X-Message-Number: 19005 From: "Steven Lacher" <> Subject: RE:#19004: I'm Celebrating a Little Bit [Robert Moore] Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 06:22:31 -0400 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0015_01C1F0D8.936115A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Robert....... Don't feel even the slightest bit silly celebrating getting "your lottery ticket"! I remember the day when I received my bracelet and necklace, and put the bracelet on for the first (and for me, with one exception of having the chain resized) and last time. I know this list isn't the exclusive province of atheists, but I'm one. I later told a good religious friend of mine that on that day that putting the bracelet on, I suddenly felt different. Not immortal, or all powerful, or anything silly like that, I just felt different. I told her that I realized that I'd done everything which is currently in my power to do to defeat death. It gave (and still gives) me this wonderful feeling that I've seen to my future. She told me that that feeling of comfort, and pride is similar to what she feels each day because she has faith in God. This was a big revelation for me, because as an atheist, I have no faith. I had no faith in God, no faith in flimflams, trickery, magic, or any other thing which isn't based on rational thought. And I STILL don't! Certainly "getting the bracelet" is no guarantee that biostasis will work. It's (to quote a book most of us have read) "a leaky lifeboat to the future" at best. So no, I don't have the unquestioning certainty of faith that I'll one day be immortal. But what I have now is hope. Welcome aboard the lifeboat, Robert, and pass the champagne! --Steven Lacher, ALCOR member A-1865 ------=_NextPart_000_0015_01C1F0D8.936115A0 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19005