Isn't walking on stones engraved with dead people names offensive?

Question

I have a graveyard behind my school and the passage through the place is paved with stones on which names of dead people for 1800s and 1900s are engraved, sometimes with the mentioning of Jesus. People use this passage quite frequently. I feel there is something odd in walking on people names and on the name of Jesus? What do you think?

To make it clearer, imagine someone writing one of your parents' names on a sheet of paper and stepping on it, would you take it easy?

And what about Jesus?! Is it just fine to step on his name! Would you step on a page from the bible?!

Answer 1

i think theyre dead
so they dont mind

Answer 2

The land is for the living, There are 6 Billion people walking around right now and in a little over 100 years they will all be dead. How could you reserve space for that many dead people? OK some will be cremated and I guess a few buried at sea, but the majority will be 6ft under. You gotta move on.
Once you are rotted away you have to make space for the next generation of dead bodies !!!!!!!!
walking on recycled gravestones is not offensive, in fact when anyone reads the inscription the dead live again for a few moments in an obtuse kind of way.
Better to be remembered in the gene pool and for the way you lived your life than on a piece of stone.

Answer 3

I must admit that I feel not a little uncomfortable doing this in my own church. The church is though to have been their in one form or another for several centuries but a number of graves go back to about 1600. I think these stones have been moved and just pave over paths and in the church itself some of the aisle stones are old gravestones. There is many a tragedy shown on them. However The church is for the living the dead are not there only their remains so logically I should not feel that way, perhaps it is only a wish to treat those remains with respect

Answer 4

If the path is made from gravestones then it is likely that the actual graves have been moved elsewhere, perhaps to another cemetary, and the heavy gravestones left behind to eventually be used as a pathway.

It does seem a little sad when you see this, there are gravestone paths in many places I've seen, but unless the relatives of the dead are upset by it I really don't see any problem.

Answer 5

I personally think it isn't offensive but highly disrespectful to the dead person and his/her family. But it depends on where you live. In China walking over someone's gravestone mistake or not it is said that the gravestone's owner will possess you.

Answer 6

Then best you not walk along lower Manhattan, Broadway has the names of dead people engraved all along it for about a mile.

Answer 7

Depends on where you are from. Americans feel it is highly offensive. Though I am in Europe and they don't seem to think so. They make fun of me for wanting to walk 'around' the graves.

Answer 8

No, its fine. There is a church near here where the actual footpath through it is gravestones. I don't really think you give a **** once you're dead. And you don't walk on them to be malicious. Outright vandalism maybe. Walking, nahhh.

Answer 9

Yes it is offensive. I would think twice before doing that. How unthoughtful to show no respect for the dead and even for Jesus. That is not at all cool.

Answer 10

I wouldn't say it's offensive but, disrespectful. I feel it would be even more so to walk on their graves. Maybe you could talk to a school official or an attendant of the cemetery to stop this from happening.

Answer 11

As long as you don't damaged anything, and your not breaking any by laws. I can not see that it would be a problem.

Its only humanure under those stones afterall.

The spirit of the person is not there.