When my brother was cremated at Marseilles, the undertaker informed me that he had had hardly any previous cases of cremation, because of the theological prejudice. It is apparently thought more difficult for Omnipotence to reassemble the parts of a human body when they have become diffused as gases than when they remain in the churchyard in the form of worms and clay. Source: Religion and Science, 1935, chapt. 4 More Info.：https://russell-j.com/beginner/RS1935_05-030.HTM
* a brief comment:
Everyone, to varying degrees, harbors some kind of bias. Among these are theological prejudices rooted in religion or belief. One such example is the prejudice against cremation.
In Japan, where land is limited, building more and more graves could eventually cover the country with cemeteries. Of course, this is not the only reason, but the absence of Christian theological bias in Japan has also contributed to the relatively low resistance to cremation. As a result, cremation was accepted early on alongside burial, and today it has become the predominant practice.
In contrast, in the Christian-influenced West, cremation has historically been much less common. In countries with vast territories, such as the United States, it may still be feasible to continue the practice of burial into the future.
Against this background, one expression found in "Today's Words of Russell" strikes me as particularly interesting: "in the form of worms and clay."
In English, as in many other cultures, there is the expression "return to the clay," where clay symbolizes human mortality and finitude. The idea that we "return to the earth" after death is widespread throughout the world.
However, here we do not see the more general term "soil" but rather the specific word "clay." Why is that?
This led me to wonder:
Could the choice of the word "clay" instead of "soil" be connected to the natural environment, the climate and landscape, of the regions where Christianity was born and later spread?
For instance, in dry desert regions, bodies are more likely to become mummified or reduced to bones, and one would not naturally associate them with clay. On the other hand, much of Europe, especially northwestern regions, has moist, clay-rich soil.
Might such environmental differences have influenced the symbolic use of "clay" as the material to which the dead return?
When I asked ChatGPT about this point, I received the following explanation:
[ChatGPT’s Supplementary Note]:
The symbolic use of clay to represent human mortality in English expressions is deeply tied to the natural environment of the regions where Christianity emerged and spread.
Christianity originated in Palestine (modern-day Israel), spread through the Mediterranean world, and eventually took root in Europe. Many of these regions have clay-rich soil.
In ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt, clay was a vital material and often appeared in myths and religious narratives.
For example, in Genesis 2:7 of the Old Testament, it is written that "God formed man from the dust of the ground." The original Hebrew word refers to dust, but in poetic or literary English contexts, this dust is often symbolically reinterpreted as clay.
Thus, clay is not a literal translation of the original text, but rather a culturally and theologically embedded metaphor. In this way, clay functions symbolically in Western religious and poetic contexts as a substance that connects human origin and death.
This symbolic vocabulary is likely rooted in both the religious imagination and the natural environment of the regions where these traditions developed.
What this shows is that even something as seemingly straightforward as how we treat the dead is shaped by a deep interconnection between environment, culture, and religious symbolism. The familiar English phrases we use often carry with them layers of memory embedded in climate, civilization, and belief.
[The rest omitted for length]
