Although the earth is large, there are not many areas suitable for human habitation. The total population of the planet is now close to 8 billion. Life, old age, illness and death are the norm, and at least tens of millions of people around the world leave this world every year on such a large base. There are many people and few lands, and the dead and the living will also have conflicts over the land.
Cremation has a long history. After humans learned to use fire, the cremation of the remains may have been born. In ancient times, there were plagues in some places, and people who died of illness would choose cremation, which everyone should have seen in costume dramas.
However, cremation was promoted around the world, beginning in the 20th century. Cremation is now a strong advocate of cremation.
The cremation process of the human body
Ancient scenes of cremation with firewood are hard to see in modern society, and this kind of behavior is prohibited in most places. Now the cremation of the remains is undertaken by a special institution, often called a crematorium.
There are many crematoriums in the crematorium, and the remains are placed in them for cremation. Usually, a crematorium allows only one body to be cremated at the same time. Before cremation, jewelry such as rings, watches, necklaces, and most unnatural objects such as pacemakers need to be removed.
In the early days, the fuel used in crematoriums was coal or coke, and now it is mainly diesel or gas. The temperature in the crematorium is about 800 to 1100 ° C, and such a high temperature can ensure that all the tissues of the human body are burned.
The entire cremation process takes about two hours.
A large part of the weight of the human body is water, in the process of cremation, the water in the body will be evaporated, most of the organs and soft tissues are converted into gases during the process of combustion, and the remaining fragments are mainly dry bone fragments, which are non-combustible.
Next, the dry bone fragments are ground to sand with an ash grinder, which is called the ashes. Finally, the ashes are placed in an urn and handed over to the family. Whether the ashes are buried in the soil, scattered in the water or in the air, or launched into space by rocket, depends on the wishes of the deceased or relatives.
The main component of ashes
The ashes are made up of cremated bone fragments in the cremated remains, mostly composed of calcium phosphates and other minerals.
The weight of the ashes is very close to the weight of the bones of the whole body before life, because 1/7 of the bones are inorganic substances, and they cannot be burned.
For adults, ashes make up about 3.5 percent of the body's original mass; children make up about 2.5 percent. Of course, due to the different proportions of each person's body, there will be certain differences.
For a person who weighs 65 kilograms before death, the remaining ashes after cremation are about 2 to 3 kilograms under the condition of constant weight.
Do people still have souls after death?
Modern medicine defines death as brain death. Dead people are unconscious, so cremation does not bring any pain. Looking at the world, there are still many people in the world who receive cremation.
It is just that the method of cremation is different from the traditional burial, due to the influence of traditional concepts, some people who are still alive do not understand this way of disposing of the body, thinking that this way may be disrespectful to the deceased, resulting in negative emotions.
Moreover, in the beliefs of some people in the world, cremation is resisted by the belief that the souls of cremated people cannot be rested.
However, both from a scientific point of view and from a materialist point of view, it is believed that there is no soul in man.
Only the living have conscious thought, and consciousness and thinking arise in the brain, there are very, very many brain cells in the human brain, or neurons, and the physiological basis of thinking consciousness is the complex electrochemical reaction in the brain. The use of consciousness by disabled people to manipulate prosthetic limbs relies on the results of scientists' research on the brain. After the death of brain cells, consciousness naturally dissipates, where is there any soul?
Dust to dust, soil to earth. Whether it's water or other elements, everything in nature is cyclical. Man, born in nature, should return to nature after death. Cremation can decompose the human body more quickly than earth burial. However, some crematoriums cause air pollution due to improper treatment of the exhaust gases generated by combustion during the cremation process, which needs to be improved.
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