Does freeze dried bodys' seem wrong to you?

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telegraph.co.uk/news/mai…news/2005/09/28

Sweden’s new funeral rite - bodies freeze-dried, powdered and made into tree mulch
By Kate Connolly in Berlin
(Filed: 28/09/2005)

A town in Sweden plans to become the first place in the world where corpses will be disposed of by freeze-drying, as an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation or burial. Jonkoping, in southern Sweden, is to turn its crematorium into a so-called promatorium next year.

Swedes will then have the chance to bury their dead according to the pioneering method, which involves freezing the body, dipping it in liquid nitrogen and gently vibrating it to shatter it into powder. This is put into a small box made of potato or corn starch and placed in a shallow grave, where it will disintegrate within six to 12 months.

People are to be encouraged to plant a tree on the grave. It would feed off the compost formed from the body, to emphasise the organic cycle of life.

The national burial law is currently being updated to accommodate a practice that is expected to spread across the country over the next few years.

The technique was conceived by a Swedish biologist, Susanne Wiigh-Masak, 49, who said: "Mulching was nature’s original plan for us, and that’s what used to happen to us at the start of humanity - we went back into the soil.

“But we need to tell people in this day and age that this can once again be a dignified and comfortable option.” According to Mrs Wiigh-Masak’s method, which she has called “promession” - the promise to return to the earth what emerged from the earth - the dead body is frozen and dried, using liquid nitrogen.

A mechanical vibration then causes the body to fall apart within 60 seconds before a vacuum removes the water.

Then a metal separator picks out metals such as artificial hips and dental fillings.

Jonkoping’s motivation for converting its crematorium into a promatorium is mainly practical. According to European environmental laws, it faced a multi-million pound bill for the installation at its 50-year-old crematorium of a new gas-cleaning system and furnace.

The alternative was the much cheaper conversion and a more environmentally friendly procedure.
 
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Lisa4Catholics:
Does that sound like New Age bunk to you?:nope:
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The first thought that popped into my head was "Geez, the enviromentalists are even butting into how a body is taken care of after death! Is there anything they won’t stick their nose into?"
 
I don’t see anything wrong with this. Not really any different than burning a body, or just sticking in the dirt to let bacteria and bugs eat it.

I don’t really care what happens to this “mortal shell” when I’m gone. I know that, if I’m in His grace, that I’ll get it back later…
 
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Timidity:
I don’t see anything wrong with this. Not really any different than burning a body, or just sticking in the dirt to let bacteria and bugs eat it.

I don’t really care what happens to this “mortal shell” when I’m gone. I know that, if I’m in His grace, that I’ll get it back later…
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What bothers me is the New Age or nature worship sound to the whole thing.
 
A few years ago I read about an American Catholic nun who preaches eco-spirituality. She said we all had “a duty to compost ourselves.” I guess this could be what she meant. :whacky:
 
Nature usually does the composting for us, if we are buried in the ground. Why not have a Christian burial and plant a tree elsewhere in memory of the deceased?
 
The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole,
God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain’t being dead-- it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear tha, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”…
 
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Courtneyjo:
Nature usually does the composting for us, if we are buried in the ground. Why not have a Christian burial and plant a tree elsewhere in memory of the deceased?
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Exactly. Decomposition happens eventually anyway, so what is the point of going through all this liquid nitrogen stuff? I guess it’s just a fancy cremation, but still. And yeah, it does seem a little weird.
 
I think it is another attack on the dignity of human beings. Where nature has greater rights than man.
 
Burial, Cremation, Promession

Just to clarify some general misunderstandings about the three methods we would like to provide you with some basics on the three forms of organic recycling.

Promession is not only a practical and biological approach to the environment it is also an economic approach to nature. From the day we are conceptual conceived until the day we stop eating and drinking, all organic matter from which we build our body’s originates from the soil. When we burn our body or when we burry it 6 feet under we neglect the huge possibility to present our organic remains back to the economical balance of nature and to become part of the process of decomposition as nature prefers it. Through Promession it is possible that the organic remains become healthy soil which is a pre-request for new life.

Three forms of organic recycling

1. Mulching
Imagine a leaf lying on the ground in the forest that is in contact with the soil and the air. The conditions are perfect for the type of decomposition that nature prefers when she is not in a hurry and when she is working with the ideal tools: oxygen, little worker bacteria, and the right temperature.

