X-Message-Number: 20570
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 12:52:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Hitt <>
Subject: Islam is not a `problem' to be dealt with

Hi All,

I don't think Islam is a `problem' to be dealt with.

The most important problem to deal with, is, i think, how to work out
the science and engineering to stop aging, and later, to bring our
patients out of stasis.

Maybe this brings up sub-problems connected with how people think, and
in particular, why people don't want to bother with understanding the
universe enough to stop and reverse aging.  So maybe it's sometimes
useful to speculate on why people believe what they believe.

And so maybe it's sometimes useful to speculate on Islam or other
faiths.

But before speculating on _how_ to deal with Islam, which i think must
confer strong benefits on its adherents, i think maybe it's useful to
try to understand _why_ we'd want to.  How much of our belief about
Islam comes from personal observation?  How much comes out of TV and
our newspapers?  From reading foreign newspapers?  From books?  From
careful scholarship?  After all, for a long time and maybe still,
someone relying on the mainstream media for information about cryonics
would choose the grave.

I think the most important thing to be done with Islam (and
Christianity, and Judaism, and Mormonism, and Atheism, and Hinduism)
is to make sure that as many adherents as possible understand that
defeating death is consistent with and central to their beliefs.

dan

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