X-Message-Number: 26661
From: "marta sandberg" <>
Subject: Religion, me, new friends and the media
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:00:05 +0800

Religion, me, new friends and the media

I have been off the internet for the last month and I am only starting to go 
through the backlog of messages, but the argument of religion has upset me 
so badly that I want to respond even if the topic have disappeared off the 
radar.

Please, do not continue the attacks on religion and people who hold faiths.

It is ill-mannered.

There is no way anyone can use words like  dogma ,  indoctrination  and 
 delusion  to describe a persons faith without intending to be rude.

It is also ill-informed.

Please don t make judgement about people because of YOUR preconceptions 
about why they hold a faith.  Faith isn t about living forever.  Most people 
of faith (that I know) are not all that concerned about eternal life, that 
is mainly a faulty perception by people who look at religion from the 
outside.

When outsiders make sweeping and faulty assumptions about cryonics, we tend 
to become indignant.  Surely, we can learn from this.

As I have reasonable high media profile in Australia, I get a steady stream 
of letters from members of minor religious groups, such a Jehovah s Witness. 
  They are always polite and concerned letters and I always answer them 
equally politely by pointing out that I don t think I will live forever even 
if cryonics works   just for a few centuries.  This has lead to several 
(polite) letter exchanges and one good lasting friendship.  In the end, we 
agree that there are some topics we will disagree on, but that does not have 
to stop us from otherwise enjoying each others company. In fact, I find it 
easier to talk about cryonics   and death in general   with people of faith, 
than with atheist.  From these exchanges I have learnt a deep respect for 
people who hold a deep faith.  On the whole they tend to be generous and 
involved people.

Religion is not the main obstacle for the spread of religion.

Think about it.  There are only about a thousand cryonicists world wide.  
There are many, many millions of atheists.  They are not queuing to sign up. 
  Obviously religion isn t the biggest hurdle to accepting cryonics.

I wish you a long life,

Marta

_________________________________________________________________
SEEK: Over 80,000 jobs across all industries at Australia's #1 job site.    
http://ninemsn.seek.com.au?hotmail

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26661