X-Message-Number: 4584 Date: 30 Jun 95 23:44:36 EDT From: Michael Riskin <> Subject: Evolution and Religion There are unpopular/minority beliefs and behaviours among humans to deal with death. Such people as cryonicists and the suicidal fall into this category. The majority of humans however, appear to both attempt to cling to life at great cost, and, keep religious salvation as the fallback solution to dying. Fear is a fundamental motivator. To truly contemplate the reality of death is to know ultimate fear (from a survival of the species POV). Without God and religion to save us, suicide becomes the rational mandate in order to maintain self control over our destiny. Being out of control with our own death along with deaths reality is a cosmic combination punch. In order to avoid the only apparant responsible option of suicide, and to keep up the evolutionary press to exist, it seems pretty reasonable to hold fundamentalist beliefs. Got a better solution? The human mind understands perfectly well that death, unless dealt with, is a permanent end to ones existence...while also understanding perfectly well that one has no current means of avoiding it. What a dilemna.."I'm gonna be dead forever (I know that for sure) and I can do nothing about it (I know that for sure also)". Hard core cryonicist are among the most frightened people I know. And, also among the most tending to depression. The fear stems from seeing the spectre of death clearly. The fear drives the commited effort to make cryonics work. The fear drives despair and depression when one feels overwhelmed by the task, and underwhelmed by support from even their own cryonics community. So...to the evolutionary reason for religious hereafter beliefs. Most religions have a peculiarly similiar set of moral imperitives. The ultimate hook is that if you follow the rules you get to go to heaven. Thats a pretty good survival of the species and evolutionary aid. Why? Well, to go to heaven, you cannot harm other people, steal their property, screw with their wives....Thats particularly good news for the weak ones...and good for the population in general. Yes... there are plenty of weak ones and plenty of general population getting bumped off by bad asses as it is. Ok...so god aint perfect, but I bet there are plenty of other lives that are being saved. Just ask the right to lifers. Now, how does this fit in an evolution scheme? Well...humans on the one hand have the ability to kill just for the hell of it. Now...the older, powerful, rich.....who got the women and who got the comforts and got access to natural resources may find it useful to regularly bump off contenders. Not so good for a species to evolve. But, if enough of us believe we dont get to go to heaven if we violate gods law, then the species is safer from frivolous or mean spirited killings. Fear motivates. We may be afraid of dying...but we are more afraid of not coming back. Makes sense to me. The latter is a hell of a lot longer than the time frame we lived before we died. Fear motivates, but as I said it can also lead to despair. It also makes people angry...agressive...stupid... obsessed....and sometimes compassionate. The very thing that avid cryonicists often have in common...fear... is the same thing that on occasion makes them bear arms against one another. Why there are actually cryonicists, by golly, who believe that other cryonicists hinder the way to freezer immortality. Some have even hinted that their own life would be enhanced by the untimely demise of the others. So, while Mike Darwin in an earlier post referred to the general set of religious beliefs as "crap" and pondered the basis for the craps existence, I dont think it is crap at all, if the definition of crap is "useless, meaningless, or incorrect information". The really bad part of the crap in this case, is that its' promise is so great, its requirements so few, and the consequences of violation so great, that ideas such as cryonics that also, philosophically, serves the identical survival of the species and evolutionary purposes as religion is a hard sell and a hard belief. Cryonics wont work because one is moral and follows rules. It will work for the same reason antibiotics and bypass surgery works. Seems to me there once was alot more mystics and faith healers. Especially in the west. Well, the benefits of medicine and surgery have been damn hard to ignore, and the failure of prayer alone has been damn hard to ignore. Cryonicists have said that we will be "popular" when we can demonstrate that it works. I think cryonics will be popular when the people come to know that religion doesnt work. Its' the fear thing. Want more sign ups? Want more research donations'investments? Got to strike the fear of god into them, which translates as strike the fear of cryonics immature technology into them. We are in a rotten situation. When talking to a fundamentalist religious advocate, the standard fall back position is always "can you prove god doesnt exist..."or its' equivalents of other negatives one cant prove.They are not put to the proof test. On the other hand, because we are rational and scientific, we dont ask "can you prove cryonics wont work?". Instead, we say "I dont know if it will work" when challenged. Well...it is frightening not to know things...especially when the things involve ones own existence. Lacking knowledge, it feels better to make up a reason. Before we knew about the solar system, we had a god of the rising sun...or of the crops..or rain...The most important things in life occur without us knowing how. Cryonicists are an evolutionary aberration for now, the missing link as the future will describe us. Some cryonicists are the most aberrant (or advanced..take your pick). These are the leaders, the inventors, the innovaters, the investors, the genuinely hard devoted workers, the ones that day in and day out struggle with the obstacles in all its forms, and love or hate their fellow aberrants who are ironically more similiar to them thanselves than different. You know who you are and maybe dont like being put in the same pot together. Fair enough but you may end up in the same dewar together someday. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4584