Organ donation, body research, and whatever else leads to my remains being the least wasted they can be. Grind me up into dog food or something like Diogenes the Cynic wanted if that's the cheapest method of disposal.

(July 19, 2017 at 9:51 am)Nymphadora Wrote: Religious don't always want a service. My father's wish, before he died was to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over a golf course. He didn't want a service at all. So we didn't give him one. He went straight from the VA nursing home (he was 57) to the funeral parlor and then to be cremated. Came back four days later inside a ziploc bag (yes... he was in a baggie), which was inside a velvet draw string bag, which was inside a small wooden box.

Why don't some religious, your father included, want a service?

(July 19, 2017 at 10:17 am)Astonished Wrote: Organ donation, body research, and whatever else leads to my remains being the least wasted they can be. Grind me up into dog food or something like Diogenes the Cynic wanted if that's the cheapest method of disposal.

A good looking corpse might fetch considerable interest on Craigslist . . .

(July 19, 2017 at 9:13 am)pool the matey Wrote: Why not donate your organs and then your body for research

Great idea. As a writer, I donate my body to science fiction.

Seriously, funerals are for the living, not the dead. What folks feel they need to do after I'm gone will be their problem, not mine. The only thing I ask is that I be buried in something biodegradable so I can rejoin the earth.

But don't lock me up in a box. I'm claustrophobic and it would drive me batty.

(July 19, 2017 at 10:24 am)Die Atheistin Wrote:

(July 19, 2017 at 9:51 am)Nymphadora Wrote: Religious don't always want a service. My father's wish, before he died was to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over a golf course. He didn't want a service at all. So we didn't give him one. He went straight from the VA nursing home (he was 57) to the funeral parlor and then to be cremated. Came back four days later inside a ziploc bag (yes... he was in a baggie), which was inside a velvet draw string bag, which was inside a small wooden box.

Why don't some religious, your father included, want a service?

Because he sat in a VA nursing home for 22 years and felt like it would be a waste of our money to put us all through that. He wanted us to be happy and remember the good times, not mourn over him.

(July 19, 2017 at 10:24 am)Die Atheistin Wrote:

(July 19, 2017 at 9:51 am)Nymphadora Wrote: Religious don't always want a service. My father's wish, before he died was to be cremated and have his ashes scattered over a golf course. He didn't want a service at all. So we didn't give him one. He went straight from the VA nursing home (he was 57) to the funeral parlor and then to be cremated. Came back four days later inside a ziploc bag (yes... he was in a baggie), which was inside a velvet draw string bag, which was inside a small wooden box.

Why don't some religious, your father included, want a service?

The level of religiosity can vary, as can the actual type of belief held, so maybe there wasn't the 'traditional' view held by most co-religionists in his case.

(July 19, 2017 at 10:27 am)vorlon13 Wrote:

(July 19, 2017 at 10:17 am)Astonished Wrote: Organ donation, body research, and whatever else leads to my remains being the least wasted they can be. Grind me up into dog food or something like Diogenes the Cynic wanted if that's the cheapest method of disposal.

A good looking corpse might fetch considerable interest on Craigslist . . .

Only if they did it for porn, not private usage. If they're going to do stuff with me after, I would want it to be shared with as many people as possible, for posterity.

(July 19, 2017 at 9:20 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: I'm donating my body to science fiction.

But for real, you can ask to be cremated and have your ashes spread at your favorite park, or donate your body to one of those forensic science institutes so they can use your body to test out new investigation equipment..or..there's like a million other things that your body can be used for.  As for the 'non-religious' part - you can put in your will or ask your relatives not to do anything religious, but you can't really stop them from saying a prayer over you or having a memorial service in a church since..y'know, you'll be kaput.

"Science fiction?" Hey, I said it first."D

Like minds think alike.

Funerals and related rituals are for the living, not the dead. If my survivors need some of that to deal with my dissolution, they can knock themselves out. I have no need to know that anything in particular is going to happen when I die, and I most certainly won't have such a need after I'm dead.

Like others here, my organs will be donated to science, and I'll end up cremated most likely. My atheist son went that route, they took most of his skin and quite a lot of bone and ligaments for grafting purposes and incinerated the rest.

It's entirely possible to have lovely memorial services that celebrate a person's life, professionally mounted without the aid of clergy. It's possible, but not necessarily easy outside of large urban areas, to find secular persons with experience and expertise in that area, but it can be done, especially with advance research and planning.

Even middle of the road to liberal churches often do a pretty good job in this area, with a minimum of inserting their ideology into it. My late wife's home church (rural Methodist) put together a truly lovely memorial video of stills and home movie clips of my wife throughout her life, that I really appreciated. People who knew her three decades ago in high school came some distance to pay last respects, and that meant a lot to me. It's irrational, but the fact it would have moved her meant alot to me too. People neglected her in life, frankly, and it's too bad it took a funeral to get them off their arses, but it was better than nothing. It was too late for her to take pleasure in it, but I did.

(July 19, 2017 at 9:13 am)pool the matey Wrote: Why not donate your organs and then your body for research

I don't intend to leave my organs in any useful condition!

Due to my medical history, I'm not allowed to donate organs so it'll be into the ground with me, Neil DGT style. Otherwise, I'd donate then be buried rather than waste my energy in to space.

As far as rituals go, there's utility in a funeral, aiding the passing of grief and creating the final memory of the person's public image. As it's my culture's preference, I see no reason why that shouldn't happen.