X-Message-Number: 10620 Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 08:38:10 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #10616 - #10619 HI everyone! Well, at last Ralph Merkle and I have found something to agree on! We should have a party. But in any case, if I understand the New Testament properly, didn't Christ tell his disciples not just to go out and spread the word about Christianity, but to also raise the dead? I think there is such a passage in John. I don't own a Bible, and have been an atheist for a long time, but I clearly remember reading such a passage. So that if we held to it we'd come to two conclusions: not only are most Christians failing to act as Christ said they should, but by "raising the dead" cryonicists are actually acting more Christian than almost all Christians. An interesting consequence. What is actually happening with cryonics, of course, is that cryonicists have a deep disagreement with the contemporary notion of when and why a person is "dead" in the first place. We suspend people because we think they are NOT "dead", even though ignorant doctors have signed a "Death Certificate" for them. We don't claim that suspension patients are at the peak of health, but simply that they MAY well not be dead in the first place. There's also a historical speculation, very hard to prove. Artificial respiration does not require any special tools. It was used for a time in the late 18th Century, and those doing it were making progress with it, until for unknown reasons (Frankenstein etc stories?) it was almost entirely forgotten. Given that no special high technology is needed, perhaps even in Palestine at the time of the Roman Empire there were people who were thinking along those lines, and having some success, too. To bad we can't go back in time to verify this. (And since they did not really have our notion of science, the practice could easily become attached to religion, rather than medicine). Best and long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10620