X-Message-Number: 26618
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 20:15:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: factionism
A week's vacation has given me sufficient time to revisit
Cryonet, where I find factionism making a strong comeback.
This seems regrettable.
First, I see concern about religious factions. Apparently the
Alcor Board was so concerned about this, they took away David
Pizer's "advisor" status in case he might rouse backlash in
his hypothetical anti-religious crusade. He had not started
any such crusade, but people were afraid he would.
One interesting aspect of this institutional response is that
unlike most membership organizations, Alcor seems to be much
more worried about offending nonmembers than about offending
members. No one seems to have considered that Alcor
member-atheists might be upset about one of their number
being penalized for his exercise of free speech. Of course it
is traditional for Alcor to be a bit cavalier in its dealings
with its members, but still, I was surprised.
Since Alcor is more concerned about the possible negative
reaction of nonmember Christians, let's look at that
possibility. Worldwide, Christians outnumber cryonicists by
approximately 1 million to 1. You may see this as either
threatening ("So many of them, so few of us!") or reassuring
("Obviously they have no reason to be concerned by anything
we say about them, because from their perspective we do not
constitute a threat.")
I tend toward the second opinion. In my experience most
Christians simply ignore atheists as being irrelevant.
Christian factions are much more active in fighting among
themselves.
This may raise a completely different set of concerns. Alcor
currently has a CEO who is a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA).
Other Christians tend to regard SDAs as "fake" Christians.
Catholics in particular do not like SDAs, supposedly because
SDAs have suggested that the Pope is the "antiChrist" (an
epithet which may be far more inflammatory than any which
David Pizer might throw around). SDAs in turn have their own
reasons for distrusting Catholics.
Therefore we may wonder who is more likely to bring down the
wrath of righteous nonmember Christians against cryonics: An
atheist who has no paid position in the organization, or an
SDA who is the CEO.
Personally I would guess that neither of them poses any
threat whatsoever. My purpose here is to demonstrate how
potentially foolish this whole debate is.
But wait, there's more: We have our own factionism right here
inside cryonics. In particular I find a reprise of the old
plastination - chemopreservation - cryopreservation
factionism, which of course used to run parallel with the
glycerolization - vitrification debate, except that since CI
now claims its own capability to vitrify, we have the
potential for an "our vitrification is better than yours"
factionist split, which (if people fail to observe rules of
decency and good behavior) could even turn into a "your
vitrification isn't really vitrification at all" namecalling
spat. I realize that such bad behavior is rare on CryoNet,
but if we are concerning ourselves about hypothetical events,
namecalling on CryoNet has to be considered, no matter how
remote the possibility may seem.
At the root of all this I see fear in various forms. In
particular I see fear of people whose beliefs are different
from ours, because their beliefs may overwhelm ours.
I have to wonder if the fear is rational, and if factionism a
rational response.
--Charles Platt
(Speaking only for myself, not for Suspended Animation Inc.)
-----
References:
http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=26597
X-Message-Number: 26597
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 00:19:33 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: low-cost option
"Response has been encouraging to the idea of setting up a
brain chemopreservation operation....
"To start: I spoke to a local mortician (Stephen Rude, Rude
Family Northwest Mortuary, Phoenix AZ) last October. He could
do brain preservation using formaldehyde and/or
glutaraldehyde."
-----
http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=26605
X-Message-Number: 26605
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 12:03:04 -0700
Subject: Alcor & Pseudoscience
From: <>
"If Alcor gets entangled with the pseudoscience of
plastination, freeze drying, or chemopreservation, a number
of members will be turning elsewhere for fulfilling their
suspension requirements.
"And I will be one of them."
-----
http://www.catholic.com/library/Seventh_Day_Adventism.asp
"Seventh-Day Adventists agree with many Catholic
doctrines.... Unfortunately, they also hold many false and
strange doctrines. Among these are the following: (a) the
Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon; (b) the pope is the
Antichrist; (c) in the last days, Sunday worship will be "the
mark of the beast"; (d) there is a future millennium in which
the devil will roam the earth while Christians are with
Christ in heaven; (e) the soul sleeps between death and
resurrection...."
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http://www.adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main_stat42.html
"We cannot erase or ignore the historical record of serious
intolerance and even persecution on the part of the Roman
Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic system of church
governance, based on extra-biblical teachings such as papal
primacy, resulted in severe abuses of religious freedom as
the church was allied with the state.... Adventists believe,
on the basis of biblical predictions, that just prior to the
second coming of Christ this earth will experience a period
of unprecedented turmoil, with the seventh-day Sabbath as a
focal point. In that context, we expect that world
religions--including the major Christian bodies as key
players--will align themselves with the forces in opposition
to God and to the Sabbath. Once again the union of church and
state will result in widespread religious oppression."
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