Who knows? I look to
other cultures for the
idea of
death. For example, in the
Spanish language, there are two
verbs meaning
to be.
Ser and
estar. There are several
differences between the two, but the
pertinent one for
right now is that
ser is used when you say
something is and that
something is
permanent.
Estar is used for
things that are temporary.
In Spanish, however, when you say My dog is dead, you would say Mi perro esta muerto. When I learned this, I laughed, because the use of estar implies that death is not a permanent condition. My teacher then explained that estar is used because that dog wasn't always dead.
In my opinion, death in the Hispanic culture (disclaimer: this is my own personal experience, not a sweeping generalization) has so much more significance than in my own (I grew up in the States, so whatever that implies for your own definition of culture). I went to el Dia de los Muertos in southern California when I lived there, and I was amazed at the reverence and celebration for the dead shown by the participants.
That doesn't really address the issue, but thats just what I thought of when I read this.