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Green Funerals

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Crabtownboy, Oct 25, 2010.

  1. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    In another thread obits are being discussed. Have any of you heard about "green funerals?"

    Is anyone considering having their funeral a green funeral?

    In case you are wondering a green funeral or natural burial is such that the body is prepared without chemical preservatives or disinfectants. This includes embalming fluid or any fluids containing formaldehyde. Such chemicals are destructive to the environment. Also a person may opt for a biodegradable coffin and also does not use a burial vault. Additionally the grave should be dug shallow enough that aerobic activity will help speed the decomposition of the body.

    Trying to anticipate a question ... no I am not planning my burial as a I am having my body donated to a medical school for research ... or an anatomy class or whatever they want to use it for.
     
    #1 Crabtownboy, Oct 25, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 25, 2010
  2. kyredneck

    kyredneck Well-Known Member
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    Heheh, anything 'green' around here costs substantially more than conventional stuff. I wonder if being buried 'green', which I wouldn't have a problem with, would cost more than a conventional burial.

    Incidentally, I would just as soon be cremated and have my ashes thrown to the wind from the cliffs of a mountain that I played on in my youth, but the wife is dead set against it. She swears she'll put my ashes in the cat litter box if I insist on being cremated.
     
  3. abcgrad94

    abcgrad94 Active Member

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    I'd prefer NOT to be enbalmed. Just stick me in a pine box, stamp it "return to sender" and say goodbye.
     
  4. matt wade

    matt wade Well-Known Member

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    Stuff me full of cigarette butts, plastic bags, and tupperware then bury me in a coffin made from a giant redwood.
     
  5. Iconoclast

    Iconoclast Well-Known Member
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    OUCH......THE LITTER BOX!:laugh:
     
  6. sag38

    sag38 Active Member

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    Stick my body in the oven, superheat it, and very quickly my body is returned to that from wince it came.
     
  7. Gina B

    Gina B Active Member

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    Yep, and there's no reason for it to be expensive. The law doesn't say you have to be embalmed or in a casket or driven to the cemetery in a hearse. Technically you can be wrapped in a blankie, tossed in the back of a pick-up, and buried, although I do believe there's a depth requirement and of course there are the fees to use the cemetery. Of course I'm sure there are funeral homes and such that will take advantage of the green craze and charge outrageous fees to do it the cheap...errrr, green way.

    I guess it would depend on where you lived. Cremation seems the next cheapest option from green. But maybe not the wisest if you don't want the cat squatting over your remains...:laugh:
     
  8. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    AS IN SQUARE DANCIN', HUH, CRABTOWNBOY???

    Blackbird doing a "make shift" Square Dance call:p

    Bow to the Partner

    Bow to the Corner

    Allemande left to a Right-Left Grand

    do the "Do-Si-Do'" over Crabtownboy

    Prominade

    then bring her on home, boys!!!

    :laugh::laugh::laugh:
     
  9. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    Suprize me! :tongue3:

    Rob
     
  10. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    I'd prefer to go out the way of the cat... Sulk off into the woods one day, never to return. After that, if I must work around the conventions of the day, the cheapest (yes, cheapest) possible box, plywood, cardboard, whatever, in the cheapest possible hole in the ground.

    I won't be there that long anyway... My wife can use the other funds normally applied toward funeral expenses to go on vacation or help the kiddos.
     
  11. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    I have a friend of mine in the funeral home biz----not the owner of the home but one of the managers

    anyhows

    He told me back in 2000---if I kicked the bucket and my wife called him--and wanted to know how much would it cost to come pick my dead body up and go straight to the hole in the ground and dump me in

    No wake

    No enbalming

    No creamation

    Just straight to the hole--dump me in--cover me up--and skee-daddle

    $1200.00:type::type:
     
  12. sag38

    sag38 Active Member

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    If I know I am going to die, such as having terminal cancer, I'd like to have my wake while I'm still alive, able to say good bye, and maybe even cut a rug. When I do die there will be no open casket for people to look over me and say, "He looks better than he ever has." There will be no long drawn out service. Offer comfort to my family, preach the gospel, and carry on. Plus, my wife is under the strictest of orders to go as cheap as possible. But here is what she says, "You will be dead and I will do what I want to do." Then again, I'm not even dead yet and she already does what she wants to do.
     
