X-Message-Number: 12333 From: "John de Rivaz" <> Subject: Religious Authority and Cryonics Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:50:17 +0100 The following article is scheduled to appear in the *next* Longevity report, but as this isn't published for a couple of months, I thought I'd post it here now (with permission of the author), as it may raise some interesting debate. >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Religious Authority and Cryonics by "Shiva" <> **************************************************************** "Shiva" is a certified clinical psychologist, a priest of the Woodlands Nations of North America and holds a degree in theology from a Catholic university. Editorial note: I asked Shiva to comment on some posts made on the Internet newsgroup sci.cryonics, and received this in reply: ***************************************************************** Now, as for posts which raise theological questions, you must remember that most of them are made by people who are not theologians but, rather, people who deem themselves to have some great understanding of Judeo-Christian dogma. One of the more entertaining of these was, of course, the woman who was always condemning you all as being somehow evil or wanting to accomplish something "God" had forbidden in some way. How and when God did this was apparently manisfest to her but certainly would not be to an appologist of, say, the Roman Catholic Church. Within the Judeo-Christian belief structure (if one disregards all the small, self-styled, "Christian" churches which abound in the Western Hemisphere) there is only ONE place where one might point, in an effort to say God is against cryonics. In the Old Testament BOOK OF JOB you will find that Job believed God desired that he bury the dead. Well, maybe God did speak to Job about burying the dead. Maybe God cared about the general health of the living and told Job to bury the dead because of that interest. In older writings, the Jews were forbidden to eat certain kinds of shellfish. That, too, may have come from God. God was probably already a pretty smart fella and knew the dangers of un-refrigerated shellfish. The point is, any SERIOUS theologian will be hard put to justify any claim that cryonics somehow manages to violate the will of the Judeo-Christian God. The people who make postings to sci.cryonics that claim there is something ungodly about the pursuit of cryonic preservation and re-animation are not knowledgeable about the god they claim. Do not misunderstand me here! I do not say there are not men (or women, for that matter) of great authority within the heirarchies of the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox, the Church of England or any number of "Protestant" religions who could not point to some other "authority" and say, "cryonics is evil." Their problem is simply that from the end of that part of the BOOK OF ACTS which was written in Jerusalem, there are no acceptable authorities within the Judeo-Christian history. The writings of John on the Island of Patmos can be taken as authoritative but he didn't say anything about cryonics. All the confusion and contradictions begin with the writings of Saul of Tarsis, who became known as Paul. You may search the Old Testament books until you are blue in the face and you will find only Job's belief in the burying of the dead. You may repeat the "Ten Commandments" until hell freezeth over and find no admonition against cryonic preservation or re-animation. Jesus himself reportedly called Lazarus out of a tomb and none of the Four Evangelists so much as bat an eye about it. Among those who call themselves Christian, even appealing to the BOOK OF JOB is a contradiction. Jesus of Nazareth's own followers did not bury him; they laid him in a tomb hewn from rock. -- Sincerely, John de Rivaz my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, my singles club for people in Cornwall, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other projects: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=12333