Cryonics is the way to go.

What does he mean by dangerous?

Dangerous for his industry, meh! I don't care. The rest of us suffer from competition and changing customer desires. There is no reason to protect his industry.

Dangerous from a heath angle, now I care. Hauling dead bodies all over the place, and especially into food venues, sounds very unhygienic. I don't want new and creative diseases running around just because people want a weekend at bernies experience.

I've never understood the concept of burial in a christian society. The body is supposedly a husk for the soul, and burial wastes arable land that could be used to grow food

"Cryonics is the way to go."

Not sure I understand the point of cryonics, and it sounds a little energy-intensive.

One reason for this is a long-term trend towards cremation--both cheaper than burial, and open to a wider range of rituals. "You need two cremations to make the same as one burial," says David Nixon, a funeral consultant in Illinois.

So, the funeral industry made burial prohibitively expensive and is suffering because people are now opting for a less expensive cremation? Are we supposed to feel guilty because an industry priced itself into the poorhouse?

All industries change. When I was in business school, a professor asked what the safest small business to go into was, along with the statistic that 85% of all small businesses fail in the first year. Students gave a variety of answers, all wrong. The safest business, the professor told us, with a 90% success rate beyond the first year, was to open a funeral home - because people die and funerals hadn't changed in centuries.

The death knell was sounded when Costco began selling caskets, making people realize they did not need to purchase an overpriced box from a funeral home. That shift made them start thinking about other funeral expenses and the burden such ceremonies were placing on loved ones.

Amy, How do I get on the guest list for your funeral party?

"I've never understood the concept of burial in a christian society."

Without having actually researched, I wonder if burial is just a matter of "that's how we've always done it." According to this post from Got Questions Ministries, the Bible doesn't really go into how to dispose of bodies; that's more a matter for local law and custom.

I've never understood the concept of burial in a christian society. The body is supposedly a husk for the soul, and burial wastes arable land that could be used to grow food ~ lujlp at April 16, 2018 6:34 AM

It takes a pretty hot fire to fully consume a human body, hotter than our forebears could generally make. A body left in the air spreads disease and smells bad. So, Neanderthals began burying bodies in shallow graves, a practice which continued for centuries.

The Lord Mayor of London decreed in 1665, during the Great Plague, that bodies should be buried at a minimum of 6 feet in the ground to reduce the risk of spreading the plague. Since fleas, and not dead bodies, were spreading the plague, that decree did nothing to stop the plague. The 6' practice fell into disuse after that, but was revived when grave robbing and selling cadavers to medical schools became a lucrative business (even Ben Franklin got in on it).

"The 6' practice fell into disuse after that, but was revived when grave robbing and selling cadavers to medical schools became a lucrative business (even Ben Franklin got in on it)."

And really got to be looked down on when Victor Frankenstein got involved!

And really got to be looked down on when Victor Frankenstein got involved! ~ James Armstrong at April 16, 2018 8:07 AM

Only by the Normal family, when their daughter, Abby's, brain was stolen.

In the last ten years there has only been one funeral that I have been invited to. The others have been "life celebrations" or whatever. The body was not involved at all. They were parties well after the body had been taken care of.

My extended, large Catholic family is still very much into Funerals with a capital ‘F.’ Casket, Mass, floral towers, burial, bagpipes the whole shebang. Which is fine and those rituals can be comforting.

My grandma, however, told my mom, “Oh just cremate me, stick the urn in your yard, near the roses please, Beth, I love your roses. Then have everyone over for a nice luncheon.” My mother did so and caught lots of criticism for it. I’m in charge of planning and executing my dad’s “Just everyone go to the Bingo hall” funeral, so we will see how much flack I get (not that I care).

I just want a nice, simple Viking funeral.

https://youtu.be/0twvVmJKTJY

But not in the old style.

Some religions still have pretty strict rules on burial practices. My understanding is that the Roman Catholic church still demands that people be buried intact, preferably in church cemeteries. I don’t know how many RCs follow that, but it’s a rule that’s still on the books.

