X-Message-Number: 26407 From: "Joe Waynick" <> Subject: "Cryonics Has No Beef With Religion" - WRONG? Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 12:08:18 -0700 Oh boy, here we go. I propose another argument. It goes like this: 1. Some cryonicists promise people immortality based on beliefs of faith in science being able to resuscitate them and restore them to good health in the future. 2. These cryonicists may be wrong. It may turn out that irreversible brain damage occurs much sooner than commonly believed and once death occurs, there is no coming back. 3. People who are told this (#1) may believe in it so much that they take what small estate they have and instead of leaving it for their family, use it to pay for cryonics. 4. They also reject God and religion and turn away from any real chance of achieving eternal life. 5. People who want eternal life reject God because they believe in #12, and therefore think that is all they need. Conclusion: People who want eternal life die because of what cryonicists promised. Therefore, cryonicists must be stopped!!! Dave, this is not a perfect example of a conflict. It is a perfect example of intolerance - by cryonicists with an irrational fear and hatred of religion! For a group of people who scream at the first sign of religious intolerance, we seem to be a highly intolerant group ourselves. This is the worst kind of hypocrisy I can think of. If someone wants to choose religion, why is it our responsibility to file lawsuits to stop them because we think cryonics is a better way? Can you imagine what would happen to us if every church in the country decided to file a lawsuit against Alcor because they believed (falsely) we are encouraging people to reject God? Are you really so naive as to think we could win such a fight? Do you want to be remembered as the guy who destroyed cryonics? The fact is, you can not possibly know that cryonics is going to work with any more surety than people of faith can know God exists. Believe what you want, but it is foolish and inescapably hypocritical to attempt to deny others their right to believe what they choose to believe by misusing the court system. And your comparison of Christians with Nazis is reprehensible! How many times are you willing to insult persons of faith within the cryonics community in order to express your contempt for religion? Not to mention the arrogant assumption that you alone (or was it cryonicists in general) know the "truth" and everyone else (I assume you mean people of faith) believe "lies." Dave, this is really over the top, even for your strongly held opinions. You must see that no good can possibly come of this approach. One thing on which we do agree is that we should no longer remain silent. If cryonicists really want to do something to improve the world then they should stop hiding behind the veil of "confidentiality." They should get more involved with their organization and promote cryonics as a worthwhile scientific endeavor in its own right, without subjecting others with hateful attacks simply because they believe differently. You will find this approach far more effective than attacking the beliefs of others. Joe Waynick, CEO/President, Alcor Life Extension Foundation Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26407