  13. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
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    It's not quite that simple...

    After your flesh roasts and all of the fats burn off, the funeral home has to grind your skeletal remains into powder.

    While I don't have a strict theological problem with cremation, it is not my preferred method of preparing the body after physical death. Burial of the body (without extensive manipulations such as extensive embalming or cremation) symbolically demonstrates respect for the earthen vessel that God has created, and is a demonstration of the Christian belief in resurrection.

    To me, cremation is a symbol of annihilation.

    I would not presume to second-guess anyone else's wishes, but cremation is not for me.
     
  14. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    My choice (assuming I had one) would be to meet Him in the air.

    HankD
     
  15. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    Me, too, Hank!!! I want to "hang in there" for the Rapture!!

    I heard Chuck Swindol preach something along these same thoughts----he wants to meet the Lord in the air so that he will never have to experience the "jaws" of death

    But the scripture says

    Whether we live, or whether we die---we are the Lord's

    IOW---either way---though we live till He comes and He comes and we never die----or----if we "Kill over" within the next second and our soul seperates from our body in this thing we call death----either way--we are the Lord's!! We belong to Him no matter in which way we will meet Him!!:wavey::wavey:

    Just somebody promise we all will do the "Jitter Bug" on top of Crabtownboy's "green" grave!!!!! LOL!!
     
    #15 blackbird, Oct 25, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 25, 2010
  16. HankD

    HankD Well-Known Member
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    I know blackbird, it's not so much the fear of death but I would like to "be changed" and soar up into the clouds to meet Him there.

    Whatever is His will is what will be.

    HankD
     
  17. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    "While I don't have a strict theological problem with cremation, it is not my preferred method of preparing the body after physical death. Burial of the body (without extensive manipulations such as extensive embalming or cremation) symbolically demonstrates respect for the earthen vessel that God has created, and is a demonstration of the Christian belief in resurrection.

    To me, cremation is a symbol of annihilation.

    I would not presume to second-guess anyone else's wishes, but cremation is not for me.


    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I feel the same way about cremation, also

    But let me say don't you reckon that when the flames begin to lick at the dead body and little by little---the char embers begin to make their way up the smoke stack and then are dispensed into the atmosphere---scattered by the wind and then settled in some spot by the rain----as fleshly atom seperates from fleshly atom in a way where the atoms can not distinquished by human eye-----don't you reckon that God Almighty knows how to "rejoin" said seperated atoms on that happy Resurrection morning?????

    Just a thought!!!
     
  18. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    I had never heard of a 'green funeral' until listening to "The Story" on NPR last week. You can listen to it online. A man who is in the terminal stage of cancer is going to have his funeral green. He indicated it is quite a bit less expensive than a normal [whatever that is] funeral.

    I did a bit of research online:

    They say the cost is between $1000 and $3600.

    If you donate your body to a medical university there is no cost to the family at all.

    My wife and I have decided that the normal funeral and being put in a vault is an abomination. The cost is excessive and the body is not recycled back to nature.

    We had thought for years we would have our bodies cremated. However, we have learned this uses a huge amount of gas to fuel the fire and pollutants are put into the atmosphere. That made us begin to look around for a better method and, for us, donating our body to science seemed the best option.
     
    #18 Crabtownboy, Oct 26, 2010
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 26, 2010
  19. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    I do facilities management on college and university campuses. The cost of dealing with a body give for "science" is astronomically higher at the end of the day than burial. Because the costs get passed on to the general populace via taxation, the family does not see just how much it costs to do this, but I can attest that I spent in excess of $100K just to set up a new storage unit for ONE body at one of the universities I managed.

    I'm not against research on actual bodies -- not at all -- but I am against spending our inheritance in ways that really don't benefit humankind in the least, and the average university or college science setting mos likely does not. It is more for "look what I can do..." than real research.
     
  20. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    I do not dispute your figure on the cost of setting up a facility. I am curious, what is the expected life of a facility and how many bodies are expected to be used by that facility during its lifetime?
     
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