rivka

I also think that squeamishness about death, and its isolation from the main culture, makes people crazy about bodily perfection, so they can pretend they won't die at all.

Our minister remarked that she hadn't been sure how many people would show up at church, given our cultural discomfort with death. (In fact, it was an average turnout - about 120 people.)

curiousangel and I toured St. Magnus' Cathedral on the island of Orkney, which began construction in, I think, 1170. The tombs in the walls were carved with skull-and-crossbones motifs, and many of them said "Memento Mori." (For the Latin-impaired, that's "remember you will die.") I was really struck by the matter-of-factness about what, in subsequent years, has become a taboo topic.