“I’m in charge of planning and executing my dad’s “Just everyone go to the Bingo hall” funeral, so we will see how much flack I get (not that I care).

sofar at April 16, 2018 9:11 AM

Temporary flack is worth it. If anyone, and I do mean anyone bitches about what you do as opposed to what they wanted, the perfect rejoinder is. “ That sounds like a really nice idea. Your advice is especially appreciated when it comes accompanied by an offer to foot the bill. “

Im faced right now with what to do for an elderly parent with no friends and no fellow church members left alive except for me, and her two grandchildren.
I think it will be a private cremation, and burial of the ashes next to my father, And a small reception sometime a few months after, but Im not in in hurry to set final arrangments.

Funerals are really for the living, and if there is no one left to be comforted by you spending an obscene amount of money, why bother?

Taking an intimate interest in festivities to which one will not be invited is gauche.

so we will see how much flack I get (not that I care).

Say, "So what you are saying is when you die you want everyone to ignore your wishes and do what people you neither like nor care about want to do with your corpse?"

As for me I'm an organ doner - with instructions for
A) If they can harvest anything
1) dump my body off on a organic produce co-op
2) forensic training program
3) refuse to claim my body forcing the government to assume the cost of disposal

B) if they cant harvest anything
0) donate it to a medical program
1) dump my body off on a organic produce co-op
2) forensic training program
3) refuse to claim my body forcing the government to assume the cost of disposal

I've told my relatives should they spend so much as a single cent on disposing of my body I swear to god I will haunt them from beyond the grave

Are you looking to bring back charnel houses Lujlp? The issue about free land was noticed long ago. Though it isn't much of an issue here in America. But in Europe the practice of charnel houses was common. Essentially you got the grave long enough for all the gooie bits to fully liquefy and pool in the bottom of the casket. Then they dug you up, tossed the bones in a pile, and tossed the smashed up coffin in the dump. The plot of land was more of a rental than a resting place.

Taking an intimate interest in festivities to which one will not be invited is gauche.

Welcome to the internet.

Charnel houses? Yech.

Cantonese-style is the way to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_collecting

A young Alabama minister was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man with no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a new paupers' cemetery way out in the country; this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

Unfamiliar with the farm country area, the preacher soon became lost. After driving around for an hour, he saw the backhoe and the workers, who were eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

He apologized to the crew for his tardiness and stepped to the side of the open grave, where he saw the vault lid already in place. He assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. The preacher earnestly poured out his heart and soul. As he preached, the workers began to say 'Amen', 'Praise the Lord' and 'Glory'!

He closed the service with a prayer and walked to his car. As he was opening the door, the minister overheard one of the workers remarking to another, "Lord In Heaven, I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for over twenty years."

"...why waste the final frontier?"

These were the voyages of the Goddess Enterprise, to seek out new life and examine civilization, to boldly split infinitives while going where many would rather not...

But remember the most important part: if you are not married, or do not have definitive documents which include specific mention of the exceptions it makes to probate custom, your inheritance will not be administered as you wish.

Yeah, go ahead and bet otherwise. Your family and friends are gonna find out in probate why the State has an interest in your life.

Oh, yeah - if a pensioner dies, does her estate receive the compensation afforded the decedent?

“That sounds like a really nice idea. Your advice is especially appreciated when it comes accompanied by an offer to foot the bill."

I definitely used a variation of this in the lead-up to my wedding when people had very expensive ideas. Also, during the home-buying process. Suddenly, people are less interested in the things they thought were very important moments ago.

Funerals are really for the living, and if there is no one left to be comforted by you spending an obscene amount of money, why bother?

Yep. And what's even sadder than a "small" funeral is the survivors paying more than they should because they think they have to.

Rad, you have a pension that pays to your decedents? Most pensions I've seen (though not many since pensions are increasingly rare) don't pay out to the estate or kids. The spouse may have some claim but that is about it.

But yes, if you die without a will then the government will often take everything. At the very least it will all be distributed by some arcane process none of us have ever considered.