Cremation: Encyclopedia II - Cremation - Reasons for choosing cremation

Cremation - Reasons for choosing cremation

People choose cremation for a variety of reasons, including religious reasons, other personal reasons, environmental reasons, and cost. For all these reasons, more and more people are choosing cremation.

Cremation - Religious reasons in Pagan Faiths

Cremation is the usual means of burial on Patriarchal religions. The allusion is that the body rises as smoke to the domain of the Father deities in heavens. Conversely, Matriarchal religions have favoured interment of the corpse, often on fetal position, this symbolizing returning the body to Mother Earth, tomb symbolizing the uterus. Of modern Neo-Pagan religions, Ásatrú favours cremation.

Cremation - Religious reasons in Dharmic Faiths

While the Abrahamic religions do not prohibit cremation or prefer burial over cremation, the Eastern religions (i.e., Dharmic faiths) such as Buddhism and Hinduism mandate the use of cremation. However, two exceptions to cremation apply in Hinduism. For example, monks, Hijras, and children under five are buried. In Sikhism, burial is not prohibited although cremation is the preferred option. Cremation was also practised in the ancient world, being mentioned in the Old Testament and used widely in the Greek and Roman civilizations.

In Christian countries, cremation fell out of favour due to the Christian belief in the physical resurrection of the body, and as making difference on the Iron Age European pre-Christian Pagan religions, who usually cremated their dead. Beginning in the Middle Ages, rationalists and classicists began to advocate it. Much later, Sir Henry Thompson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, was the first to recommend the practice on health grounds after seeing the cremation apparatus of Professor Brunetti of Padua, Italy at the Vienna Exposition in 1873. In 1874 Thompson founded The Cremation Society of England. The society met opposition from the church, which would not allow cremation on consecrated ground, and from the government, who believed the practice to be illegal.

Cremation was forced through British law when a Welsh doctor, Dr William Price burned his infant son, named Jesus Christ, in a Pagan ritual shortly before 1883 in the historic town of Llantrisant. The doctor was a well known eccentric whose cremation ceremony was initially stopped by people coming home from church. The police returned the partially burned body of his son on condition that it would neither be buried nor burned. Later that year Dr. Price reneged on his promise and burned his son's remains. The townsfolk, unhappy with this sacrilege, went in an angry mob to burn out Dr. Price, but were turned back when they discovered only his wife armed with pistols, and that Dr Price had already left the building. This later resulted in Dr. Price's arrest and an 1884 court case, which resulted in an amendment to legalize cremation in February of that year. An Act of Parliament for the Regulation of burning of human remains, and to enable burial authorities to established crematoria was passed in 1902.

For most of its history, the Roman Catholic Church had a ban in place against cremation. It was seen as the most sacrilegious act towards the Christians and their God, not simply blaspheming, but physically declaring a disbelief in the Resurrection. In 1963 the Pope lifted the ban on cremation, and in 1966 allowed Catholic priests to officiate at cremation ceremonies. The church still officially prefers the traditional burial of the deceased. However cremation is now permitted as long as it is not done to express a refusal to believe in the resurrection of the body. Until 1997, church regulations stipulated that cremation was to take place after the funeral service has taken place.

The church still prefers that funeral services take place before cremation. Such funeral services are conducted in the same manner as those of traditional burials up to the point of committal, where the body is taken to the crematorium instead of being buried. A burial service is performed after the cremation has finished.

In 1997 the funeral rite was modified so that church funerals can take place when the body has already been cremated and the ashes were brought to the church. In such cases the ashes are placed in an urn or another worthy vessel. They are brought into the church and placed on a stand near the Easter candle. During the church service, and during the committal rite, prayers that make reference to the body are modified. Any prayers that refer to the "Body" of the deceased are replaced with "Earthly Remains."

Since the lifting of the ban, even with the official preference for burial, the church has become more and more open to the idea of cremation. Many Catholic cemeteries now provide columbarium niches for housing cremated remains as well as providing special sections for the burial of cremated remains. Columbarium niches have even been made part of church buildings. However church officials tend to discourage this practice because of concerns over what would happen to the niches if such a parish closed or decided to replace the current building.

The church does specify requirements for the reverent disposition of ashes. This means that the ashes are to be buried or entombed in an appropriate container, such as an urn. The church does not permit the scattering of ashes or keeping them at home.

