Important atheist question:
When you die, would you let them bury your body or cremate it. Also, do you guys visit your dead loved ones graves?
Good question… I bought 6 plots in the prettiest graveyard in Oregon, USA.. Got them in my 20’s. I’m not there anymore, but 3 thousand miles away. My oldest daughter recently described her plans to sprinkle my ashes in the coolest places we know. At the moment, and after hiking some ‘Blue Ridge’ last week, I’m nearly enthuasitic about returning to the earth ~
But yes, I visit, even search the gravesites of Ancestors … with some of their gravestone photos on my phone.. Dang, what happens when & if anyone goes searching for me? I’ve likely got a few more years, but it’s become a consideration.
If conditions are right I might stage a joyous and dramatic exit by performing a self-cremation. There are several advantages: escape the ridiculous fees of the funeral industry, avoid a huge hospital bill at the end, and thwart silly meddlesome bureaucrats.
Id prefer either cremation (funeral pyre would be cool if there was a legal avenue to do it, or safe enough way to get away with it.)
Or a natural burial where I become plant food for a tree or fungus. Or donate my whole body to science, the corpse farm for forensic science in Knoxville maybe. Id just prefer it not be pumped full of preservatives and stored hermetically sealed in a box on a massively poor use of land and resources like a cemetary. Everyone who wants to waste land like that and for golf courses should be forced to double up on the same plot.
My sister informs me that I will be cremated and my ashes will sit next to my brother's on her shelf of the dead. If that makes her happy then, that's fine. At some point she'll have to duke it out with my son, I expect, but that's their problem.
I don't visit graves often. But, there were many times in the first year or so after my brother died that I wished he had spot where I could go. I didn't want to be around anyone else. I literally just wanted to go sit on his grave by myself and cry. But he was on my sister's shelf of the dead and "being with him" meant being around other people. Now, I like him being over there. Sometimes when we're chilling together we get him off the shelf and he "hangs out with us." I am very aware that he is not in his ashes. But, it's kind of comforting to have that physical reminder/placeholder.