It's a pleasure knowing that there are rational people on this site. Even if they are a rare treat.

You can use that bible to support anything pro or con. Read up on King Saul. Not only did he commit suicide, but the people of Jabesh rescued his body - even if it was sans head - from the Phillistines, cremated it and held a proper funeral for him. God did not smite the people of Jabesh, nobody made a ruckus over this cremation or that Saul had committed suicide, in the first place. I guess, there's a time and a place for everything, after all.

Mr. Kaniuk wants to die with dignity. I fail to see what cremation has to do with dying with dignity. Cremation is just another way of disposing of the body as is burial in the ground or burial at sea or having the body cast into a lime pit. To choose cremation out of Zionist motives-to make more land available for the Zionist enterprise-is macabre.

mister you are pathetic and incoherent. for each of so called secular violence there are hundreds of religious blasphemous incidents starting with the big lie of shabat and jerusalem holliness.

Well said Yoram - unfortunately it will take many years before the bigots and the ignorant loose their influence in this country in order for us achieve a real democracy .

he was not subject to actual burials such as the partriarchs and their wives were in tombs. Saul was so bad that his throne was given to another line in another tribe, David of Judah. Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. A lot of bad kings and queens have a similar un-orthodox outcome for their remains. Queen Jezebel was so wicked she was devoured by dogs. Where is the throne of David that the Bible said would continue to exist until Shiloh (Messiah) comes? THOSE kings and queens are buried in tombs, even to this day. The Prophet Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch took Princess Tia Tephe to Northern Ireland to establish the throne of David there when the King of Judah was taken captive and his eyes put out. The Bible says there will be four overturns of the throne of David before Shiloh comes. Jerusalem to Northern Ireland was one. Nothern Ireland to Scotland was two. Scotland to London was three. The fourth will be when the throne returns to Jerusalem. The Kings and Queens of that line are preserved in tombs, not cremated. The kings who were cremated by Moab which caused the nation to end as a nation were probably Jews who were Jews in their hearts, since the cremation of the remains of heathen kings is about as important and the cremation of people who are not Jews in their hearts. The cremation of the Jews and Christians in Europe in WWII who were Jews in their hearts was a grief to God. But nothing is too hard for the Lord. He can resurrect bodies from ashes and the jaws of dogs and dog poop the devoured body of Queen Jezebel became. Cremation will not deter resurrection to heaven or to hell. Avoiding cremation is a preference of God for his people that many ignore, just as people ignore the condemnation of cutting down trees and decorating them with silver and gold like the heathen do that Jeremiah says God hates. How many people who have Christmas trees know God hates that? Even the ones who read the Bible pretend it does not say that, except for a very few.

King David, however, is buried in a tomb even to this day. You will find it near Jerusalem in the City of David. It is one of the holiest sites in Judaism. People worship there everyday in separate rooms for men and women who can see the sarcaphagus from either room. It is one of the holiest places I have been to. You should go there and see how respected a body of a dead king of the caliber of David should be.

They say they are being cremated to save money and effort on funeral expenses, spare relatives from having to make a fuss over their death, etc. They don't realize that the funeral is for the benefit of the survivors, not for them. I have a dear friend who thought this way. I had to grieve his death alone at home because there was no funeral. There is no grave to visit him, either.