Traditional Catholics have objected to the practice of allowing cremation, which they cite as one reason among others to suport their claim that the post-Vatican II church is no longer the true Catholic Church.

The Eastern Orthodox Church forbids cremation. Exceptions are made for circumstances where it may not be avoided (when civil authority demands it, or epidemics) or if it may be sought for good cause, but when a cremation is willfully chosen for no good cause by the one who is deceased, he or she is not permitted a funeral in the church and may also be permanently excluded from liturgical prayers for the departed. In Orthodoxy, cremation is a rejection of the dogma of the general resurrection, and as such is viewed harshly.

The Protestant churches approved cremation earlier than Catholic, the rationale being "God can resurrect a bowl of ashes just as well as he can do the same with dust". The development of modern crematoriums also helped to make difference on Pagan rite of burning the body on pyre. The first crematorium in Stockholm, Sweden was built 1874; in Finland, the Helsinki Lutheran Parish Union built its first modern crematorium in 1926 (still in use). In Lutheran Scandinavia, some 50 to 70 per cent of the dead are today cremated, in large towns up to 90%. Most large parishes do have crematoriums as part of their chapels, and urns are buried in the cemetary in ordinary manner, or ashes are scattered on special consecrated grounds. Some seashore parishes do have also consecrated sea areas where the ashes can be scattered.

The resurgence of cremation has also seen the resurgence of the tradition of family graves in Lutheran countries. As urns require less space than coffins, the family burial ground on the cemetary can now contain the earthly remains of the family members in many generations.

Ásatrú, Baptist Church, Buddhism, Calvinism, Christian Science, Church of England, Church of Ireland, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales, Hare Krishna, Hinduism (mandatory except for sanyasis, i.e., monks and children under five); Jainism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Liberal Judaism, Lutheranism, Methodism, Moravian Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Presbyterianism, Roman Catholicism, Salvation Army, Scottish Episcopal Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Sikhs, Society of Friends (Quakers)., Unitarian Universalism

Bahá'í Faith, Eastern Orthodox Church, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, Zoroastrianism.

Neo-Confucianism under Zhu Xi strongly discourages cremation of one's parents' corpses as unfilial.

Cremation - Other personal reasons

Some people find they prefer cremation for other reasons. For some people it is because they are not attracted to traditional burial. The thought of a long, slow decomposition process is unappealing to some, and they find that they prefer cremation for that reason.

Other people view cremation as a way of simplifying their funeral process. These people view a traditional burial as an unneeded complication of their funeral process, and thus chose cremation to make their services as simple as possible.

Cremation - Environmental reasons

Others prefer cremation for environmental reasons. Some are concerned that during bodily decomposition body fluids and embalming chemicals could contaminate the Earth. Some locations have found that long-buried bodies are now causing groundwater contamination. Arsenic, used as an embalming chemical in the 19th and early 20th centuries, has been known to cause serious pollution later on.

Another environmental concern is that traditional burial takes up a great deal of space. In a traditional burial the body is buried in a casket made from a variety of materials. In America the casket is often placed inside a concrete vault or liner before burial in the ground. While individually this may not take much room, combined with other burials it can over time cause serious space concerns. Many cemeteries, particularly in Europe and Japan as well as those in larger cities are starting to run out of space. In Tokyo for example, it is almost impossible to find a traditional funeral plot.

One item of concern has been that the exhaust systems of cremation ovens may contribute to air pollution. In response crematorium manufacturers have built computerized control systems that regulate the exhaust systems to keep crematoriums from contributing to air pollution. Additionally some crematoria remove all plastic handles and fittings from a coffin before cremation and these are disposed of separately for the same reason.

Cremation - Cost of cremation

The cost factor tends to make cremation attractive. Generally speaking, cremation costs less than traditional burial services, especially if direct cremation is chosen, in which the body is cremated as soon as legally possible without any sort of services. However, there is wide variation in the cost of cremation services, having mainly to do with the amount of service desired by the deceased or the family. A cremation can take place after a full traditional funeral service, which adds cost. The type of container used also influences cost.

Cremation makes possible the scattering of remains over an area, eliminating the need for and expense of a burial space. However, some religions such as Roman Catholicism require burial or entombment of cremated remains. Burial or entombment also adds to the cost. The price will depend on what the deceased and/or the family has chosen. Cremated remains require far less space than a traditional burial or entombment. Cremation plots or columbarium niches usually cost less than a burial plot or mausoleum crypt.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Reasons for choosing cremation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki