1. Is it the best use of your/your family’s resources to pay for a funeral and burial? My father’s funeral and burial was $11K (whereas cremation can be just $2K or so). He was a man who had devoted his life to Christ and missions – would it have been better to use that money as a gift to the church he helped start, etc? It’s a shame to see that much money get “buried” when Christ’s work could have used it.

2. It is easier on the environment to cremate rather than bury.

In the end it’s such a personal decision, and a tough one. Cremation strikes some as a horrifying thing, but others like me find it the best way to return “dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”