You are nothing more than a bible-thumping phony and a hypocrite! Not that I'd wish such a horror on Judaism, but why haven't you converted, if you're a Jew at heart? Are you maybe scared of what your Rabbi Yeshua might do to you or do you simply want it both ways just in case? Of course, if you really look to cover all your bases, get on that Koran. You could go wild. Wouldn't you simply want to go and play "Voice in the desert?" The Gobi would be good, but since you're so close to Death Valley, it'll do in a pinch. You prove every day what's not in your head, but who are you and what the hell do you know about what was, is and isn't in other people's hearts and what god does and doesn't "think?" To refer to what happened to Jews in the death camps as "cremation" is a technical travesty of unspeakable proportions. Going along with your - god forgive me for this one - logic, are you saying that, in contrast to those who perished at Babi Yar, the Jews whose bodies were burned like so many old tires at Auschwitz, Sobibor, etc. etc. were not really Jews at heart, who, sort of like Saul, were not deserving of decent funerals? Just as an aside, that David may have been one hell of a king and politician, but as a man he was nothing to brag about, was he? As for your babble about that Jerusalem - Ireland - Scotland -England axis of "Davidian thronery", I won't even go there or my language would get so bad, Ynet would censor me. Let me just say this for the fun of it: If the Mormons ever round up those ten Lost Tribes which they have roaming all over the Americas and convince them to make aliyah, there'll be standing room only in Israel. Gold and silver on Christmas trees? No wonder criminals break into people's houses. Why did it take me this long to find out that they're after the gold and silver on the trees, while I've been deluding myself into believing that they were after the presents under those trees. Of course, I didn't have a clue that those tacky things on the trees were gold and silver, either. Another instance of live and learn. Oh, could you, maybe give me a reference to those trees in your bible for a better understanding of the situation? As for the transgression against god for cutting them down, you can relax. Most of those trees these days are plastic. Anything to please god. Do they actually allow you to walk around freely in public or have padded cells now have pc's?

You said: "I intentionally and most of the time refrain from making reference to particulars of which I know even less." And yet you claim to know what is in the mind of G-D, in contradiction to what is revealed in scripture. Do you hear voices in your head?

As much as I disagree with sk in these talkbacks, he has hit the nail on the head in post #38. People who choose cremation for themselves and their loved ones are also in denial of the reality of death. No funeral, no casket, no grave, makes it easier to pretend that the departed has gone "on vacation." sammy, I am sorry for your loss.

Now who is really selfish???? You'd deny your friend his last wish, so you wouldn't have to grieve alone and have a grave to visit? My husband, a Korean combat vet, could have been buried for free in a military cemetery with all the hoopla that goes with it. That, however, was exactly what he didn't want. He wanted to be cremated without a funeral. My daughter, however, contacted somebody and he had some sort of a military memorial service. I even have that triangularly-folded flag. What I didn't know was all the charitable work he had done. There was an entire contingent of Boy Scouts with their little pennants and uniforms, 5 of whom, coming from single-parent families, spoke with tears in their eyes of their having been able to go to various camps and jamborees for years, because my husband had paid their way. There was an entire class of 10 year old, handicapped children for whom he had been buying Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa presents since they had started school. I didn't even know about these things, and he would have been embarrassed for this to have become public during his lifetime. When I was given his trust, there were two items, one of which, was a poem to me. This is the poem: "Now that I've come to the end of my days, And the sun has set for me, I want no rites in a gloom-filled room, Why mourn for a soul set free? Miss me a little, but not too long, And not with your head bowed low. Remember the love and joys we shared. Miss me, but let me go. For this is a journey we all must take And each must go it alone. It's all a part of the Maker's plan, A step on the road to home. When you get lonely and heavy of heart, And the grief seems too much to bear, Remember the love and joys we shared. Miss me, but do let me go." This was a rough, tough, US Marine. There is no funeral or grave that would ever have left me with more of his feelings for me. I’ve made a beautiful little memory garden for him in our back yard, where I and the people he loved the most can sit and listen to the splashing of a little fountain, a sound he so loved. I did with his ashes exactly as he had asked. Oh, and his cremation had been had been paid for years before he died (as now is mine.) Would you call this man selfish?

Maybe you need to read that tb again. “I’d bet” and “I think” do not state facts. They imply opinions and/or suppositions. My god is unknowable. Scriptures, be they old, new or anybody’s, are words written by men with agendas. In contrast to me, some of the writers of those holy books do say that people heard voices, spoke with angels and saw god. There’s Gen. 32.30 and quite a few more along the same lines. I really like Exodus 33:11 where somebody says that god talked with Moses face to face, just like a friend. That’s nice. But 9 verses later, god supposedly said that you’ll die, if you see him. Which is it? Now who’s confused here? If you believe that almighty god talked to people, shouldn’t you at least expect that he should have kept his stories straight and saw to it that whoever took “dictation,” got it right? But then again, there’s all that stuff in Gen 6, all the smiting and stoning, ridiculous conceptions and more magic tricks than Criss Angel, David Copperfield and Houdini put together, and it’s no wonder whole armies of sages and experts are needed to explain things and make them palatable. And if they won’t go for it, it’s off to hell. Of course, they weren’t given any better sense than I, but they have the dress and credentials from who knows whom for their authority and they do make a good living at it. There’s nothing like a definite “god said or else” to keep stay in business and bunches of folks in line. Just look around you and see how far humanity has come with everybody’s “god said.” Never fear, though. I suspect that a whole new and improved “god said’s” is being cooked up as I type. After all, why let the Jews, Christians and Muslims have a lock on something so lucrative? If somebody’s Rabbi Yeshua could “fulfill” the Old Testament, and somebody else’s Mohammed could expand on it and Rabbi Yeshua, surely somebody can top all three. As far as I’m concerned, they can peddle that god talked to the tooth fairy. It doesn’t mean that I have to believe it, no matter how many dire predictions and prophesies as to my demise may come with the package. I believe in an almighty, unknowable god, the good sense and the conscience he gave me, and that is it. I have lived a reasonably decent life by those so far, and I’m willing to die by them. If somebody needs a tooth fairy, that’s fine. Just don’t expect me to profess to see logic where there isn’t any.

