X-Message-Number: 10620
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 08:38:10 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #10616 - #10619

HI everyone!

Well, at last Ralph Merkle and I have found something to agree on!
We should have a party.

But in any case, if I understand the New Testament properly, didn't
Christ tell his disciples not just to go out and spread the word 
about Christianity, but to also raise the dead? I think there is such
a passage in John. I don't own a Bible, and have been an atheist
for a long time, but I clearly remember reading such a passage.

So that if we held to it we'd come to two conclusions: not only are
most Christians failing to act as Christ said they should, but 
by "raising the dead" cryonicists are actually acting more Christian
than almost all Christians. An interesting consequence.

What is actually happening with cryonics, of course, is that cryonicists
have a deep disagreement with the contemporary notion of when and why
a person is "dead" in the first place. We suspend people because we
think they are NOT "dead", even though ignorant doctors have signed 
a "Death Certificate" for them. We don't claim that suspension patients
are at the peak of health, but simply that they MAY well not be dead
in the first place.

There's also a historical speculation, very hard to prove. Artificial
respiration does not require any special tools. It was used for 
a time in the late 18th Century, and those doing it were making progress
with it, until for unknown reasons (Frankenstein etc stories?) it
was almost entirely forgotten. Given that no special high technology
is needed, perhaps even in Palestine at the time of the Roman Empire
there were people who were thinking along those lines, and having
some success, too. To bad we can't go back in time to verify this.
(And since they did not really have our notion of science, the practice
could easily become attached to religion, rather than medicine).

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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