After a while the leaf turns in an aromatic compost-like soil consisting of organic nutrients. The leaf has turned into a basic food ingredient for new plants to grow.

We now know that if something is to decompose and become mulch, oxygen is required. Oxygen is discover in 1771. Yet we still bury our dead at a depth absent of oxygen without considering the relationship between knowledge and tradition.

**2. Rotting **
We might also picture the very same leaf, but now its out of reach oxygen. With no supply of oxygen nature’s second support crew takes over. They turn the leaf into soggy, nutrition-rich mash which smells strongly of sulphur dioxide because sulphur is what this support crew uses. It is important to realise that this also is a natural process, in the sense that nature uses it as a backup plan.

We know that there is a biological chain of events for a corpse, that oxygen is directly decisive to its conversion to mulch instead of its slowly rotting, and that there is no oxygen at the depth at which a casket is buried. Bacteria that live on sulphur cause corpses to rot and the remaining products follow the ground water until they reach our drinking water and the seas where they worsen eutrophication.

3. Burning
Let us rewind the imagination once again, and consider a forest fire spreading through the woods. The leaf is consumed by the flames, along with everything else. This, too, is completely natural process because it happens naturally. The leaf will be burned and reduced into small molecules, mostly carbon dioxide and water. These are basic ingredients for nature to as long as nature can absorb the available amounts. If there is to much production of carbon dioxide it turns in to an overdose. With an insufficient supply of heat or oxygen, the combustion chains will be incomplete and yield poisonous gases. Remains that are to heavy to float away stay on the ground in a pile of inorganic ashes. If the leaf had contained amounts of heavy metals and environmentally hazardous substances the fire will dispose of these: into poisonous materials and gases.

Cremation as an alternative to burial was introduced the 19th century. Cremation was a new way of thinking, emerging from the hasty urbanization of the time and the need for hygiene in the rapidly growing cities. The method has practical grounds, but lacks biological and environmental basis. However, from a biological point of view, and in consideration of the environment as well, cremation was not, and still is not, a viable alternative. The ash is buried or spread directly on the ground. But already upon the first rainfall after burial the ash is on its way from the site. It runs with the rainwater and continues to waterways until it ends up in the sea where it worsens eutrophication and oxygen depletion.

So, at rare occasions, leaves and other organic matter in nature will decompose according to the rules of combustion. When no oxygen is present, nature switches to a sulphur-based approach and makes a smelly mash of things. Otherwise and normally the organic matter will decompose by mulching, and becomes soil.

Liquid Nitrogen
During Promession liquid nitrogen is used for the process of freezing. Nitrogen originates from earth’s atmosphere. Nitrogen is a natural part of the air we breathe. A bit more than 78 percent of the air is nitrogen. When liquid nitrogen evaporates it returns back in its natural gas form in to the atmosphere.
en.wikipedia.org

www.promessafoundation.org
 
The human body as created by God deserves more respect than to be turned into “mulch”. Thats what you do with discarded X-Mas trees, NOT people!
 
I’d wait to see what the magisterium says before deciding, but my first thought is that it depends on the intention. If it is intended to be disrespectful or as Gaia worship, than it is wrong, but I don’t think it would be inherently evil. I have heard of monasteries that buried their dead in shallow graves in the mud, without caskets, out of humilty. One of these monks was an incorruptable saint. I think it wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but if the Pope does, I’ll defer to him.
 
Consider the alternatives and choose freely what is most appealing to you.
 
Think of the uncorrupted saints…what would have happened if we had mulched them rather than allowing God to show us his ultimate love and respect for our bodies?

It is creepy and I think that is my conscience saying, “do not go there.”
JMHO
 
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Pumpkin:
Think of the uncorrupted saints…what would have happened if we had mulched them rather than allowing God to show us his ultimate love and respect for our bodies?

It is creepy and I think that is my conscience saying, “do not go there.”
JMHO
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I think if they were incorruptible, the freeze drying would not work!
 
Mom of one:
The first thought that popped into my head was “Geez, the enviromentalists are even butting into how a body is taken care of after death! Is there anything they won’t stick their nose into?”
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I have to disagree with your assessment. The Swedish group doesn’t seem to be interfering with how you or anyone else disposes of a body. To the contrary, it appears people are passing judgement on the actions of the Swedes.
 
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