“Well-dying course” in South Korea includes test run in a coffin
At age 62, Ha Yu-soo had begun to feel his mortality, wondering about the timing of death’s soft tap on the shoulder. But why wait, he thought. Maybe he could take a test run. Ha donned a traditional yellow hemp robe, lay down inside a casket and felt at peace — until the somber, dark-suited attendants placed a lid on the coffin. Then Ha realized his worst fear: the eternal darkness had finally come.
“How grateful I was that this was a fake funeral, not real,” he said with a sigh of relief. “There’s but one step from life to death but the difference is huge,” Ha, a fire protection system inspector, told Reuters.
Ha joined around 70 other people on a “well-dying” course, run by a local district office in the northeast of Seoul. The course’s motto: “Don’t take life for granted.”
Baek Sung-ok, an ovarian cancer patient who opted out of chemotherapy several years ago, said the experience of being in a coffin made her feel more appreciative of those around her. “I will abandon greed to relate to my husband and love my daughters more,” she said, rising from the casket.
Another activity is penning farewell letters. “Even if I no longer exist here, please get along with your siblings and be more selfless,” Kim Young-sook wrote to her four children.
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, aka Dr. Death, dies
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as “Dr. Death” for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said. Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian’s attorney and friend.
Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he became a defiant advocate, crossing Michigan in the rusty Volkswagen van that carried his machine to help sick people end their lives. He launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer’s patient to kill herself using a machine he had devised. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999.
Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2007. As a condition of his parole, he vowed not to assist in any suicides. He was convicted after a CBS News program aired showing a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Read the full story by Bernie Woodall here. See also our factbox on Kevorkian.
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Hong Kong funeral expo shows new ways to deal with the dead
For the seven million citizens of Hong Kong, living comfortably in the one of the world’s most densely populated cities is difficult enough, but dying presents is own set of challenges. Around 43,700 people died in the territory in 2010. By 2020 that number is expected to rise to almost 53,000. A majority will be cremated, since land shortages forced most people to abandon burials in the 1980s and cremations became acceptable.
But now the city’s public columbarium, where relatives can keep ashes in an urn in a 30 cm (one foot) crevice in a wall, has run out of space. As a result, Hong Kong residents have been forced to store their loved ones’ remains in funeral homes, privately-run storage facilities, or their own homes.
“In recent years there are more than 100,000 people waiting for columbarium space,” said Tiu Tong Ng, Honourable President of Hong Kong’s Funeral Director Association. “Usually it take three to four years to obtain this kind of space. The government has to solve this problem,” he told the Asia Funeral Expo, which opened in Hong Kong Thursday.
Read the full story by Stefanie McIntyre here.
View a slideshow of the Asia Funeral Expo here.
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Heaven is a fairy tale, says British physicist Stephen Hawking
Heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said in an interview published on Monday. Hawking, 69, was expected to die within a few years of being diagnosed with degenerative motor neurone disease at the age of 21, but became one of the world’s most famous scientists with the publication of his 1988 book “A Brief History of Time”.
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,” he told the Guardian newspaper. “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Hawking gave the interview ahead of the Google Zeitgeist meeting in London where he will join speakers including British finance minister George Osborne and Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Addressing the question “Why are we here?” he will argue tiny quantum fluctuations in the very early universe sowed the seeds of human life.
His 2010 book “The Grand Design” provoked a backlash among religious leaders, including chief rabbi Lord Sacks, for arguing there was no need for a divine force to explain the creation of the universe.
Read the full story by Nia Williams here. A link to the interview is here.
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Paris death salon shows life and new trends in funeral industry
“Care to try out the coffin?” Surprised but intrigued, the young man lays himself down on the ivory satin fabric and holds his breath as the heavy lid closes over him. At the Salon of Death, everything is permitted.
For the first time in Paris, death is the star at a free exhibition taking place underneath the famed Louvre museum.
“It’s good to talk about death in the heart of the capital, because we’re a society pretty much based on consumption and leisure,” said Jean-Paul Soltani, who makes funerary monuments in the northwestern region of Brittany. “And here, we’re right next to the museum where they’ve got pharoahs’ tombs!”
