Disposal of the dead often varies from one culture to the next and one religion to the next. The practice of cremation represents a modern alternative to long, drawn-out burial services that take a heavy emotional toll on survivors and the rising cost of traditional funeral rituals. Today, approximately 27.8 percent of the deceased in America are cremated, up from only 5 percent of Americans in the 1960s (Dimond 2004). However, cremation is a practice that is shunned by some cultures and religions while embraced by others. This project will encompass a comprehensive content analysis of various scholarly sources related to religion and culture that provide information on the process of body disposal known as cremation.
As Dimond (2004) argues, ôUnderstandably, the way in which a body is disposed of is an extremely important aspect of many different religionsö (547). Most funeral rituals encompass practices related to the disposal of the body. For example, Jews are forbidden by religious law from cremating the deceased. Hindus, in contrast, primarily resort to cremation for disposal of the dead. Funeral rituals are undertaken by religions and cultures basically for two reasons. The first is to show respect for the dead. The second is to help comfort the bereaved survivors of the deceased.
Many cultures and religions admit cremation as a means of disposing of the dead. However, the various funeral rituals that revolve around the cremation are quite different from each other. While Christians typically forgo cremation, there is no doctrine or biblical passage expressly forbidding this form of body disposal. The Reverend Billy Graham recently maintained that ôcremationö cannot prevent ôGod from calling forth the dead at the end of timeö (George, 2004, p. 25). Presbyterians, in contrast, prefer cremation as part of the funeral ritual. In a survey of 3,000 members, elders, and ministers of the Presbyterian Church, c...