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

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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


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