X-Message-Number: 23051
From: 
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 16:12:48 EST
Subject: RE: The Immortal's Dilemma: Deconstructing Eternal Life

<<The essay appeared on The Secular Web <
www.infidels.org > site. What bothered me was that
most of those who responded to this essay were in
agreement with the author's conclusions. See: 
http://tinyurl.com/y4b4 >>

The author is assuming that this life is OK as it is, and then presenting us 
with all the problems immortality implies.

But he's wrong. This life leaves a lot to be desired. A better life is one 
where people die when they feel they have accomplished their desires and their 
duties, and fulfilled their
dreams and experiences; not a life that ends as our bodies slowly crumple 
under their own weight, not a life crippled before its first breath by the 
dictates of some cursed mutation, nor a life that ends because a random virus 

decides to snuff it out, and certainly not a life where millions of children die
of 
starvation at an early age while others are dying from burgers and fries.

The desire for eternal life isn't due only to the brevity of this one, but 

also due to the profound, and simultaneously meaningless, unfairness of it all.
It is this tragic reality that Transhumanists and Cryonicists are seeking to 
defeat. Not just death, but death and injustice. We dream of a world where men 
live and die as they choose, rather than dangling in the wind with only the 

whims of blind chaos to decide our fate. We seek a life with more than death as
our only guarantee.

Jonathan Hinek


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