buried or cremated?

[Mrs. Peel]

I feel the same way! PARTY! As far as the meatsuit goes, just drag my carcass into the woods and let the critters eat it. "Bacon fed Betsy" for dinner....tell all the buzzards

I forgot where I was for a second, and was looking for the "like" button!

 

[Voyageur]

Of my father and brother, each were cremated. The church ceremonies were for their friends and relatives, for them to say goodby. For the rest of the family; mother and sisters, we took them both out in a canoe and gave them back to the waters (and perhaps a few fishes) and sent them on a journey to the sea. The very old bottle of red wine they would have liked, too, and insisted upon had they a say.

Now should some future April DD date culminate, in say an overhead explosion, as one scenario, might just find myself under a mountain of rock for future societies to perhaps unearth, they might find a great many of us there and they can speculate that we were from some period in time whereby that race worshiped strange gods, had wired rituals and ways of commerce, and were by an large governed by militaristic figureheads suffering mental pathologies bent on perpetual war and control - hope they don't repeat it.

 

[Graalsword]

I think that currently the best one is cremation. It is cheaper, no need to pay a useless wooden box, a place in the cemetery, and it avoids giving others the possibility of doing the ridiculous ritual of visiting a rotting body at the cemetery. So I prefer cremation, maybe throwing me to a river, sea, or the ground in some specific location.

Some time ago I thought half-jokingly and half-seriously that another cool one would be to cut me in pieces and throw me to the lions in a zoo or some wild animal.

In any case, cremation is more practical and cheap, because after all, the soul continues to live elsewhere, and those who remain in the matter need to continue their lives.

 

[Alcarohtare]

I'm also for cremation. The cleanest, cheapest, best option.
You can put urn wherever you want and also to do with ash what you consider to be proper.

 

[seek10]

Hindu's cremate. One reason I heard for this is to avoid bacteria messing around the dead body. It saves lot of space too, which is not bad for country like india.

After the cremation, people make food and keep it outside for a crow or some bird to come and eat it. If no bird comes, people think that dead person is not happy with some things, so they tries to brainstorm what is his desires , Are there any way they can fulfill. etc. People will try to wait for some hours until bird comes.
Of course, Not every body follows the procedure or keep their words.

 

[Gertrudes]

Hindu's cremate. One reason I heard for this is to avoid bacteria messing around the dead body. It saves lot of space too, which is not bad for country like india.

And this is, to me, the other problem: space. If we are already overpopulating the planet to the point of nearing 7 billion (staggering!), can you imagine trying to also reserve a space for each dead body??
Sure, many are buried on the same grave, but still...

To me, one side of the whole coffin and cemetery space problem, is that it isn't even just the space itself but the principle behind it, it's as if we can't get enough of ourselves to be honest... we have to reproduce to the point of exhausting all resources, surround ourselves of material wealth, and when we die, we still have to somehow make our presence noted by occupying a physical space with our name tag.

I understand that a casket in a grave is very meaningful for many people and I would let my family bury me if that really was important to them, but I think that on the larger scale, the whole concept is very telling of how we deal with death, life, and the planet at large.

I dunno, maybe that's just me.

 

[OpenHeartMonk]

what about option#3:

kicked down a grassy hill
left for the beasts
to feast upon flesh

 

[Mrs. Peel]

what about option#3:

kicked down a grassy hill
left for the beasts
to feast upon flesh

Ewwww, that's a little gross, but I guess if it's what you wanted.

 

[Palinurus]

what about option#3:

kicked down a grassy hill
left for the beasts
to feast upon flesh

Ewwww, that's a little gross, but I guess if it's what you wanted.

It appears to be a normal way of disposition of the dead body in some cultures, especially among the Parsi in India and Buddhists around Tibet.

Sources:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
_http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=210catid=6subcatid=35 (WARNING: this link contains some potentially disturbing pictures)
_http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160401322/vanishing-vultures-a-grave-matter-for-indias-parsis
_http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/world/asia/cultivating-vultures-to-restore-a-mumbai-ritual.html?_r=0

 

[l_autre_d]

So no one wants to donate themselves to science? I'd think the scientists be would lining up to check out a body that flourished on a KD and was a .

