X-Message-Number: 7119
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 11:57:30 -0800
From: Tim Freeman <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7114 - #7116

From: Will Dye <>
>It's worth noting that the "ghost in the machine" paradigm is 
>not a part of the Christian Bible. ...

>My guess is that most cryonicists regard increasing religosity 
>as implying increasing opposition to cryonics, uploading, etc.  
>But I have come to belive that, like most social phenomena, it 
>isn't that simple.

But the beliefs of most religious people today are not derived from
reading the religious texts -- they are derived by osmosis from fellow
members of the same religion.  In other words, religion in most
instances is but one aspect of a rigid cultural tradition that has
little to do with religious texts.

For instance, look at the Christian right's interest in "family
values".  Jesus Christ didn't have a stable family life, and he seemed
to advocate people separating themselves from those attachments:

   [Mat 10:34] "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I
   have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
   
   [Mat 10:35] For I have come to set a man against his father, and a
   daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her
   mother-in-law;
   
   [Mat 10:36] and a man's foes will be those of his own household.

In general JC was quite radical, and it seems strange for
conservatives to rally in his name.  (Quotes from to
http://goon.stg.brown.edu/bible_browser/pbform.shtml.  This is the
Revised Standard Version.)

This is not specific to Christians -- look at the oppression of the
Moslem women in Afghanistan.

I think religious people will have great difficulty in the times
ahead, since their terror management style involves holding beliefs
that are fixed (and the fixity of those beliefs is part of what makes
them meaningful), and the pace of change is accelerating.  

It is important that they do not perceive cryonics to be an important
part of their troubles.  Since most of them haven't noticed that their
culture has deviated from the religious texts that are so important to
them, citing how cryonics is consistent with those texts is a good
defensive move, but I don't expect it to radically help with
recruiting.  I do not expect them to be reachable.

Tim Freeman


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