NOM

Can we do a NOM survey on this topic? I'm just wondering if there is a general shift toward cremation or if most folks still like the idea of trying to preserve their body after death.

I've never like the body on display thing. Maybe it was the death of my grandparents; just seemed really creepy to put it out there on public display, even felt wrong in many ways. Then I bought into the LDS dogma for many years, about how sacred the body is and being buried in temple clothes, which is already a thread on here. But even as a TBM, with no exact policy on cremation, I was always planning on that and not burial.

The other aspect I really hate about our society's view on death is the mega capitalistic industry it has become, taking advantage of grieving people, convincing them to spend tens of thousands of dollars on "only the best for your loved ones". No offense to anyone who works in that industry, but the whole marketing of it really bothers me.

These thoughts were sparked last weekend when we hiked up our favorite canyon with out dog to spread the ashes of our recently departed other dog. It's a canyon we hike once or twice a month for the past 15 years. It was sad, but it was also so beautiful, spending time grieving up there by the mountain stream and drop of few of his ashes in our favorite spots. Even our high strung little girl dog was calm, the most calm she's ever been on that hike.

This is exactly how I would like my family to work through their grieving process when I go, kids taking my ashes up to the top of a peak in the Wasatch near our home, spreading a few ashes on the wind, in the creeks, out on the big salty lake. Out into the west deserts of Utah. Maybe, a few out on a beach in La Jolla. Hopefully I have a few $$ they get when I die that will afford them some travels to do these things. If not, no big deal; I won't or will not be able to give a $hit.

I was confused about this when I was a kid. My parents told me it was because it's harder to resurrect a pile of ashes. I wanted to know why that posed any sort of barrier for God, and why it's any different than a pile of dust, or someone who drowned and was eaten by 1000 fish and carried to all corners of the ocean.

My kids don't get along very well. Very different personalities. I once had a plan to leave instructions in my will for them to sprinkle my ashes in a half dozen really hard-to-get-to places (e.g. Freemont Island, top of North Caineville Mesa, King's Peak, etc.) to create some bonding opportunities. Then I realized what I was imagining was a comedy movie scenario that in reality would be a sh!tty thing to force on them. I like your plan much better, RH.

Barring cremation, I'm also considering building my own coffin out of cheap pine and sticking it in the basement until needed. That will ensure that no one feels compelled to buy a Mazeratti. I want to write my own obituary too. Something like "he did the best he could." Last time I looked at the obits some of them were like 1/4 page long. Heads of state don't deserve that.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:43 am I'm also considering building my own coffin out of cheap pine and sticking it in the basement until needed.

Freemont Island, top of North Caineville Mesa, King's Peak - those are awesome places! It would also be fun to put little geocaches in some places for them to find...I might just do that!

Is it legal to build your own coffin? That's part of the marketing racket matrix the system they have created for us, making it legal to only deal with your body the way the industry has mapped it out for you. Can't just build a pyre in your backyard or throw yourself in your own pine box; you are forced to buy their expensive concrete bunkers with a special expensive box, buried on expensive plots of land for dead people!

I want to be drawn and quartered.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:31 amI'm just wondering if there is a general shift toward cremation...

I'm part of that general shift towards cremation. If any of my relatives want to visit a headstone, then fine, put some of my ashes there; Scatter the rest on the wind somewhere under the big blue dome like others have mentioned.



I also heard the "Don't make any extra work for the toga-wearing dude near Kolob" reasoning "against" cremation. Like any good non-thinking true believing clone, I didn't really question it. Just one more contradiction to throw on the giant pile of contradictions in LD$-Inc.

I don’t personally care what happens to me after I stop breathing. I’d like everyone to have a few laughs at my expense and then dispose of me however is the most convenient for my family.

Plastination and a tour on The Body Exhibit would be cool. Just pose me slitting my throat, disembowling myself, and catching my guts with my right hand extended in a cupping fashion.

You know the pose!

My mom died in 2018, was cremated and wanted to be spread some day with my dad. He got sick shortly after her passing and died in 2019, almost 12 months later. Oddly, both from pancreatic cancer. Anyway, both of them thought that expensive caskets and gravesites were a waste. They wanted 2 things; to be spread together and in a place that was meaningful to their 5 kids. Oh, they were both adamant about not having a horrible open casket.

Since my dad got sick so soon after her, we actually got to talk to dad about it and it was so, so fresh. He just wanted us to not fight. We’re all pretty close, so we picked a weekend last summer and got places at Pajaro Dunes in the Monterey Bay where we vacationed as a family when we were kids. We had a fire on the beach at low tide and dug a hole for their ashes near the water and then sat around and told stories and laughed and cried and had a very special evening. In the morning the tide had come and gone with my mom and dad together. It was exactly what my folks would have wanted. (Now I’m crying with a smile).

Their LDS close friends who inquired about our plans all loved the idea and many said they wanted something similar.

