# Buried or Cremated: Convince me I should be one, but not the other **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 8, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710 "2004-11-08T20:39:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/21 "2004-11-09T04:48:05Z")
One visit to the enormous, gaudy crypts of Pere Lachaise (or any large cemetary), coupled with a ride on the gypsy-filled metro, convinces me that cremation is the way to go. All things considered, is cremation really worse for the environment? It isn’t as if graveyard compost is being sold at the garden centre. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/22 "2004-11-09T13:17:17Z")
I quite like the idea of being cremated and then having the carbon in my ashes converted into diamond by “Lifegem” or a similar company. I can then be presented to my kids as a momento. Assuming they like the idea of yellow diamond jewelery. Much better than rotting or being scattered to the winds (IMO). ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/23 "2004-11-09T15:09:11Z")
"Where ya going? “Oh, me and Grampa are going out for a [walk.](http://inthelighturns.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=497)” ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/24 "2004-11-09T15:33:34Z")
Burial is the only logical option. If you’re buried, you have a chance to become a hideous zombie and feast upon the brains of the living when the time comes for the dead to rise from the grave. If you’re cremated, you’ll miss all the fun. ---
**Author:** ![Chastain86](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Chastain86](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chastain86)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/25 "2004-11-09T15:34:12Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Burial is the only logical option. If you’re buried, you have a chance to become a hideous zombie and feast upon the brains of the living when the time comes for the dead to rise from the grave. If you’re cremated, you’ll miss all the fun. This, so far, has been the most convincing argument. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/26 "2004-11-09T15:40:25Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Both are equally gross, but cremation’s over with quicker (like, an hour or so). > > **Burial** : You’re stuck underground in a coffin with bacteria and microbes, which soon cover you with mold and fungus, then over the months and years (depending on conditions and coffin permeability), you liquify into a yucky jam. > > **Cremation** : It’s pretty grisly as you burn and crisp at high temperatures, but when it’s done, you have nice, clean “cremains” your friends can dispose with as they like, or bury under a tombstone. Cremains. I hate that word. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/27 "2004-11-09T15:44:59Z")
[Here’s what John Prine has to say about it.](http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/prine-john/please-dont-bury-me-10851.html) ---
**Author:** ![OliverTwistofLime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b487fb/32.png) [@OliverTwistofLime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverTwistofLime)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/28 "2004-11-09T16:07:06Z")
Too many Alfred Hitchcock movies and Tv shows caused me to pick cremation with the spread of the ashes in the proper place for a 400 year old oak on my property. Then, I will preknow that I did something for mother nature. A fancy coffin to enable the mortician to eat a steak dinner with the profits is not a particular desire of mine. The simpler the better. I don’t want any visitors to a cemetery. Be nice to me while I’m alive. After death your sentiments mean nothing to me. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/29 "2004-11-09T17:59:03Z")
While you fools burn or rot, I will be rposing at liquid nitrogen temperatures, in a sealed capsule! 300-500 years later,. I will be magically revived! That’s a much nicer fate than rotting away in amoldy coffin! ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/30 "2004-11-09T19:22:19Z")
Well, coming from the cultural and religious background that I do, I see the body as still a part of the person even when the soul is separated from it, and so have a hard time seeing cremation as anything other than a desecration of the body. I’d much rather be buried to decompose naturally and return to the ecosystem. I think a good solution to the problem of space for bodies is what they do in parts of Europe: no embalming, biodegradable untreated wood coffins, you are buried for 10 years or so until you have decomposed into a skeleton, and then your bones are removed and placed in an ossuary and the grave plot can be used to bury somebody else. Besides, if everybody were cremated, there’d be no way to create cool things like the [Sedlec Ossuary](http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna.html) or the [Parisian catacombs](http://www.quovadimus.org/paris/cat/5-400.html). ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/31 "2004-11-09T19:25:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Burial: You’re stuck underground in a coffin with bacteria and microbes, which soon cover you with mold and fungus, then over the months and years (depending on conditions and coffin permeability), you liquify into a yucky jam. If you have an unembalmed body and a wooden coffin, under most conditions the body will rot and decompose fairly quickly (within a few years). Liquification usually only occurs with sealed caskets like those that are unfortunately so popular these days. I pity the investigator who ever has to exhume one of those bodies. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/32 "2004-11-09T19:38:01Z")
