X-Message-Number: 29710
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: Reaction to Tiffany Summers
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 16:21:19 +0100

> Let cryonics just grow as it does now, with people signing up because of 
> an
> individual well overthought choice (and if that means mostly high educated
> people and not the many simple souls, the better for cryonics and the 
> future
> in general), not because a 'cryopriest' promised them eternal life after 
> the
> sacred freezer.
>
> David Verbeke
> Cryonics Belgium

I think that is a bit brutal. Many people get to religion because they are 
concerned as to issues about life ending. Cryonics isn't just about helping 
oneself, but also helping others to survive. There are many genuine, 
helping, caring people in religions that would be a credit to our movement 
if we could get them. They are not all rubbish to be exterminated (by their 
own default) so we do not have to share the future with them. Religious 
people also care about survival issues, and indeed it has been said that 
some of the fringe versions of Christianity (such as 7th day Adventists, 
Plymouth Bretheren, Methodists etc)  come hauntingly close to life extension 
and cryonics, but replace the latter with acts of faith. If we say the right 
things to these people then maybe they can be won over to cryonics, more so 
even than self-sacrificing humanists, realists and communists.

Much sci-fi seems to be abut the survival of the human species as a whole, 
not individual heroes (although there are notable exceptions). Certainly 
communism was concerned about the immortalism of the species as a whole plus 
Vladimir Lenin, and maybe the latter was chemically preserved as an exhibit 
rather than for re-use as a leader in the future.

Go to http://www.cryonics.org/media/media.htm and select Radio Moscow to 
receive transmissions from the 1980s.
http://www.watchtower.org/e/19991015/article_02.htm gives a Biblical 
commentary. This nearly gets close, but regretfully swings back to 
unquestioning faith.

The concept of faith is the enemy, not religion itself.

Don't forget
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Religion_and_Cryonics/
if you have more to say without boring the rest of CryoNet.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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