[imperfect_cupcake]

I am a complete atheist. I do not think there is anything at all after I die except the big switch off. My materials came from the stars and will return to them eventually, like everyone else.

Funerals are not for the dead but the living. Funerals help the community through ritual to come to terms with loss. I have no care whatsoever about what happens to my body. I'm dead, I sure as hell won't know. I am an organ doner but my organs won't be up to snuff to donation. I'm overweight and I smoked for many years and I've had a lot of stressors and medications. But maybe someone can use my eyes if I go young.

To save people money and to give science it's due, I keep meaning to donate my body to science. Maybe my brain can go in the brain bank and the rest can be a learning dissection or something. I have to admit part of me feels a bit squeamish, but since *I* am having the benifits of my medical profession by having access to a cadaver, it would be of benefit for me to do the same thing for others to learn and aide education and research and health professions. I love the thought of something of myself being burned and compressed and turned into a man made diamond to be worn by whomever. But I will be dead and ultimately I won't care.

However, the rituals of death are for the living. So if anyone living has any preference for me, if it matters to them, if *they* need a grave or a memorial site, or to spread my ashes, then that is their privilege. Do that. I'm dead, I won't care. Do what is important to you. I'm an atheist so I would hope the ceremony would reflect that, but if the person(s) need spiritual mention, it's their party and entirely up to them.

If there isn't anyone, then just donate my body and let others learn.