consider. Buy a cemetery plot and a casket and have your half of your husband's ashes buried in it. When you die your children can open the casket and put you in it with your husband's ashes over your heart. Princess Margaret should not have been cremated, but chose that so that she could fit into her father's coffin at his feet.

out a gravesite for your husband's ashes? My sister Martha found such a lovely place for her husband next to a pine tree. She put a marble bench next to the gravestone that was carved with "Martha and Jim, together forever" for her to sit on when she visits the gravesite. You would think that they had a wonderful 30 year marriage. She wears his Purdue class ring and his wedding ring on a chain around her neck. There are photos all around the house as if he made her happy. All he did was scream and swear and was too sick to work for 23 years and call their children horrible names. But Martha loved him and in death, she cherished his being with her as if he was the most priceless treasure on earth because he was the father of her children. She did not have to go out on the street and have a family because that angry sick man married her when no one else wanted a wife with coke bottle glasses and dimples for breasts. he never told her she was flat chested or ugly. In the end, he called her an angel when he was dying and she had to find a way to pay $600,000. in medical bills for two weeks of hospital care. He called her an angel and told her that he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ because she never left him when he deserved for her to leave him. He hated God for decades before that. He raged in his anger that the Lord would let him be so sick he could not work. Martha absorbed it all, but when he died, she got mean like you. She didn't have anyone to call her a sausage anymore.

then why not do like the Mexicans do in the American Southwest? They rarely can afford a casket funeral, so they raise money with carwashes and other fund raising events to pay for the funeral. They do the same with weddings. The invitations are full of names of people who donated to finance the event, along with the wedding party information.

we live in a democratic society - that's what they teach n school. then let us decide in which way we want to be buried.

preferred. That is not selfishness or humility. It is a lack of God's preference in the decision which is anyone's right. By the way, all the good deeds in the world will not get a person into heaven. No one is good enough. It takes a saviour: the one who came or the same one who is coming. Most of the US Marines, sailors, airmen, and soldiers I know of who died opted for a government paid headstone at death in a Veterans' Cemetery, preferrably Arlington. That is a reminder to the public of the great sacrifices they made which scattering one's ashes over the Grand Canyon like US Senator Barry Goldwater did, does not make. But that is everyone's choice. My brutal mother cremated the cherished body of her husband against the wishes of the Lord she claimed to worship whose word she claimed to read and obey. But when shown how sacred the human body is to the Lord, she burned it up like it was trash and would have thrown the ashes away if I had not insisted on a burial in a cemetery at my own expense. She never visited the grave until she was put there herself.

