Cannibalism

(Just to explain beforehand...I really don't mean to sound smug or anything. But about my background, I took several medical, as well as ethics courses in university wherein we dealt with the Nuremburg Trials extensively. I do think that article is worth a glancing over, I apologize if I said it in an impolite way)

EDIT: But religiously, when does the Christian religion believe death is? (As I was explaining...the mechanics of death we are not meant to understand).

From what I've understood of the whole situation, it's that the Nazis were, surprise surprise, torturing those they captured. Unfortunately, this means most of their medical breakthroughs were in the art of torture (as was the one I mentioned)...they were trying to develop weapons of war (biological in nature, in this case)...which is knowledge we can do without. Did you have a specific breakthrough in mind? None come to my mind.


However...in regards to burial, we actually have ample burial space. Many environmentalists (etc.) are complaining about issues like this that really don't make a lot of sense (in my opinion). The human body decomposes, wood decomposes, silk decomposes...everything decomposes. I guess arguably, the metal handles/hinges on a casket don't decompose (for a long time), but there's no reason they can't be made out of wood, or something else.

So in like 200 years, everyone who's buried this year will inevitably disappear ("You are dust and to dust you shall return")...leaving room for more burials.

And as for starving people...actually, the starving people I can't argue with. But their situation is so bad, that they already resort to cannibalism for survival in places such as Africa.

 

The Yanomani people live in Brazil. They are threatened by mining, farmers,etc. but that is for another topic. They engage in cannibalism of the dead. This is documented by anthropologists that studied them. The work of Napoleon Chagnon is a good start.
They also never mention a person after they die.

 

Ah.

I was never an anthro buff S: so to me, Brazil = Africa. Haha.

^^Why people? Why not dead cattle? Lot more useful meat from a cow than a human anyway. Disease is probably a big factor.

 

Well, Catholics believe that actuall death is when you go to Hell. If you go to Heaven, you are alive again.

 

But don't take the words literally. I mean, when is the exact moment we leave this 'vessel' and depart? (Which I will be refering to herein as "Death")

I know in Catholicism, these sorts of decisions are deliberately left to the medical professionals (according to the Pope). However, there is nothing divine about the medical profession, it is a 'trial and error' sort of field. In other words, God didn't leave us any clues (according to Catholics) regarding when a person has officially 'died.'

I don't think any Christian religions are any different as they use the same religious text (or rather, depending on the denomination, several versions of the same text) as Catholics.

EDIT: And in case we're forgetting why I'm getting into this, it's because since we don't know, we err on the side of caution. (That's how most ethics are, actually. Ethics are deliberately conservative rules)

 

In one Christian religion I read about, they believe the sould and body reunite at Resurrection. That would be hard if the body is in someones belly!!

 

^^Yes, that's actually the same reason some religions oppose cremation, and organ donation.

But then it begs the question, if the body is decomposed, wouldn't it be a similar problem? What if they were buried in a cemetery where say, an atomic detonation took place 20 years after they died, completely destroying their remains? They couldn't possibly be held responsible for something like that, right? Or what if someone is an amputee? Would they be resurrected with missing limbs?

(Personally, I consider that idea to be a literal interpretation of an abstract idea; "The resurrection of the body and life everlasting" is something Christians believe in (according to the Apostles Creed) and actually I think Islam, Judaism believe the same thing (each for a different reason). But I think of this as more figurative, like we'll be given a new, perfect body...not literally the resurrection of our old, imperfect bodies).

 

I believe that the soul does leave the body, but I was raise to respect the living and the dead.

Why eat other people? It is morally wrong, in my opinion. Yes it is true that it cost a lot of money to put some one in the ground versus buy some charcoal and a grill, but you got to respect the dead.

That was once a live being, who had a heart, who had ideas, who shared feelings. Do you want to eat your family member?

 

Well, going off of science, people are at the highest of the trophic levels. Trophic levels are somewhat like a food chain, except to show the amount of energy in each level. The bottom level is the biggest, and is plants, because they get their energy from the sun. The next level is the animals that eat the plants. The level above that is the animals that eat the animals that ate the plants. If there is a next level, it would be the same as the level below it. There are never more than four levels because of the energy lost between each level. When you go up a level, 99% of that energy is lost as heat. In that sense, eating people would give us very little energy, and therefore it is pointless.

 

Well, we are higher up on the levels. When animal eat each other, there is still energy. But when we are eaten, there isn't much energy compared to other animals. That being said, animals like wolves and lions don't have much energy when they are eaten.

 

Not quite. Our bodies don't have the things we need to survive. If you were to starve yourself, your body would first start eating away at your muscles. The things we eat do have things we need, vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. That is why we eat things(Besides getting energy).

 

No. Eating at yourself will eventually kill you, and you may never regain the muscle mass lost during that experiance. Besides, humans only eat other humans if it is part of their religion or survival (Sort of a lapse in civilization). Anyway, if we ate dead bodies, then a whole lost of medical research would be down the drain; doctors dissect human bodies for studies. If it was at all considered by the govertments of the world, there should be an option for a classic burial, cremation, research, or cannibalism. I don't hink people could send their loved ones to the butcher. Besides, heart disease? Lung cancer? HIV/AIDS? Humans can get very sick, and I would not eat another unless in a survival situation with no other option. Besides, we have many other options; dogs and cats. There are thousands wandering the streets; why not send them to the butchers slab?

 

Like I said earlier, human bodies don't naturally contain chemicals our bodies need to survive. Take Vitamin C for example: To get Vitamin C, we need to eat citrus fruits, because they have high amounts of Vitamin C. The human body is naturally devoid of these nutrients. That is why we eat things.