On the legal and financial side, CA requires you to be cremated in a box. There is a super cheap cardboard version, but since we had funerals we bought the cheapest, but still funeral-worthy, caskets. There is also a law that prevents funeral directors from renting caskets for people in our quite common situation of having a funeral with a casket and then cremating afterwards.

Sorry for being long-winded, it’s tender time and pretty relevant to OPs question.

Yobispo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 6:42 pmSorry for being long-winded, it’s tender time and pretty relevant to OPs question.

Please don't apologize, because:

Yobispo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 6:42 pm(Now I’m crying with a smile)

Me too!

Seriously: What an awesome thing for your parents, and you and your siblings. Sadly, my parent's passing's will be nothing anywhere close to anything like that. My parents were/are close-to-fundamentalist believers, and basically hermits, who didn't talk much to each other, or anyone else. I literally don't even know my parents, except that MORmONism, and fake masonic cult rituals were/are the most important things in life to them!

One of my parents has already passed, so I know for a fact it won't be anything like yours. I learned more about that parent during the first 3/4 of their funeral than I did in more than 40 years of life... Then their bishop got up and started the usual MORmON funeral preaching, and I came "this close" to walking out of my own parent's funeral.

My kids balked at the idea of duct-taping me into several Hefty bags and setting me out by the curb.

So just for context, the new handbook has the old language - they are still discouraging cremation.

Always seemed silly to me, that God can resurrect you if you were shark poop but not ashes.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:49 pm Freemont Island, top of North Caineville Mesa, King's Peak - those are awesome places! It would also be fun to put little geocaches in some places for them to find...I might just do that!

you might consider defleshing instead of cremation, then it could be like the remnants of saints. Each geocash would contain a finger or toe bone.

Best funeral ever:
I have a loose bunch of friends who build sailboats and expedition rowing boats. One of them died and his grandson suggested a Viking funeral. One of the guys built a yard-long replica of a Viking ship, filled it with tinder and gunpowder and poured the cremated remains on top. We lit the fuse and sent it sailing across Lake Powell (our common cruising place). A couple of hundred yards out it went up in flames while we stood on the shore in Viking hats and drank mead from ceramic cups thrown by another participant.

Yobispo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 6:42 pm Sorry for being long-winded, it’s tender time and pretty relevant to OPs question.

Dude that was beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 9:04 am Best funeral ever:
I have a loose bunch of friends who build sailboats and expedition rowing boats. One of them died and his grandson suggested a Viking funeral. One of the guys built a yard-long replica of a Viking ship, filled it with tinder and gunpowder and poured the cremated remains on top. We lit the fuse and sent it sailing across Lake Powell (our common cruising place). A couple of hundred yards out it went up in flames while we stood on the shore in Viking hats and drank mead from ceramic cups thrown by another participant.

Love this! I'm thinking out on the GSL, but the salt would preserve the burnt remains, might be a gruesome find by somebody wandering the shoreline. Last laugh I guess.

Red Ryder wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:16 pm Plastination and a tour on The Body Exhibit would be cool. Just pose me slitting my throat, disembowling myself, and catching my guts with my right hand extended in a cupping fashion.

Yeah man! If you want to be on display, don't just give the local TBMs a show in your monkey suite, go all out and make the world tour with it all hanging out inside and out!

moksha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:17 pm My kids balked at the idea of duct-taping me into several Hefty bags and setting me out by the curb.

Ingrates! We pay a crap ton of money to WM Systems, use those wheely bins! Now, if you could only get your name on the recyclable material list. Soilent Green anyone?

Mormorrisey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 8:34 am So just for context, the new handbook has the old language - they are still discouraging cremation.

Always seemed silly to me, that God can resurrect you if you were shark poop but not ashes.

It's just one more thing on a long list of things the old Coblers of the corp of TSCC want to control, which is everything about your life!

Mormorrisey wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2020 8:34 am Always seemed silly to me, that God can resurrect you if you were shark poop but not ashes.

It's not that he can't resurrect you, it's just that he's lazy, so anything that makes him work just a bit harder gets classified as a sin. For instance, God could carve his face on the wall of the Grand Canyon but it's a lot of work and would cut into his procreating time. Just sitting back and leaving you in a petri dish to come up with faith all on your own is so much easier. And if it doesn't work for you, eh, he just turns you over to his pal Satan, which saves him additional effort of building a mansion for you in the afterlife. Turns out brimstone is much cheaper than marble too.

cremation for me.

my living grandmother has requested an Irish wake

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:31 am Can we do a NOM survey on this topic?

I told my kids I want to be cremated. Recently one of my dd said there was another way. Composting. There's a composting-humans place in Seattle. That tickles my fancy more than cremation.

While I was a believer, I was afraid it was a sin to be cremated. I think I was taught that it was harder for God to resurrect such people, but that makes no sense to me now.