#45 I don't want a grave and have the maggots do a number on me. My ashes will go into the lake, my kids who will be cremated, too, are more than ok with it, and that's that. If somebody needs a grave and a headstone to remember me, I haven’t been very memorable in the first place and maybe I shouldn’t be remembered. Do you honestly believe that I don’t remember or think of my mother, because her grave is thousands of miles away and I can’t see her headstone? My behavior honors her a lot more than looking at a few square feet of dirt or at a slab of marble. #46 Trust me! Based on what you describe, I have nothing in common with your sister Martha, be that with respect to temperament, looks, or anything else. Were you implying that I turned mean in my old age? I'm now the same, sweet li'l ol' thang I've always been. Then again, if somebody had hung me with medical bills coming out of the kazoo, I, too, may have muttered a few choice expletives under my breath. Actually, it wouldn't have happened, because I wouldn't have been married to someone as irresponsible and uncaring as to do that to me. I can't relate to holding still for abuse; verbal or otherwise. That's not in my repertoire. I do have to chuckle just a little. If my hubby had called me an angel on his death bed - especially then - he would damn' well better have stuck around long enough to have spat out whatever stunt of his I had, obviously, missed over the years, and I might have just flipped a switch or pulled a plug for that one. (See, I keep telling you that I'm sweet.) How or why would anyone "go out on the street" to have or find a family? Is that another one of those California things? To be honest and this might come close, a couple of years ago, I did drag two guys home, when I needed some work done in the yard. One stood on a corner with a “Will work for Sex” sign, the other one with a “Will work for Food” piece of cardboard. I’m sad to tell you that before I could get anything out of either one, they ran off together to San Francisco, hehehehe. And if you believe this, let me tell you about this bridge I have for sale….. Sweetie and I didn't get married to have a family. We got married because we had fallen in love and it seemed the thing to do. The fact that being married turned out to be so much fun and provided both of us with an unlimited and exclusive supply of, well, never mind, was a natural progression. Those 2 additional family members, tickled sh--tless though we were over their impending arrival, one day and out of the blue simply made their beginnings known, especially to me, in the mornings and whenever I got a whiff of a hamburger. I'm looking around for pictures of my hubby. There's one down here next to one of my father and another one in the bedroom upstairs. The rest are in a drawer with all the other photos. Class and wedding rings are in the box with the ashes. If my kids want them, fine. If not, they - the rings, not the kids - can go into the lake, too. I’ll no longer need them. Why would either one of us have hated god? We thought he was amazingly good to us. He still is to me. In closing, I only have one question: Why, exactly, did you post this excerpt from, “Martha’s House of Horrors” to me? Am I to look for the video on Youtube, buy the book or what?

I'm truly sorry to hear your story. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have a brutal mother. For your own sake, I hope that you have forgiven her. Bearing grudges makes for a miserable life. I know that the VA would have buried my husband, etc. etc., but that's not what he wanted. I don't know who goes where after death or on the basis of what. Trying to second-guess an unknowable god seems like a pretty useless undertaking to me and so, I just hope for the best and count on his mercy and love for one of his creatures.

Your comment about remembering your mother is absolutely right on target. My first husband was buried in Israel because he was an Israeli (I won't even get started on the subject of American Jews who live their lives in this country and then want to be buried in Israel when they're dead and of no use to anybody). However, my husband wanted to be cremated because he was an atheist and thought the whole idea of cemeteries was an obscene waste of perfectly good space. So the only reason why I agreed to bury him in Israel was because of a request by his family. But the fact that he's buried thousands of miles away certainly has no impact on whether or not I think about him. In fact, both my parents are buried in a cemetery that's about a 40-minute car ride from my house, yet I never go there because I don't need a headstone to remind me that my parents are gone.

being eaten by worms: parasites start leaving the body after death, if they can. That is how police forensics can tell how long a person has been dead: by WHICH bugs have left the body. It is not likely you will FEEL the gradual decay of the body since the spirit goes back to God and the soul leaves the body, too. The soul goes to a place of comfort or a place of torment that is not connected with the physical body until the physical body is resurrected and reunited with the soul before the final judgment which is eternal or the final place of peace with God is given.

medical bills. A lot of older men who have never married look for a meal ticket in a younger professional wife who can take care of them. Martha made the best of it, but turned into a mean person after he died without a man around to keep her humble.

I'm boycotting these TBs because of the censorship policy.

Doesn't cremation create greenhouse gases and cause global warming? Just asking.

iam aware of the body in the life only as after death the body is nothing ,it is important for the family or the society as part of the life ,clear inviroment and good memory .. but iam aware more of my soul as iam a beleaver i know the soule will never die ,will never burned will never burried .. so i leave my body after the death soon to the family or the society or to the fortun but i am aware for my soul now and in the second life after death ,not spoiling my soul it is worth to take care of it worth to me for ever ,wort to god who creat it from the zero till for no end