Of all world religions, Islam is probably the most strongly opposed to cremation. Unlike Judaism and Christianity, there is little diversity of opinion about it. Cremation is considered by Islam to be an unclean practice.
A: In the Bible, cremation is not labeled a sinful practice. Frankly, the topic is not dealt with at all in terms of the detailed lists of instructions for living and dying set forth by almighty God in the Old and New testaments. The short answer to your question appears to be no, cremation is not a sin.
In Christian countries, cremation fell out of favor due to the Christian belief in the physical resurrection of the body. Christians also used burial as a mark of difference from the Iron Age European pre-Christian Pagan religions, which usually cremated their dead.
No matter what a person's preference is, from the Christian perspective, cremation does not prevent one from going to Heaven. So there's no need to worry, if God can create life from dust, surely he can restore life from ashes.
In 2 Kings 23:16-20, Josiah took the bones out of the tomb, burned them on the altar, and “defiled it.” However, nowhere in the Old Testament does the Bible command the deceased cannot be burned, nor are there any judgments attached to those that have been cremated.
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A. Yes to both. The reunion will take place, but not as husband and wife. We learn this in Jesus' explanation to the Sadducees: "When people rise from death, there will be no marriage.
As a Catholic, may I be cremated? Yes. In May 1963, the Vatican's Holy Office (now the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith) lifted the prohibition forbidding Catholics to choose cremation.
What's really returned to you is the person's skeleton. Once you burn off all the water, soft tissue, organs, skin, hair, cremation container/casket, etc., what you're left with is bone. When complete, the bones are allowed to cool to a temperature that they can be handled and are placed into a processing machine.
Jewish law and tradition consider cremation as destruction of property. Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, also holds that the soul does not immediately depart the body. Rather, it slowly leaves the body as it decomposes; cremation therefore is considered to cause pain, even after death.
For most Christians today, the question of cremation is largely left to individual discretion. Many Christians choose cremation as an alternative to burial, while still retaining those aspects of their traditional funeral practices that allow them to honor the lives of their loved ones and glorify God.
Buddhists and cremation
Due to their belief in reincarnation, cremation is seen as the preferred choice when a loved one dies. The physical body holds little significance to the Buddhist faith, it is merely a vessel for holding the soul. Buddhists also believe in organ donation as it is seen as a good deed.
We've witnessed many cremations and never heard a scream. But then again, cremation retorts aren't silent either. Now, bodies do make all kinds of gnarly noises.
The body does not feel pain during cremation because the person is no longer alive. When a person dies, their brain stops sending signals to the body. This means that the person cannot feel pain or any other sensation.
Hindus believe that the soul of the deceased stays attached to its body even after its demise, and by cremating the body, it can be set free. As a final act, a close family member forcefully strikes the burning corpse's skull with a stick as if to crack it open and release the soul.
Cremation does not “prevent God, in his omnipotence, from raising up the deceased body to new life,” the Vatican says, but it does raise the possibility that the deceased's body, which the church believes is sacred, will not be properly respected by ancestors and relatives.
Muslims are always buried, never cremated. It is a religious requirement that the body be ritually washed and draped before burial, which should be as soon as possible after death. Those carrying out this duty should be immunised against hepatitis B and be aware of the hazards of AIDS.
Catholics do not favor cremation because they believe in resurrection of the body after death. They follow the custom of burying the dead, as Jesus Christ was buried in a tomb. Nevertheless, the attitude of the Church has changed in the recent years.
Christians who know and love each other on earth will know and love each other in heaven.
Many Christians rely on Matthew 22:30, in which Jesus tells a group of questioners, "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
We enter heaven immediately upon our death, or our souls sleep until the second coming of Christ and the accompanying resurrection.
The consensus among most Christian traditions—including evangelicals—is that because the Bible does not directly forbid cremation, it is not a sin. As Timothy George says, “While the weight of Christian tradition clearly favors burial, the Bible nowhere explicitly condemns cremation.”
Catholics believe that the soul is immortal and does not depend on the physical body. Since cremation of the deceased's remains do not affect his or her soul, according to the Church, there are no doctrinal objections to the practice.
The average cremated adult will produce about five pounds of pulverized bone fragments, a coarse powder that is sterile and safe to touch, even if the person died of a communicable disease.
Since all of the organic matter is burned away during cremation, this is why ashes can last (almost) forever - or at least for our entire lifetime. Bones are still DNA and scientists believe that DNA has survived for about one million years.