I’d avoid cremation, it mucks up your chance of becoming a Vampire or Zombie. Then again I want to donate my usable body parts, so I’m going to be one ugly undead creature. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/33 "2004-11-09T19:44:46Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d avoid cremation, it mucks up your chance of becoming a Vampire or Zombie. Then again I want to donate my usable body parts, so I’m going to be one ugly undead creature. In that case, you can wait for those who received your donated organs to die, and then you can all join together in a huge hulking jumbled-up horror. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2004, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/34 "2004-11-09T19:47:36Z")
Probably donating my body to science. It served my soul pretty well, so maybe it should go on to be some benefit to society. Besides, the mass of flesh that I call “me” has always been dropping bits of itself all over the place (isn’t THAT a lovely mental picture? 😃 ) as part of the regular maintenance process, so I don’t see how what happens to it after I check out as desecration. (Of course, I really would prefer that my body not get invaded by some pervy corpse fancier, but hey, by then I’m not around to complain.) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/35 "2004-11-10T02:38:01Z")
> [@Cat Fight](#): > > All things considered, is cremation really worse for the environment? It isn’t as if graveyard compost is being sold at the garden centre. Graveyard compost doesn’t have to be sold; you rot underground. Cremation isn’t as bad as plenty of other things, because people do those other things a lot more, but for what it is, it’s very wasteful. Not only are you being burned, wasting the bio-energy you had to offer to the food chain, but they also have to burn a lot of real fuel to get you to burn - people don’t go up in flames that easy. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/36 "2004-11-10T03:14:39Z")
I prefer to become Soylent Green. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/37 "2004-11-10T05:21:17Z")
So how easy is it to have your body buried naturally–unembalmed and in a biodegradeable coffin? I took a class in college on the sociology of death and dying in the US, but I don’t remember much about it. Are there any US cemetaries that dig up the bones and reuse the plots? ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/38 "2004-11-10T05:54:24Z")
> [@](#): > > So how easy is it to have your body buried naturally–unembalmed and in a biodegradeable coffin? I know it can be done, because both Orthodox Christians (and Orthodox Jews, iirc) don’t embalm their dead unless absolutely necessary. I’m sure some regulatory agency somewhere has tried to mandate embalming or sealed coffins, but I doubt it would stand up in court, as it violates several groups’ religious beliefs, and there’s no compelling public health reason for it. Of course, funeral homes are always going to try to sell you every service they can, including extra pickling and a glow-in-the-dark diamond-studded $4000 casket. > [@](#): > > Are there any US cemetaries that dig up the bones and reuse the plots? No, we just build more cemetaries. It’s actually the need for more graveyards that’s been driving the growth of urban sprawl these past years. Seriously, I think New Orleans might (or they put everybody in above-ground mausoleums, I forget which. Something to do with the fact that the ground is like a slurry over there). ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/39 "2004-11-10T07:21:24Z")
My body can be donated to science, but my head is going into a cryogenic vat. I’m coming back, baby! Just to dance on all your graves! Bwahahahahaha!!.. Oops, sorry, got kinda carried away there. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710/40 "2004-11-10T07:27:37Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > My body can be donated to science, but my head is going into a cryogenic vat. I’m coming back, baby! Just to dance on all your graves! Bwahahahahaha!!.. Oops, sorry, got kinda carried away there. Oh, I hope they will have perfected some form of cloning by that time. As a disembodied head it is probably hard to do any recognizable form of dancing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buried-or-cremated-convince-me-i-should-be-one-but-not-the-other/273710.md?page=3)