Respect for the dead:
  a) Respect for the body. I don't know if a future civilization
  [perhaps alien] will extract the DNA of the bones and perform
  bodily resurrection.
  b) Funerals are social events that bring people together. Many
  future weddings had their seeds planted at funerals.

  Myself?

  I want to be buried, in case of the improbable event of a future
  alien species doing a bodily resurrection. Likely? Nope. But I'm
  selfish. I want my stinkin' 6'x6'x6' plot. It's mine and I want
  it. Or a ditch somewhere. Whatever. Shoot me off into space.
  That'd be fine too. I don't buy the whole, "better for the
  environment" ashes thing, or "waste of space". They've found DNA
  in mummies that were thousands of years old. Of course, if I
  were cremated and DNA destroyed, oh well

  I have hope for future technologies, even if they won't
  necessarily benefit me in particular

  Attendance? I wouldn't care about the ceremony unless it's what
  other ppl wanted. And if nobody cared? Oh well. Then I guess I
  was just a blip on the radar that faded away.

  Any benefit on people after I'm dead, will be entirely up to the
  people who are in control of my body and any tools I worked
  with. Anything I wrote, said, did, whatever lives on is up to
  them.

  If they wanna throw a party seen by the world, fine. If nothing,
  or something inbetween? Fine. If my memory and everything I did
  and every effect I ever had on anybody or anything was voided
  from existence, then that's just how it is,

  I've got: Kenneth Udut: 1972 - ???? - and I can only do anything
  within the - period of time.

  Look back through history; many people never get their names
  even recorded anywhere. Statistically, it's most likely that the
  same will happen to me, given enough time passing by.

  Yet, I believe in ripples of influence. Buried within the static
  of the background radiation, is everything that ever came
  before. So, the information is still there in some form. There's
  immortality built-in to the nature of things. Whether it does
  anything or anybody any good, well, that's another question