X-Message-Number: 26381 From: "David Pizer" <> Subject: Should someone sue certain religions? Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 10:20:10 -0700 So far there have been some thoughtful responses and comments on the ethical delimma that I pointed out the other day. In a nutshell it goes like this: 1. Religions (some) guarantee followers eternal life. 2. These religions may be wrong. 3. These guarantees may keep people (who desire very long life) from selecting cryonics. 4. Cryonics may work, and may lead to very long life. 5. if this is true, the false religions have prevented the very thing they were wanting to deliver. 6. There can be no greater mistake than this. It's the worst mistake that can be made. How can we change this situation, and thereby help others? One possible option to change the situation: What if a group of people got together and sued one of the main religions in the U.S.A.? Sue the one that most blatently promises eternal life and ask the court to make that religion act more responsibily in their promises. Ask the court to make that religion put disclaimers in their presentations as to more represent the truth that no one can guarantee certain things. Then try to expand this to all religons. Perhaps the disclaimers could be something like: "We only hope for these things that we talk about, we cannot guarantee them." "We have been wrong in the past on certain items, we may be wrong again, but we hope we are not." "Individual results may vary." "No human can speak for God, (if he or she exists), we can only present our best impressions of what we think Gop thinks." "There is a lot as stake here, we suggest you check out other options." Religions are, after all, big businesses that do take in lots of money. Why should they be allowed to make unsubstantiated claims any more than a company selling nutritional supplements, or offering health care, or selling automobiles? Cigarettes? Fast Food? Further, if my scenario above turns out to be true, religions are doing more harm than any other entity today. They are costing people their chance at very long lives. Even if we did not prevail in court at the present time, the publicity would be enormous (if done right) and would cause people to think. The results could help many people. David Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26381