 

[Eva]

Burial and effectively sticking a body in a massive wooden box seems suffocating every way I look at it.
Cremation if done inside some facility, sounds a lot better but still somehow unnatural.
I would like a funeral pyre, done plainly outdoors, and forget the ashes, let them be scattered by the blowing wind.
That's the theory. In practise I would chose the easiest option, whatever that was, for the sake of those left behind - which means I would either have to move or rebel in death by demanding to be disposed of illegally!

In Greece there is a whole theatre around burying the dead.
There needs to be specific priests, payed generously of course, who will wear specific colour robes. The colour changes according to how much you have payed, and of course the length of the stuff he'll be reciting as well as the tone of his voice and how hurriedly or not he will recite them depends again on how much he's been payed.
Then, the quality and luxury of the traditional foods and drinks that are presented in a funeral have a huge impact. The gossiping and putting down or exalting someone according to how the traditional wheat was presented is hilarious - and that's not something one would just cook at home.

And this doesn't end when the funeral is finished. Every x months you go back and do a ritual thing to commemorate the deceased. Yup, you have to pay for it! I think the first one is done 40 days after the funeral, then after 3 months and 6 months, and then you are supposed to keep doing that every 6 months (or is it a year?) for the rest of your life!
And let's not forget visiting the grave every week or at most every month, and paying the grave keeper to keep it "clean".

Due to the shortage of space, graves are extremely expensive, so what happens is what Alana mentioned earlier about the "drawer graves".

40 days later they flew to Athens to bury their brother in a huge crowded cemetery, where they couldn't get a proper grave for him, but got instead something like a drawer-grave on a wall.

A body is initially buried in a spot and a set amount of time later the family goes to yet another ritual but this time it's digging him up.
If the flesh has rotted away, and if you accept to pay for the "drawer grave" then the remaining bones are put in it. It's called "skevofylakio" = vestry.
If you don't have the money to rent that vestry then the bones are dropped in a massive bone-pit where they are dissolved.
No wonder that legalising cremation has been so viciously attacked by the church, it's like giving away their golden egg laying goose.
(_http://www.athensnews.gr/issue/13420/34712)
A very expensive and taxing on the family Cult of the Dead, imho.

 

[Thomas Alan]

My mother and sister were both cremated, then we scattered their ashes in a nearby river. Probably, illegal but just a bit more sand in the river.

This would be my preference. Lower expense than a burial, no grave. The physical merely gone. If there is a life beyond this one, "I" won't be the same person anymore. Better to leave no trace in this time line.

Mac

 

[chachazoom]

I always liked the way they cremate the body in India. I watched a movie recently, really enjoyed it too (The exotic Marigold Hotel) and they had an open air cremation and I thought now THIS is more like it. It just seemed so much more natural and moving. They wear white instead of black. I was looking it up and there's only one place that offers this option in Colorado called Crestone End of life Project, a volunteer run not for profit outdoor pyre that finally gained acceptance after much initial resistance. Others have tried but get caught up in rules and regulations about "proper" cremations.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

Burial and effectively sticking a body in a massive wooden box seems suffocating every way I look at it.
Cremation if done inside some facility, sounds a lot better but still somehow unnatural.
I would like a funeral pyre, done plainly outdoors, and forget the ashes, let them be scattered by the blowing wind.
That's the theory. In practise I would chose the easiest option, whatever that was, for the sake of those left behind - which means I would either have to move or rebel in death by demanding to be disposed of illegally!

Well, to get technical the box isn't wooden, it's usually some kind of steel that won't decompose in the earth. ;) I like the idea of a funeral pyre, I saw the "Marigold Hotel" movie and really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any family to attend to my remains, except my husband who may go before me, if he doesn't change his diet. But then maybe if a comet hits (read about the recent one in Russia), that could be kinda like a funeral pyre! :)

 

[Voyageur]

Then on SotT there was this word from a French village mayor:

Bordeaux, France - The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

Not sure how intended to punish the dead; their survivors perhaps.