Relistening to The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience series of lectures. It's fascinating but I question one assumption.
There'd probably be a need to study a culture which had no such belief & see if they still dress the dead smartly & bury them with stuff.
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Apart from practical need to dispose of bodies somehow, I think it safe to say that funeral and burial rites exist for benefit of the living
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Because even when their belief systems give different reasons, the behaviors remain quite similar.
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I seems to me that the cleansing and adornment of the dead for burial & cremation turns these ceremonies into forms of sacrifice.
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The departed are not taken, but claimed, honored, & given willingly along with valuables. It's another narrative over nature, very powerful.
End of conversation
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