Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "COVID Is Making Muslim Burials Incredibly Difficult" video.

  1. I really don't mean to offend anyone's faith and religion, it's part of our freedom of choice and I respect that. But I also think that changes in environment, societies and what is happening in current times will eventually force all religions to either adapt, or their people to keep suffering for it. I mean, this already happened to varying degrees with several religions, but it's gonna accellerate because changes are also accellerating. For those who think Covid will be over soon... this strain of it might, but this isn't a one off thing. This really will become a new normal. We will fight off Covid-19, but we don't know when the next will hit and how severely... if we refuse to acknowledge the danger and better prepare for next time, it'll only be a repeat. And we need to acknowledge this for the sake of the lives lost so far... it's our collective responsibility. Centuries or even millenium old religious practices eventually clashes with current reality, environment, societal standards, knowledge base and whatnot. It's kinda obvious, we don't tend to follow historical texts step by step - we learn from it and adapt to current reality. Sometimes religions can be fairly inflexible about this, but I'm not sure we can continue affording this luxury. And it's the kind of changes that happens regardless of personal opinions... we're not still there everywhere in the world, but it's fast approaching. Back when we had less people in the world, vast tracts of untamed land, and little comprehension of the consequences of our actions, it was fine for religions to stick to certain practices. Not just fine, sometimes those practices meant community, union, a way to avoid conflicts, common ground. But nowadays, with knowledge about contamination, cemetaries that are getting more and more packed overtime, occupying space that comes at a premium for the living, and the dangers of disease spreading... religious leaders need to be aware that it's becoming less and less feasible to sustain burial practices. This is repeated over and over again around scientific circles, but I know it often doesn't reach religious people and leaders, mainly because of this perception of inflexibility. Obviously this is becoming more visible in a dire situation like the pandemic, but the alarms about burial practices becoming more and more unsustainable over the years have been sounding for a while now, at least in some countries. Outside belief and faith, I can understand why these ceremonies and rituals surrounding the death of someone comes to be - it has a very practical side to it, which is helping the grieving process, celebrating one's life, gathering family and friends, supporting the bereaved, and a bunch more of untangibles. I really have a respect for that. I'd never belittle a moment like that, the rituals, the process. And I can also see how this all made sense in the past, much like several other practices described in religious sacred texts. But perhaps it's a good idea to prepare. We don't have to completely let go of rituals and these processes, just adapt them to fit better practices. Cremation, environmentally friendly burrial processes, or just detaching the rituals from the manner a body is processed afterwards. Forgive me for putting it so bluntly, but the celebration of one's life shouldn't be attached to how you deal with the corpse. Perhaps this was justified when people just remained ignorant on what happened to a corpse after it was burried, but this is a luxury we increasingly can't afford anymore. It's gonna decompose and potentially contaminate things down there. It's crude and even tabboo for some to think about it, but you either do it by choice or it'll come a time when you'll be forced to chose without preparation. And it doesn't sound very rational to think someone would put the way their corpse is treated above the well being of others. Well, this certainly does happen and has happened throughout our history, but it's time to change that. I'm obviously not a religious person myself. My mom and most of my family is, spread out in several different Christian faiths, to different degrees of actual participation I guess. I've come to respect that because I see the effect it has in their lives. It's about community, about how you process certain events in life, about guidance, about striving towards a common goal. But me and my mom commited to cremation... from her own initiative, not mine. There are certain things I always let her do the decision and guide, because it doesn't matter as much to me. But the choice for cremation came as what will likely be the better way of dealing with the practical steps after death when it happens... even though some Christian faiths do not feel very comfortable with the idea of cremation, some of which are practiced by some members of the family. Personally, and I think my dad thought this too, whatever is done to my corpse after I'm dead, I hope for it to be the less burdensome or more practical, but I know it probably won't be chosen by me. My dad had a normal christian burial because of the family, not because of his own choices. It was what most of his family accepted as a proper send off, and so that was the way it went. But he was non religious like me, and he expressed several times that he didn't care much.... food for plants, he used to say. Better make my body useful for something than just rotting in some place I dunno. This doesn't mean we will care less about it, that we won't have a hard time with grief, that family and friends won't gather or put their hearts and thoughts into it, etc. I can say for myself that my parents will always live through me, and I will always have them in my memory, guiding my actions, and being part of my life. And I want to take care of them as best as possible while they are alive, and will always keep them in memory when they are gone. And they don't need to be burried at a specific place for that. Visiting one's grave at specific times and whatnot is a good ritual and gesture, part of the healing process, we usually need to reserve time and point a specific place to reinforce intention and focus around something... but at least for me, it sounds like a specific place and time can be replaced. We can honor, remember and grief people without a grave. And I guess I personally think a grave isn't even the best place to do it... a favorite place, a place with good memories, a place of particular significance... it all sounds way more appropriate than a grave that has no memories of the person burried there, I dunno, again personal opinion. Kind of a shock changing things like that, but you know. We still try to visit graves of my grandparents, my father, relatives and whatnot whenever we can, but they are mostly far from where we live. I've no relatives in my hometown, my parents went cross state and then interstate in search of better opportunities, as most of the rest of the family also did overtime - we're all spread out. But my father was burried in the city he was born, because the grave of his parents is also there, and back then, most of his side of the family was still also living there. It mostly isn't nowadays, but back then it was. Anyways, this comment went off for too long, and got too personal... xD Just leaving some thoughts.
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