X-Message-Number: 11777
From: "John Grigg" <>
Subject: My views on things
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 15:42:22 PDT

Hello everyone,

I have been very interested in the recent discussions about trying not to
offend Christians.  The declaration by Mike Darwin that he is bowing out of
cryonics deeply saddened me.

My name is John Grigg.  I am thirty-two years old and a college student in
Anchorage, Alaska.  I placed a very long post here awhile back giving my
views on cryonics and practically my life story.  

Thomas Nord's original words about Christ did offend me since I believe in
the divinity of Christ.  I found a belief I prize being flippantly treated.
Yet I realize he comes from a different, more secularized society.  

Let me please try to explain myself.  I believe in God and yet also wish to
be cryonically suspended one day.  I even feel disappointed or even perhaps
angry with God.  For you see I am learning disabled to the point that I
can't even get a driver's license to drive a car!  

This has caused me so much frustration because it has cost me in my desire
to date women and to gain vocational success.  I also have trouble with math
and I am generally a slower then normal learner.  I took a tae kwon do class
and dropped out after weeks of frustration trying to learn the moves.
Sometimes I feel like screaming out in rage.  I realize that many people
have it worse then me, but it is my life I must live.

On top of the learning disabilities I also have a.d.d. and clinical
depression to deal with.  They only compound my other problem.  I have tried
medications but because of side effects and lack of money I quit after a
month or so.  The a.d.d. makes it hard for me to focus on a task.  While the
depression drains the ambition and joy out of me.  And of course these
problems run in the family.  

With my biological father in my life I would have had a better chance on
getting a handle on my problems.  But he was nowhere to be found because
when I was a baby he left the family.  He preferred playing the field
because with his good looks he could sleep with more women then most men
would ever dream of.  I didn't inherit his looks sadly.  No calls, no cards,
nothing as I grew up, zero contact.  It turns out that as I grew up poor and
neglected he was living the good life as a resort critic.  

Two years ago I hired an agency to track him down for me, and they did!  My
father was actually happy to hear from me though initially he demanded we
take a DNA test!  What a guy.  But we are friends now, despite everything.
We have not met yet in person because I am in Alaska and he is in New York
City.  I wish he would apologize for what he did, but what could he really
say?

And so learning disabilities, a.d.d., clinical depression and my father's
abandonment of me has hamstrung me in my life.  I am so frustrated and angry
by these things.  Yes, I must do the best I can with what I have.  I
probably do have potentials that have not been developed yet, but it is hard
to move forward with such confidence destroying handicaps.  

To me cryonics offers the possibility of a life here in this world that is
what I should have had in the first place.  People tell me that through
death, by my spirit being released by a flawed body I will be free of these
problems.  But I don't want to have to die to finally be free of my thorns
in the flesh!  Before I go to the great beyond I want to experience the joys
of this world unhampered by my defective genes.  And I want to father
children who will get the love and nurturing I never did.  They would have
it better if their father were free of these problems so they are not passed
on to them.

I belong to the Mormon church.  I even served a two-year mission in
Lousiana.  We believe in the resurrection of the body in a perfect,
immortalized form.  We even have the belief unlike the evangelicals that
human sexuality and reproduction continues for righteous couples sealed
together by the authority of God.  They have vilified us for ages for that
belief.  

I come from a church that puts great emphasis on marriage and child rearing.
But with my problems and lack of education up to this point Mormon young
women were not interested.  Without the degree and the good paying job and
car woman of any stripe are just not interested in a committed relationship.
I have learned this to my great inner torment.    

The bottom line I suppose is that I believe in God but do not have a perfect
knowledge.  And so cryonics looks good as a means of insurance.  Sometimes I
do wonder if the emotions can deceive.  But I have been taught that by the
personal witness of the Holy Spirit a person may learn assuredly for
themselves the truths of God.  This is a highly subjective and personal
thing though not to be done in a lab, but experimented about in one's own
life.  I admit I have not lived my life like I should have.  That is
probably why I do not have a sure witness of spiritual truths or perhaps I
had it but lost it.  I would prefer seeing angels to impressions of the
spirit that touch the emotions.