Funeral parlors, organ donation societies, embalming techniques, and lots and lots of marble — it’s all on display at the Salon of Death, in a surprisingly clinical atmosphere. Organizers hope some 25,000 visitors will stroll through the Salon to admire the rows upon rows of biodegradable coffins or the luxurious funerary urns.
Or rest one’s head in a coffin, as the case may be. “There you go, I did it,” said one young man who braved the experience. “It felt like chasing away a little devil.”
A publisher’s stand displayed a selection of funeral requiems on CDs and non-religious books such as “Knowing How to Die” by the ancient Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca or “Reflections on the Guillotine” by French writer Albert Camus. At another stand, a former journalist explained how his company helped people who have had near-death or out-of-body experiences to meet and talk about what they lived through.
Read the full story here. Or the original French article — La Mort tient salon au coeur de Paris.
Israeli organ donations soar after soccer star dies
Organ donations in Israel rocketed in January after the death of an Israeli soccer star prompted a religious debate on brain death into the headlines.
Former Israel and Liverpool defender Avi Cohen sustained severe head injuries in a motorcycle crash in December. He was pronounced brain dead and put on a respirator. Cohen had signed an organ donor card, but his family refused to give away his organs. Newspaper reports said rabbis had appealed to the family not to donate. Cohen’s widow said the decision against donation was her own.
Some influential rabbis teach that taking organs from a person who is brain dead is tantamount to murder. “The number one reason people give for refusing to donate organs is religious. Jewish law is perceived, mistakenly, as being against it, when as you know in Judaism it depends which rabbi you ask,” said Professor Jacob Lavee, head of Israel’s Transplant Centre’s Steering Committee.
In general, most ultra-orthodox rabbis are against organ donation while others adopt a more liberal interpretation of Jewish ritual law.
Rabbi Reem Hacohen, head of Otniel Yeshiva in the occupied West Bank teaches that a person is obliged by Jewish law to sign a donor card. “Organ donation is a great Mitsvah, or good deed,” Hacohen said. “If pronounced in keeping with Israeli law, brain death is in fact death.”
Read the full story by Maayan Lubell here.
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However it is up to science to define death and not up to religion.
Nepal Christians threaten ‘corpse’ protest in burial row
Christians in Nepal have threatened to parade corpses in the capital to press the government into finding them alternative burial grounds after burials near the country’s holiest Hindu shrine were banned.
Christians account for less than two percent of Hindu-majority Nepal’s 28 million people. Authorities barred them this month from burying their dead in the forested graveyard at Sleshmantak saying the land belonged to the Pashupatinath Hindu temple, a U.N. heritage site in Kathmandu.
“Burial after death is a fundamental human right and the government is violating this by not giving us any place to bury the dead,” C.B.Gahatraj, a senior official of the Committee for Christian Recommendation for New Constitution told Reuters.
“If we don’t get an alternative burial site we’ll be forced to protest with corpses in front of the Singha Durbar,” Gahatraj said referring to the government complex that houses the prime minister’s office and the parliament.
Mr RajaMadhwa, you don’t understand what you are talking about. It is the forested graveyard not the holiest of holy temple what you are talking about. The word you are using “Christian terrorist”, is not reasonable phrase. The important thing what you dont understand is we are not looking for that particular place for burial but we would accept any other burial place which is convenient. Christian never came in a false name, but they come as a Christian. These Christian are Nepalese and they love Nepal more than you fellas.
100 pilgrims killed in stampede at Hindu festival in India
A stampede sparked by a night-time road accident in dense forest has killed more than 100 Hindu pilgrims in the southern state of Kerala in India. Kerala’s deputy general of police told reporters that 102 people who visited the Sabarimala Temple to offer prayers to the Hindu deity Ayappa had been killed on Friday night. Officials at a Hindu temple estimated the death toll at around 100, Kerala Temple Affairs Minister Ramachandran Kadannappally said by telephone.
Hundreds of thousands had gathered at the hilltop shrine of Sabarimala on Friday evening, the last day of an annual two-month religious festival. A bus carrying pilgrims back to the neighbouring state of Karnataka collided with a jeep and went out of control, crushing people walking nearby, Kadannappally said. Panicked pilgrims rushed forward, triggering a stampede.
