X-Message-Number: 26561 From: "David Pizer" <> References: <> Subject: repliy to Kennita Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 09:15:41 -0700 Response to From: Kennita Watson from David Pizer ---- DAVID HAD SAID: I am open to using a better word if I can find one. KENNITA SUPPLIED: Dictionary.com's thesaurus' first two entries say: Main Entry: guarantee Part of Speech: noun Definition: pledge Synonyms: agreement, assurance, attestation, bail, bargain, bond, certainty, certificate, certification, charter, collateral, contract, covenant, deposit, earnest, gage, guaranty, insurance, lock, oath, pawn, pipe, promise, recognizance, security, sure thing, surety, testament, token, undertaking, vow, warrant, warranty, word Source: Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. Main Entry: guarantee Part of Speech: verb Definition: pledge Synonyms: affirm, angel, answer for, assure, attest, aver, back, bankroll, bind oneself, certify, confirm, cosign, endorse, ensure, evidence, evince, get behind, give bond, grubstake, guaranty, insure, juice, maintain, make bail, make certain, make sure, mortgage, promise, protect, prove, reassure, secure, sign for, stake, stand behind, support, swear, testify, vouch for, wager, warrant, witness Source: Roget's New Millennium Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.1.1) Copyright 2005 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved. I think you (David) may be using "guarantee" in a different sense than those complaining about your use of the term are complaining about. Maybe the confusion could be cleared up if you said exactly whom you would be suing, who exactly would be doing the suing, and for exactly what, and what punishment or damages would be sought. Personally, I'm not convinced that a statement of a suit could be drafted that would merit coverage in anything other than News of the Weird columns and the National Enquirer (i.e., that would look like anything other than the ravings of a nutcase to the media). I'm willing to be shown otherwise. DAVID: I don't see what I think is a better word than "guarantee." Maybe if someone wants to argue for one of the other words it would help me. A civil suit would be easier than to try to force the government to file a criminal suit. Criminal charges are harder to prove. I think the mistake is from accident and it results from the wrongful way religions guarantee that their beliefs are true and guarantee the rewards of joining their religion and doing what they say one should do --- I believe these potential, harmful results I have pointed out are from an honest mistake in most instances. I think that religions really do want to help their followers find ways to obtain more life after legal death, as we also want to help others obtain more life after legal death. So a civil suit on behalf of those people affected (the followers) would probably have to be the way to go. KENNITA Another point: People who are willing to take "Crossing Over with John Edward" as proof that Heaven exists are unlikely to take kindly to your assertion that Grandma isn't actually there watching over them. DAVID: I would not assert that Grandma isn't actually there watching over them. I would assert that this is unknowable at this time as something that is certain and absolute. I am saying that religious persons have every right to *believe* that Grandma is there. They just don't have the right to guarantee that she is there. All they have the right to do is believe that she is there. I hope she is. Where the possible damage comes in is where they guarantee people (who are not legally dead yet) that these people will join Grandma in Heaven if they do certain things. If it turns out that there is no Heaven, believing that Grandma was there (without taking this any further) doesn't hurt anyone. But when you assume Grandma is there and they guarantee one that one can get there too by doing what they say; and then that one rejects a scientific option of trying for very long life, and if there is no Heaven and if science works, then that one has been harmed. KENNITA Another: Maybe you should reach for some low-hanging fruit; see how many members of American Atheists you can get to sign up before you start trying to crack the hard nuts. If you find that atheists aren't biting either, maybe it's not religion that is causing most of their resistance. Then try maybe Buddhists, reincarnationists, agnostics, freethinkers, etc. There are millions, actually DAVID: Most cryonicists are atheists (or agnostics) so we know that people who don't think they are guaranteed an eternal life in Heaven *are* more likely to opt for cryonics, or turn that around --- people who believe they are guaranteed an eternal life in Heaven are less likely to opt for cryonics. So the guarantee is causing some people not to opt for cryonics. There can be no reasonalbe doubt of this. In my personal experience, I have found that most atheists that have joined American Atheists (maybe not all of them) are more interested in bashing religion than doing something positive... I think having members of American Athiests with me in my suit would tend to more likely cause the backlash that we are all worried about in this forum. What I will do is get some religious persons to join with me in my suit. The ones who agree about the mistakes religion is making. Actually, I think the religious people will not be the hard nuts. I think they (in general) are more reasonable about letting others have their say than some people who first posted on Cryonet. However it is the smaller amount of other religious people, the ones who are not reasonable, the ones who are as militant as some athiests, that we have to have fear of. I think it would be un-desirable (to them) for religious persons, (who are currently worried about keeping *their* rights to speak out protected), to be seen as trying to shut me up by attacking cryonics and other mean-spirited wrongful types of retalliation, instead of more honestly just answering the charges in the forum that I will make them (if I did go forward). I think that by pointing this unfair method out to them, (if it happens), we could keep the debate on point and only in the proper forum. If that happens, because I have truth about what we can know in present day reality on my side and the soundness of my argument, I would eventually win out. The question is what would some of them do, and what risks would this suit pose to cryonics? The other question is how many people would this suit help. Everyone on Cryonet is always crying that they want cryonics to grow faster. They want more people to sign up, and they are afraid of considering what the real reason cryonics is NOT performing like they want. The real reasons is that most people who want more life after legal death already think they have a guarantee of it by going to Heaven. The real reason is NOT that we can't prove that cryonics will work. (although it is a reason). They can't prove that Heaven will work. But they got there first and they have the "customers" signed up already. I once debated a radio talk show host. He and his listeners believed that cryonics was working. (I don't know why they believed this. Lack of proper info or misinformatin or whatever. But they believed that cryonics was working and that we could bring back frozen people at will.) At one point in the debate he even asked me something like; "I forgot what the number of people you folks have brought back is, but wouldn't you agree that it is still a small number compared to how many people there are in the world." The callers also believe that cryonics was working. He must have confused them before the debate started. I don't know what he told his listeners before I was put on line to do the actual debate. Most of the callers, along with the host, thought cryonics was working at that time. None of them wanted it. I have, in my travels around the U.S talking about cryoincs, came accross lots of other people who accidently thought cryonics was working now, and they still don't think they need it. They think they already have a better deal in Heaven and some of them think that cryoncists are trying beat up God in some way with cryonics. I see cryonicists on Cryonet predicting that when we can show that cryonics will work there will be this big rush of people to sign up. I think there will be a lot of dissappointed cryoncists when they come to realize that the reason most people don't sign up is that they think they are going to Heaven and so they don't need cryonics. Let me try to give you another analogy: If someone who you trusted said to you, "I will give you this brand new fine automobile with a lifetime warranty (the automobile you wanted the most) on a certain date" and you believed they were going to do that, why would you buy a used car (one that was scarey-looking and in questionable mechanical condition) on the morning before you were to receive the better and more desirable one? Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26561