Posted By BillHeise on November 21, 2009

I found this in the news today:

Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei’s corpse in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, a Florence museum said Friday. (Full story here)

What’s wrong with people? We inter people, but only for a while. If they pass into history, they become the common property of “history.” They are put on display for people to gawk at. This robs people of their privacy. Granted, the dead don’t have a mind to appreciate privacy, but privacy is not merely a matter of intention, is it?

Funerals are given so that we can close the lives of people in the minds of the living. If, as soon as everybody who knew me when I was alive is dead, the undertaker has the option to dig me up and put me on display, I think that’s an excellent reason to be cremated and to have my ashes scattered over the waters of a vast ocean.

Just a thought.

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