X-Message-Number: 17780 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 09:23:17 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #17770 - #17778 Hi everyone! Something very interesting happened to me: someone replied to a message of mine to Cryonet which I had sent but never received back. Is this common or does the connection with Australia make a difference? In any case, the message had to do with the need that some cryonicists feel to deal with those, Christians or other religions, who feel that cryonics somehow violates their religion. And I said that it cannot violate anyone's religion any more than brushing one's teeth violates your religion. Since the objections really had to do with religion and a DREAM about cryonics, perhaps I should simply be silent. But here goes again: cryonics (whether widely accepted or not as such) is basically a form of medical technology. It differs from most such technology because its failure in any particular case can only be proven quite literally after centuries (or even millenia). But at no time will we have a means which rescues us from ALL forms of apparent "death". Sure, we can expect that if (say) you "die of old age" then someday that condition will become curable in the sense that you live much longer and eventually "die" of something else. What that something else may be is likely to be something that does not even exist now. This hardly provides an argument against cryonics. But it does provide an argument against any attempt to make it look like a religion. In terms of the science that we have now and will produce in the future, we can approach immortality but (by the nature of the beast!) never really reach it. And in terms of what we really want, it's probably the best we can get. What I would say to anyone who believes that cryonics touches on religion is simply the argument that it does not and cannot, and should be evaluated as a medical procedure. I mean this not because it is recognized as one by many doctors, or has become popular as one, but because it IS one. It continues to be one because it uses the same criteria as any technology ... not by any vote, but by plain fact. Best wishes and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17780