X-Message-Number: 26501
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 01:55:34 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: Lawsuit
References: <>

David Pizer wrote:

>Can you suggest a better immediate (people are dying every day, time is
>of the essence) way than a lawsuit to get something going that will cause
>religions to rephrase their beliefs as just that  -- beliefs, and not as 
>absolute
>truth?

Dave, you say you want evidence for any recommendations that are made 
(including not to proceed with the lawsuit--my recommendation and just 
about everybody else's). Maybe you should talk to some devout believers who 
are not cryonicists--I'm not sure where you'd find them but you have 
contacts. Off the top of my head, if I try to put myself in place of one of 
these, all I can imagine is that I would take offense at someone trying to 
infringe on my freedom to (for example) proclaim the Bible as the word of 
God. I might say "this is what I believe" but also "this is what I *know* 
to be true" as I think many religious people do. (And by the way, to feel 
that you know that something is true, especially when it concerns a matter 
such as eternal salvation, is very important to many people. Do you think 
you need "evidence" of this?) I would say that my right to proclaim my 
religious belief as *what I **know** to be true* and not as *just a 
possibility* is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. 
("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech; or 
of the press ...") I think I would be on solid ground that my position 
would be most unlikely to be overturned in the courts--can *you* produce 
any evidence otherwise? I think the First Amendment grants the right of 
someone to assert that they "know" something even if they can't produce 
enough evidence to convince a court of law.

Other considerations are that the courts themselves are composed of 
non-cryonicists, many of whom are religious themselves, and they do 
consider precedent in arriving at decisions.

On a different but related matter: a true religious believer, a "person of 
faith," who also chooses cryonics, does *not* make this choice on grounds 
that it is possible that his faith is misplaced and may not lead to the 
salvation he hopes for. Instead I think it is more akin to why he would 
choose to have a life-saving operation rather than immediately leave this 
world--for example, because he thinks he can do some good in this world 
before taking his leave of it. His hopes for heaven remain strong and 
unaffected in either case. And he would be intolerant of any suggestion 
that he begin to have some doubt about these hopes, which evidently would 
be the intent of the proposed lawsuit. Getting people to consider cryonics 
could be, but is *not necessarily* a matter of instilling doubt about some 
other hopes they might have about extending their life. My gut feeling, 
though here I'll confess to a lack of hard evidence, but anyway here goes, 
is that you will accomplish more by not attacking someone's beliefs but 
working around that. If you try to get them to question the truth of their 
beliefs, to admit that they are just beliefs and not guaranteed truth, they 
*will* perceive this as an attack whether you do or not. You need to focus 
on reasons to choose cryonics *even if* one's eventual, eternal salvation 
is absolutely certain.

Mike Perry

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