why are we buried when we die?

Question

why dont they just put us ina room so they can visit the dead people

Answer 1

It's a question of sanitation. Decomposing bodies are not the safest things to be around. Think of it as the world's first recycling program.

Answer 2

lots of reason. not all cultures bury their dead. Some cultures eat/consume their dead so that your ancestors can live through you for generations. this is supposed to transfer the strength and energy that for example, your parents might have had. There are plenty of ways we deal with our dead. Something has to be done because they will decompose anyway. It would be way too expensive to preserve every body. Most people have a difficult enough time paying for a casket. Preservation would be ongoing - and then what, you pass the burden on to your children. It's also illegal, in this country at least, to keep a dead body. There are laws about when, where and how a body is to be dealt with.

Answer 3

Genesis 3:19-- God's pronouncement at the Fall of Man
"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; from dust you are and dust you will return."

It is that singular phrase alone that has inspired all three of the major western monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) to institute a culture of burying their dead rather than using other disposal methods such as cremation which was the common means of disposing of the dead in pretty much every pagan culture in Europe. In Christian society at least, the belief evolved that your body had to be stored in the ground in one piece so that when the prophecy of Revelation came true and all the dead were raised, it would be easy for job to find and re-compose you. This is why for religious crimes you were burned at the stake or if someone wanted to spite you after death, you were torn to pieces and spread about the landscape.

Beyond that there is also all the sanitation issues everyone else talked about.....

Answer 4

Well, Lenin is in a room in Moscow, but It has to be kept at a certain temperature. Basically, we bury dead people so there are not a bunch of cadavers lying around...Dead bodies breed the most terrible germs, and you'd find a lot of healthy people in the room getting ill. It would be a nightmare, if you think about it. Burial and creamation may seem final, and you may want to be able to have the person you've lost closer, but it would be horrible. It would be like leaving a side of beef on your coffee table for a week. Yuck

Answer 5

Because your body decomposes and stiffens so you would stick up the place. Also would you want to see the dead like that. Being put underground symbolizes being put to your final rest. Also you can either be cremated, burned and turned into ashes, or you could be in a room after all it is you and your families choice.

Answer 6

The only problem with that is the dead people decompose and smell really bad. Do you want to go in a room to visit someone and it smells? Like formaldehyde?!

Answer 7

Three reasons: tradition, we'd smell too bad if we were just laid out in a room, and I'd rather not be buried alive.

Answer 8

They do sometimes. Those places are called mausoleums or crypts depending which setup it is.

But you have to protect the dead otherwise animals will come and munch on them.

Answer 9

We are buried so we can return to where we came from or at least if you believe the creation story...god made man from the earth...dust to dust...

Answer 10

Which reminds me - heard that they may actually get around to burying Lenin soon.