A debate on a provocative topic.

To my esteemed opponent, (I'm not saying your name because of it's complexity.) I would like to apologize for my tardiness in responding. But I will get right to the point and delay no further. I would like to begin with some definitions of the resolution as I deem them important in this debate. The resolution is as stands: "Cannibalism of non-diseased human carcasses is a superior alternative to cremation or burial." Cannibalism: the eating of human flesh by another human being. All of my definitions from this to the last come from dictionary.com. I would like to point out that this does not include the term dead or deceased, and neither does the resolution. In fact, none of the definitions on dictionary.com include dead or something of the like. The only one that refers to life says that it is the eating of a LIVE something. So keep this in mind. Human: pretty understandable, nothing exciting here. Carcass: I chose this one because of it's relevance to the topic. "the body of a human being, whether living or dead." Notice once again the living aspect. Superior: better. I would now like to bring up our burdens. The affirmative must show that cannibalism is better than cremation or burial. I must show that it is equal or worse than cremation or burial. I begin with the fact that the definitions of these words do not imply that the person is not dead. This means that it is morally wrong to eat someone while they are still alive. The unalienable right to life gives each individual their right to not be eaten alive. This is the very first reason that I should win this round. The second along these lines, is that burying someone alive is also denying their right to life, and so is cremating them while they are still alive. This proves that cannibalism isn't a better alternative, it is equal to these alternatives as they all violate the same right. My third argument is that it is socially unacceptable to cremate or bury someone while they are still alive. In fact, I would posit that there are less than ten cases combined of this actually happening per year. I don't have actual statistics so if you can disprove this, please do. So if something is as rare as this, there need be no alternative, whether better or worse. Now I will begin by arguing against my opponents case. His first argument does mention the deceased. I would say first that the resolution doesn't imply deceased, and that the problems I have shown with eating the living are far worse than any of the benefits that might come from eating the deceased. He then says that there are benefits from eating other people. He uses nutritional value as one. If we are looking for nutritional value, then there are much better alternatives that are much more humane. Yak being one of those alternatives. So there is no reason to eat humans as far as nutritional value goes because there are much better meats for you and your body. Now let's talk about the expense part. You say that it is expensive to bury your dead grandma. My first point here is that it is also a good part of closure. When a love one dies, most of the living relatives need some sort of closure. When one is buried it allows for the family to have an event that talks affectionately about the deceased and allows them to further their grieving process and speeds up their recovery. Not only that, but a burial site allows for loved ones to visit it later on. This too helps with closure. Even if you were to have a ceremony before eating the deceased, it would defeat the purpose. You would finish telling stories of how much grandma meant to you, and then ask for a thigh cooked medium well? Doesn't help the grieving process. You also say that burning CO2 is bad for the environment. My first argument is that we have a lot of other worse things to worry about, so why spend our time on the small stuff? My second argument, is that plants turn CO2 into oxygen, and since most crematoriums are located on the cemetary premises which usually contain many plants, this doesn't play much of an impact on our environment at all. This just leaves the "green" effect of cannibalism. My first argument here is that burial and cremation aren't hazardous to the environment in the first place, so there need not be a green alternative. Secondly, most people aren't skilled in the art of butchering, or proper meat cooking techniques. When introducing a new meat to cook, it could bring in more diseases from improperly cooked meat. For these reasons, there is only one way I can see this round going. And that is to the negative.