Life is just so short!  I feel that I need cryonics to peer over the horizon
of world events.  If Christ is coming back which I believe he is, it could
be in a few decades, but perhaps not till at least the late 21st century.  I
might be brought back to face the final tribulation events! Sometimes I
think the very technologies the extropians talk about could be the basis for
the power of the AntiChrist, should he arise.

I just want my chance!  I suppose I am like Thomas who doubted in the New
Testament.  I should just be content, but I see people zipping around in
their nice cars making good salaries, with their quality mates and I want to
rage!  To top it all off clergy and friends like to tell me my problems are
imaginary despite the fact a neuropsychologist tested me and supported all
my self-deduced claims of impairment.   

I actually rebuffed an older woman who wanted me to be her lover and live
with her.  I did this to be the morally pure person I am told to be at
church.  The repercussions are severe for disobeying the law of chastity
when a Mormon.  But now more then ever I feel tormented by my sexual urges
and part of me could kick myself for letting her go.  But till I have that
degree and good job no "pure and sweet" Mormon girl is going to marry and
then make love to me!  I wish sex were not such a big deal.  I am just sick
of my unrequitted sexual and psychological cravings for women.

I think that offending Christians anywhere in the world is a bad move for
cryonicists and totally unnecessary.  I have read the sites for the various
cryonics organizations and have found them very friendly toward believers in
God.  

I do think that many cryonicists don't quite understand the nature of
Christian belief.  Despite any effort by cryonicists to make cryonics be
appealing to Christians, many of the faithful will not sign up because the
see it as unnecessary.  And may even see it as an insult to God, a sign that
they have weak faith.  

I worry that should I be suspended that my frozen body will be destroyed in
the social and geologic turmoil of the last day tribulations.  If the Bible
account/interpretation is true regarding the last days before Christ returns
then I will not make it to be reanimated.  But instead will wind up facing
God in judgement for my trying to escape the natural order that he created
for humans. 

I think should the book "The First Immortal" ever be made into a made for tv
series (word is they are having serious script problems) the support for
cryonics will really grow in the short and long term.    

I was shocked to read Mike Darwin's posting that he was leaving cryonics.
When I first learned of Alcor I got their literature which prominently
showed Mike Darwin's efforts on behalf of cryonics.  For his scientific
endeavors and organizational work that spanned years he has my respect.  I
was saddened to see some people try to discount his views.  

I don't fully understand to what extent Mike Darwin is leaving cryonics.  Is
he totally leaving Biopreservation and 21st Century Medicine?  

I was also saddened to learn that Charles Platt left the list even though I
can see his point that alot of off-topic things are spoken of on the
list(myself included!).  When I first learned of Cryocare I called their
number and wound up talking to Charles for half an hour!  At the time I
didn't even know who he was.  I found him to be a wonderful gentleman who
was very patient with my newcomer questions.  We have continued to stay in
contact.

I'd just like to say to Thomas Nord that some of my ancestry comes from his
land.  Over the net a few months ago I met a wonderful Swedish girl named
Johanna of my faith.  We became good friends as time went by.  She taught me
alot about her homeland.  When we shared with each other about what sports
we liked to do she said she had to limit herself because of a bad heart.
  
Later she had surgery to put in an artificial valve.  The operation went
fine and she was back in school a few weeks later.  But then I got an
ominous email from her brother.  She had suffered terrible chest pain and
was rushed back into the hospital where they rushed her into surgery.
It has been three weeks now and she is still in a coma.  The brother said
all he knew about me was that I had been in her email address book and that
if I believed in prayer that he would encourage me to pray for her so I do.
If any of you who read this list pray, please do so for her.  

Maybe it's God's will that she die, I don't know.  I sure hope not.  She is
intelligent, sweet and pretty.  A part of me would like to see her suspended
because I don't want her to die when she is so young with so much unrealized
potential.  I believe in an afterlife but I want her to enjoy the life here.


Well, that's what I have to write.  I have really enjoyed 
reading the cryonet list.  It is not the monster the extropian list is!  I
hope my finances will be such that I can visit Extro 4 in August.  I would
love to meet the people whose postings I see so often.  I wish you all the
best, take care!

Sincerely,

John Grigg
  

                           




_______________________________________________________
Get your free, private email at http://mail.excite.com/

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11777