X-Message-Number: 19360
From: 
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 09:32:44 EDT
Subject: talk and walk

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Mark Buddle wrote to the effect that Christian beliefs represent a major 
obstacle to cryonics, and we need to make them face the fearful consequences 
of their belief being wrong.

I think he is mistaken. Once more, there is great disjuncture between what 
people believe, what they say they believe, and what their actions 
imply--these can all be very different. 

1. Looking at the actual numbers of members and the history of cryonics, if 
every Christian were to become an atheist overnight, we would gain 
little--but if our over-all credibility were to increase a little, we would 
gain a lot.

2. "Everybody  wants to go to Heaven, but no one is in a hurry to get there." 
Religious people are only slightly less inclined than others to take 
advantage of medical interventions to save and extend life.

There was a very amusing article recently in the L.A. Times (mentioned by 
Mark Plus, I think) about a large segment of modern churches, which hire PR 
firms to do marketing surveys. Their parishioners are not interested in talk 
about hell-fire, but in convenient parking and baby-sitting services and 
practical questions of social policy; they shop and change churches like they 
shop and change grocery markets. Almost all churches adapt--sooner or later, 
more or less--and I guarantee you that most of them will adapt to cryonics 
too.

Don't attack religion--just promote cryonics.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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