to the Earth from where it was originally taken, but why stop there? That is like still believing the Earth is at the centre of the Universe. Surely it is the Universe where the body should be returned to.
Like Christianity, Judaism also believes the body to be an important part in the resurrection and although cremation is not banned, recent events involving the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, can make cremation a very unsettling thought for the people of the Jewish faith.
In Islam, it is believed that the body is sacred and that "breaking a dead's bones is like breaking it as if he is alive", so the idea of cremating a Muslim is no different to harming or killing a Muslim, "And whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell to abide therein, and that Wrath and the Curse of Allah are upon him, and a great punishment is prepared for him".
On the other side of the argument, both Hinduism and Buddhism practice cremation. Like the Christian idea of returning the body to the Earth, Hinduism believes in returning the body to the Universe, and that the body is made up of the five elements (air, water, fire, earth and space) and that cremation releases these elements back into the Universe to be used again.
I am not a religious person, but this common theme of a death and rebirth cycle has its foundations in science. The Universe is in a constant state of destruction and creation and all we have to do is look at the stars to understand our place in it, for it is in the destructive power of stars that our own origins begin. All of the known naturally occurring elements in the Universe, the elements that make life on Earth possible, are a result of when a star dies, in what is known as a "supernova".
The life-cycle of a star begins in a giant gas cloud nebula, also know as a stellar nursery, where the gaseous clumps within the nebula begin to form around a centre of gravity, eventually forming a protostar. The ability of the new born star to create all of these elements, depends on the size of the star, as it begins to grow and expand. A nebula is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, and it is a combination of these two elements that the stars begin their life, hydrogen being the most simplest element in the Universe, and helium being the second. And it is from the nuclear fusion in stars of these most basic of elements, that all the remaining elements are created.
A star will spend most of its life burning through its supply of hydrogen, and in the process of nuclear fusion, creating helium, but it's not until near the end of its life that the other elements are created, and can only be created in the very large stars such as a red giant, as the star begins to exhaust its hydrogen supply and begins to rapidly expand and increase in temperature. Eventually all the hydrogen at the star's core is used up and it will begin to collapse in on itself, leaving behind a hydrogen and helium shell.
As the core continues to collapse and the temperature increases, now the helium nuclei begin to undergo nuclear fusion, creating carbon and oxygen molecules. This in turn leads to the exhaustion of the helium and the beginning of carbon nuclear fusion, creating four new elements; magnesium, neon, sodium and aluminium, while leaving a shell of carbon. This process is repeated again and again, creating more and more elements, as the star continues to collapse, all the while getting hotter and hotter.
The final stage is when there is nothing left but an iron core at the star's centre, with the shell layers of all the elements covering it. When the star reaches this stage of its life-cycle, and there is no more energy being released to counter-act the force of the star's own gravity, the star implodes in a supernova.
This nuclear fusion process only creates the first 26 elements. The remainder, like gold, copper, uranium, are created in the supernova itself. And when the star goes supernova, and the star is ripped apart and all those elements are spread out amongst the newly formed nebula, the debris is used to form new stars, and planets, like that of Earth and our own solar system.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” - Carl Sagan
So from a scientific view point, why not recreate this universal cycle of life and death with a cremation, releasing those very elements, forged in the heart of stars back into the Universe that first created them. Why leave this mortal realm with a whimper, when you can go out, like a supernova, with a bang, and return to the Universe to begin the cycle all over again.
"Our story is the story of the universe. Every piece of everyone, of everything you love and everything you hate, of the thing you hold most precious, was assembled by the forces of nature in the first few minutes of the life of the universe, transformed in the hearts of stars or created in their fiery deaths. And when you die, those pieces will be returned to the universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth." - Brian Cox
