Burial or Cremation?

Please share what would be your favorite way for the process to be held after you die... Burial or cremation?

for me - cremation as I am afraid of Graveyards

Sky burial!

No preference. I will have no more use for my body, so whatever my heirs decide is fine with me. I'd tell them to do whatever is cheapest, since it all seems like a waste of money to me.

Viking-style funeral pyre.

I agree with Fred, it isn't my problem. Or at least it won't be, after I'm dead.

However I can have an opinion on the environmental impact of my funeral. Burials take up space, which is becoming less and less available now. Especially in the crowded places where many of us live. On the other hand cremation has a certain carbon footprint which I might want to avoid, not to mention that I still have a few mercury-based fillings in my teeth which could pollute the air if my body was burned. But no doubt modern crematoria are well aware of these things and are working to minimize their impacts -- I haven't inquired into that at all.

Yeah, I always felt burial was a waste of space, but now there is the whole carbon sequestration angle to consider. I think the solution is hermetically-sealed, mass graves, and we should all try to get extremely fat before we die.

Neither.
I have conveyed to the people who I think will be around when I kick the bucket, that I wish my body to be donated to science. My lungs, liver and brain should prove an interesting study. I look forward (or rather my lungs look forward) to eternity on cigarette packs with a slogan "Smoking messes up your lungs big time".

John Jai wrote:Burial or cremation?

So are you ruling out just being left to the vultures ? Or maybe a spot of Cannibalism - would save on catering costs at the wake.

Stuffed and mounted. Slap a few antlers on there and you can use me as the new JavaRanch mascot.

Joanne Neal wrote:... Or maybe a spot of Cannibalism - would save on catering costs at the wake.

Would that taste salty I wonder. I mean sweat is salty. Anyone from a medical background/science/knowledge here?

Greg Charles wrote:Yeah, I always felt burial was a waste of space, but now there is the whole carbon sequestration angle to consider. I think the solution is hermetically-sealed, mass graves, and we should all try to get extremely fat before we die.

Why hermetically-sealed? In fact, burial in a shallow grave in a grain field could reduce the need for petroleum-produced water-polluting synthetic fertilizer. (Although being made into Soylent Green might reduce the amount of grain and freshwater needed to produce beef.)

Frank Silbermann wrote:Why hermetically-sealed? In fact, burial in a shallow grave in a grain field could reduce the need for petroleum-produced water-polluting synthetic fertilizer. (Although being made into Soylent Green might reduce the amount of grain and freshwater needed to produce beef.)

I guess I just figured that if the ashes to ashes, dust to dust process were allowed to progress naturally, then the carbon would be returned to atmosphere anyway. However if it saves fertilizer, I'd be fine with that too, even it meant my body might go a-progress through the guts of a McDonald's patron.

Frank Silbermann wrote:In fact, burial in a shallow grave in a grain field could reduce the need for petroleum-produced water-polluting synthetic fertilizer.

Apart from the "grain field" aspect, what you're describing there is like Natural burial. There's probably many reasons why somebody would choose that, but environmental reasons seem to be common ones.

Neither. I will be cryogenically frozen and be reborn in the 40th century as the messiah of people and zogobots. All shall revere me and my ring of power.