“They came down the hillside… this happened primarily because the area was totally dark,” Jacob Punnoose, Kerala Deputy General of Police told Times Now TV channel.
Fifty-two pilgrims were killed in an almost identical stampede at Sabarimala in 1999. An investigation into the deaths found the state government guilty of negligence in ensuring public safety.
Egypt sentences Muslim to death for Coptic shooting
An Egyptian state security court on Sunday sentenced a Muslim man to death for killing six Coptic Christians and a Muslim police officer in a drive-by shooting on Coptic Christmas Eve in January 2010.
Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, 39, known as Hamam Kamouni, had been charged with the “premeditated murder” of the Christians and the police officer and with “intimidating citizens” in Nagaa Hamady in southern Egypt after mass on the eve of Coptic Christmas.
The judge said Hussein’s sentence would be sent to the Grand Mufti for confirmation, a reference to Egypt’s top religious authority who is called on to confirm death sentences.
The court said Hussein’s two accomplices, Kurashi Abu Haggag and Hindawi Muhammed Sayyid, who were charged with aiding in the murder and possession of weapons, would be announced on February 20.
Christians account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s mostly Muslim population of about 80 million. Sectarian violence is rare, but disputes over issues including land rights or personal relationships occasionally erupt.
Haiti voodoo leader urges halt to cholera lynchings of priests
The head of Haiti’s voodoo religion has appealed to authorities to halt the bloody lynchings of voodoo priests by people who blame them for causing the Caribbean country’s deadly cholera epidemic. Since the epidemic started in mid-October, at least 45 male and female voodoo priests, known respectively as “houngan” and “manbo,” have been killed. Many of the victims were hacked to death and mutilated by machetes, Max Beauvoir, the “Ati” or supreme leader of Haitian voodoo, told Reuters.
“They are being blamed for using voodoo to contaminate people with cholera,” Beauvoir said on Thursday. The killers accused voodoo priests of spreading cholera by scattering powder or casting “spells” and complained that local police and government officials were not doing enough to halt the lynchings and punish the killers. Voodoo is recognized and protected by the constitution as one of Haiti’s main religions.
“My call is to the authorities so they can assume their responsibilities,” said Beauvoir, who fears more attacks against voodoo devotees. Most of the lynchings occurred in the southwest of Haiti but also in the center and the north.
Since emerging in central regions in October, the cholera epidemic has ripped through Haiti’s poor population, still traumatized from a January earthquake. Mainly spread by contaminated water and food, the disease has killed well over 2,500 people and affected all of the nation’s 10 provinces.
The Voodoo religion has been a redoubtable force in the Haitians cultural landmark and a fearsome obstacle that prevent total control by Western powers who have been trying to uproot voodoo in in Haiti for over 500 years. The current killing is instigated by outsiders.
Humanity and Voodoo emerged from Africa. Voodoo is the progenitor of all religions. Africa and Africans in the diaspora should get rid of the second hand religions such as Christianity, Muslim, Hinduism and others. Blacks should go back to the Alma matter-Voodoo .The other races will continue to disrespect Blacks as long Blacks continues to embrace those foreign religions.
Get rid of the Arya Sathya Vedam, the Bible, and the Koran. They were tailored for the interest and glorification of those people. That is why African names and tribes are omitted on them. That is why those people are vilifying the Voodoo and other aspects of the African culture and saying Africans have no history and culture. Respect has to be mutual not one way street.
Voodoo has 50 million follower worldwide that include: Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic,Ghana,Guyana,Haiti,Jamaica,Nige ria,Puerto-Rico,Surinam,Togo,Trinidad, USA, Venezuela and Virgin Islands.
http://www.kenrahn.com/Marsh/Bay_of_Pigs /congo.ht
http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news255.h tm
http://www.realmagick.com/5014/pagan-roo ts-of-the-bible/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0064737/bio http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/carribea nweb/factfile/Unique-facts-Caribbean12.h tm
http://meta-religion.com/World_Religions /Voodoo/voodoo.htm
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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