burial, cremation, donate to science.

Which would you prefer? Are there any other options?

-- (bygrace@thru.faith), May 16, 2001

Answers

immortality.

-- (there@can.be.only.one), May 16, 2001.

a combination of the three...

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), May 16, 2001.

"Are there any other options?"

Heck yes.

For starters, there is "sky burial", practised in parts of Afghanistan. Your body is put on a platform elevated in a tree and the buzzards, crows and other carrion-eating birds devour it and fly away.

How about burial at sea? Or mummification? Or ritual cannibalism? Or my personal favorite: spontaneous combustion?

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), May 16, 2001.

and then all the smart-asses realize[too-late] that there is an afterlife!!

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), May 16, 2001.

My family doesn't DO burial. My dad was cremated, as were the parents before him. My kids know this, but they ALSO know that if anyone can use my parts, I'd like to give them. [I stopped saying that on my driver's license when I saw that movie about folks harvesting organs from folks who had.] The kids know my thoughts, though. They'll do what they think is right.

My dad's ashes are still in my mom's closet. When SHE dies, I'm supposed to mix up the ashes and throw them into either a Fjord off Bergen or on a compost pile [whichever is more convenient at the time.]

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 17, 2001.

Anita, those ashes are extremely light and powdery. If you use a blender to mix them, make sure you put the lid on!

Compost pile? Hmmm, not much dignity in that, I'm sure you'll find a good place.

-- (rivers are @ teeming. with life), May 17, 2001.

Anita, Jane and I would like that, too, only we also want to have our ashes mixed with those of our dogs and to be scattered in the ocean. It's a silly, sentimental idea, but it seems to matter a lot to my mom and Jane.

Aren't there still religions that forbid cremation?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), May 17, 2001.

Judaism

-- (here@you.go), May 17, 2001.

misery - hmm... think I'll stick with burial underground in a bugproof box....or cremated and scattered. Maybe I'll flip a coin.

al-d - I thought you didn't believe in the doomer type afterlife anymore.

Anita - [I stopped saying that on my driver's license when I saw that movie about folks harvesting organs from folks who had.] me too, after I read something on it.

rivers - "ashes are extremely light and powdery" I heard they were more like cinders (whatever that is) and you can see the bone fragments in it.

Tarzan - I wouldn't care to keep anybody's ashes, but I like the idea of being scattered together. My grandfather's remains ended up in a river with a one gun salute.

-- (bygrace@thru.faith), May 17, 2001.

just curious...what kind of gun is 2 inches long?

-- (bygr@c.e), May 17, 2001.

...and throw them into either a Fjord off Bergen or on a compost pile [whichever is more convenient at the time.]

Anita- THAT'S funny! (Uh, I'm assuming you *did* mean it to be funny, didn't you?)

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), May 17, 2001.