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A comment on Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting. Parent comment

Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by rplst8 on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @04:19PM (#19985030)
Yeah, I feel like a lot of religious practices (burial being one of them) originated from things that were a detriment to society or seen as "unclean" and that caused infection, diseases, or maybe just a bad stench. I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history.
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Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by michaelcampbell on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @04:23PM (#19985057)
> I wonder if long ago our ancestors learned a lesson about this that they codified in religion, but forgot the "why" part and now we are just going to repeat history.

That, combined with the desire but not the means to explain things they didn't understand, is religion in a nutshell.

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Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by Fomite on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @07:05PM (#19986569)
It's very tempting to tell "just so" stories like this, but from the perspective of an infectious disease epidemiologist, cultural and religious practices, including burials, aren't consistently "good" from a disease standpoint. It's about 50/50 whether it helps or hurts.
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Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by torpfactory on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @04:50PM (#19985351)
Our ancestors didn't have microbiology. As long as we pay attention to the science, we won't be repeating history.
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Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by sremani on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @05:04PM (#19985481)
The debate is not whether we are more knowledgeable than our ancestors, the debate is are we any wiser*.
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Re:Washington state lawmakers approve human corpse composting by ncallaway on Wednesday May 22, 2019 @06:58PM (#19986497)
Okay, but the same applies to eating pork.

As long as we actually understand the underlying reasons why these practices were forbidden, and have addressed them, then it's okay to eat pork.

These issues have been studied, and composting is a pretty safe form of disposal as long as it's done properly.

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