David M. Payne

We had an article in the local paper a little while back that talked about the sad state of affairs of one of the local cemeteries, and what should be done. Most of the replies in the letters to the editor were along the lines of what a disgrace it was to let this cemetery fall into such disrepair. I took a different tack on the subject, as usual, slightly expanded below.

"It’s sad that there is so much good land tied up in cemeteries, and of course it will only get worse over time. With so many people and religions of the world putting so much importance on the dead their funeral's and burials, one has to wonder where it will all end up. At the current rate of population growth, (which in part is also spurred on by many religions) we can envision the day when there will be more land dedicated to the dead than the living. At this rate the day may come when we will have to live on Mars, because all the habitable land on earth will be set aside for cemeteries.
Instead of using this land to plant crops, we plant dead bodies that are full of deadly chemicals that only add to the contamination of the earth. In fact if you were to pour out onto the land used for cemeteries, all the chemicals used to preserve bodies buried there, you'd get arrested for polluting the ground! Outside of the funeral business, who really benefits from this arcane practice? I know that many would say they want to be able to visit with their relatives, but they aren’t there, only what is left of their corpses are there. So why do religions have such a big stake in the practice of burying the dead? When one dies, what ever makes one a person leaves the body, and that’s true whether you believe in God and heaven or hell or not. So why do we have this fixation with using up good land to plant dead people in?
I know that I’d like to be cremated when I die and have my ashes put into the bottom of a hole with a tree planted on top of my remains. That way in death I’d give back life and give anyone who wanted to visit my remains some shade. Isn’t that a better answer these days than wasting valuable land to “Honor” the dead? Lets honor them with life instead."

This post was above was published as a letter to the editors in my local paper, third letter down, but there is no way to have discussions about it there, so I thought I'd post it here. Here is a link to the page it's on in the Reno Gazette-Journal here, for those of you who are interested in some of the other responses to the article that elicited the letters. I don't know how long the link will be good, but it works today.

David