Death is dealt with differently in cultures around the world, and there are ethical issues relating to death, such as martyrdom, suicide and euthanasia. Death refers to the permanent termination of life-sustaining processes in an organism, i.e. when all biological systems of a human being cease to operate. Death and its spiritual ramifications are debated in every manner all over the world. Most civilizations dispose of their dead with rituals developed through spiritual traditions.

In most cultures, after the last offices have been performed and before the onset of significant decay, relations or friends arrange for ritual disposition of the body, either by destruction, or by preservation, or in a secondary use. In the US, this frequently means either cremation or interment in a tomb.

There are various methods of destroying human remains, depending on religious or spiritual beliefs, and upon practical necessity. Cremation is a very old and quite common custom. For some people, the act of cremation exemplifies the belief of the Christian concept of "ashes to ashes". On the other hand, in India, cremation and disposal of the bones in the river Ganges (considered by many in India, as well as Hindus around the world to be sacred) is common. Another method is sky burial, which involves placing the body of the deceased on high ground (a mountain) and leaving it for birds of prey to dispose of, as in Tibet. In some religious views, birds of prey are carriers of the soul to the heavens. Such practice may also have originated from pragmatic environmental issues, such as conditions in which the terrain (as in Tibet) is too stony or hard to dig, or in which there are few trees around to burn. As the local religion of Buddhism, in the case of Tibet, believes that the body after death is only an empty shell, there are more practical ways than burial of disposing of a body, such as leaving it for animals to consume.^{[citation needed]} In some fishing or marine communities, mourners may put the body into the water, in what is known as burial at sea. Several mountain villages have a tradition of hanging the coffin in woods.^{[citation needed]}

Since ancient times, in some cultures efforts have been made to slow, or largely stop the body's decay processes before burial, as in mummification or embalming. This process may be done before, during or after a funeral ceremony. Many cultures have locations in which graves are usually grouped together in a plot of land, called a cemetery or graveyard. Burials can be arranged by a funeral home, mortuary, undertaker or by a religious body such as a church or the community's burial society, a charitable or voluntary body charged with these duties. The preserved or unpreserved body may then be interred in a grave, crypt, sepulchre, or ossuary, a mound or barrow, or a monumental surface structure such as a mausoleum (exemplified by the Taj Mahal) or a pyramid (as exemplified by the Great Pyramid of Giza). In some cases, a part of the remains may be preserved; in early ancient Greece, remains were cremated, but the bones preserved and interred.

Recently changes in culture and technology have led to new options. A late 20th century alternative is an ecological burial. This is a sequence of deep-freezing, pulverisation by vibration, freeze-drying, removing metals, and burying the resulting powder, which has 30% of the body mass. Alternatively, a green burial is not a new process, but a very old one involving burying the unpreserved remains in a wood coffin or casket, which will naturally decompose, and thus not permanently take up land. A very different option from that is a space burial, which uses a rocket to launch the cremated remains of a body into orbit. This has been done at least 150 times. However, most of these remains are not complete, nor launched permanently into space, due to cost. Two partial permanent space burials are those of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker, a part of whose remains were launched to the Moon, and Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, part of whose remains travel with the New Horizons spacecraft, which has/will leave the Solar System. Other remains have been launched only into Earth orbit, and either recovered, or left to be lost.

Cryonics is the process of cryopreservating of a body to liquid nitrogen temperature to stop the natural decay processes that occur after death. Those practicing cryonics hope that future technology will allow the legally dead person to be restored to life when and if science is able to cure all disease, rejuvenate people to a youthful condition and repair damage from the cryopreservation process itself. As of 2007^[update], there were over 150 people in some form of cryopreservation at one of the two largest cryonics organizations, Alcor Life Extension Foundation and the Cryonics Institute.

In some nations whole body donations have been encouraged by medical schools to be used in medical education and similar training, and in research. In the United States, these gifts, along with organ donations, are governed by the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. In addition to wishing to benefit others, individuals might choose to donate their bodies to avoid the cost of funeral arrangements; however, willed body programs often encourage families to make alternative arrangements for burial if the body is not accepted.

Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social and philosophical dimensions. Common to human experience is the death of a loved one, be they friend, family, or other. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement often refers to the state of loss, and grief to the reaction to loss. Response to loss is varied and researchers have moved away from conventional views of grief (that is, that people move through an orderly and predictable series of responses to loss) to one that considers the wide variety of responses that are influenced by personality, family, culture, and spiritual and religious beliefs and practices.