Why do people care about corpses so much

Honouring the dead&preserving the globe for the coming generations are acts of respect for humans separated from us in a temporal way.

If we hold that ALL humans have equal worth, it is not unreasonable that there are certain acts of behaving that are not morally defensible towards people separated from us either spatially or temporally.

It does not follow they should be treated "equally" as those we are in contact with, since that might well be impossible.

 

The answer is more than simple. It once was a person, and that's something that's hard not to keep in mind.

 

The person exists in the realm of your memories. It's hard to disconnect from that realm, isn't it?

 

In that case, I'm extremely misinformed. :tongue:

 

Insofar elephant graveyards exist, they are most likely the sad remains of large scale poaching.

 

As an afterthought, there is also the reason for a wake: The chance that the person isn't really dead and might wake up!! This used to happen. In fact part of what started a frenzy in Europe, I think in the 17-1800s sometime, was when a graveyard was exposed in a flood, and scratch marks were found inside of one or more coffins. After this, a number of systems were developed that would allow a buried person to alert the gravekeepers that he or she is still alive. I know that one system consisted of a bell mounted above the grave, and a string run down into the coffin.

Even today we have rare cases of declarations of death that are in error.

 

I believe it's true, but it's still funny! :rofl:

 

As reported on The History Channel; I am pretty sure that it was on History's Mysteries.

I tried to spot a link and didn't see one but will look again later when I have more time.

[Edit] Well, before logging out I make a quick wiki check, which led to this:
"Wakes held today come from ancient customs of keeping watch over the deceased hoping that life would return."
http://www.wyfda.org/basics_2.html [Broken]

But the story that I heard included quite a bit of detail and would be worth... digging up.

 

Many funeral rituals, have a great deal to do with controlling disease. Limiting who may handle the corpse, and how quickly the decedent is buried, reduced the spread of disease.
Before embalming practices, odor and fluids were a real problem, so all religion aside, it was best to quickly remove the body from the living area. Several religions used corpse sitters, someone who's job it was to remain with the corpse until it was interred. This kept people from coming in contact with the body, and kept more then a few comatose people from being buried alive.

 

Of course, wakes no longer serve the same purpose since embalming ensures the person is dead before they are buried.

And, I think Evo explained it well, that there are numerous rituals and beliefs that lead to quite varied opinions about how a corpse should be treated and what is considered respectful. Keep in mind that some of the respect is not just for the deceased person but for the living relatives of that person and their beliefs.

There are people who don't feel any strong attachment to a dead body, and are perfectly comfortable with things like donating any and all useable organs for transplants, or donating their entire body to a medical school for the gross anatomy labs. Although, in the latter case, we do require that everyone who has access to the cadaver labs treat them with respect, and at the end of the course, a memorial ceremony is held.