As an atheist, how do you feel about dead people, specifically, bluntly, dead bodies, including, ultimately, your own?

[chowmama]

13. It might be my weird brain, but I've never understood the west's death traditions.

I do feel that funerals can be important for the living to remember the life of the deceased. I'd appreciate being waked at a pub, but don't need the ceremonial disposal of the body. My aftercare documents specify a cremation (which has already been paid for) and no ceremony whatsoever.

The weirdest funeral I was ever at was my mother's. My older sister, a right-wing religionist, needed to hold up her head in her community, so arranged a service commemorating a woman I had never met. The minister seemed never to have met her and at one point forgot her name, while claiming to have had several deeply philosophical discussions with her about her personal spiritual journey. The music was 'all her favorite hymns'. I'm not aware she had any; the closest they came was Down By The Riverside, a piece she truly loved in its Dixieland incarnation. They did not play the Dixieland arrangement. But it was ok by me and Mom would have cheerfully gone along with it because it was what was needed by the survivors. I spent most of it perusing the hymnal, which included such classic hymns as Fountains Of Blood. I'm never going near that church again.

My father had the same experience when they buried his mother and never forgave anybody involved. Apparently, the truth is good, if possible, but not exactly required.

And I agree that respect for the remains is a very big deal. However, I don't really understand keeping what I consider to be 'the box I came in' around, and visiting it regularly. They can scatter my ashes in the Victory Garden.