X-Message-Number: 11759
From: 
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 19:09:02 EDT
Subject: Pascal, Shelton, recruiting the religious

David Pascal had written to the effect that "pro-life" (anti-abortion) people 
might see some commonality with cryonics people who are pro-life for dying or 
legally dead people; and more generally that religious people should be made 
to feel welcome through any other commonalities that exist, such as practice 
of the Golden Rule, social conscience, etc.; and that, while some factions or 
aspects of some religions or denominations might be offensive to some 
cryonicists, there is no profit in emphasizing that.

Now B.F. Shelton writes:

>I will try not to make this a long posting.  On the higher level of
>religious business organizations, it is clear that it is not in their best
>financial interest to encourage the continuance of "old people" who do not
>have a lot of resources to continue to donate, and who, in fact, may
>indeed elicit "reverse donations."  And, of course, they have yet to
>observe very many "ageless" persons with enormous wealth who theoretically
>(for whatever unknown reason) might donate to their church for decades on
>end, and whose continued physical existence they should therefore
>objectivally promote.

He concludes with the estimate (if I read him correctly) that there is little 
chance of recruiting "true believers" of any stripe for cryonics--we are "on 
our own" and must make the best of it.

First, I doubt that any cynical financial interest of church elders dominates 
the thinking or policies of any religion or denomination. In any case, those 
elders have limited influence. In the U.S. it is certainly true that the lay 
Catholics in large measure are "Cafeteria Catholics" who pick and choose 
which official policies they will practice, the best known example being 
birth control. Among Protestants, even the official policies or doctrines are 
usually somewhat unclear or weakly disseminated, and individuals do pretty 
much as they choose.

One of our members is a Lutheran, and a couple of years ago he asked one of 
their head theologians about cryonics. The answer was that there was no 
official policy, but in his opinion there was no objection to it--unless the 
motivation were defiance of God. If the motivation were positive--simply to 
save or extend life--fine. And I have previously mentioned that, years back, 
a Roman Catholic priest consecrated a cryostat; and more recently a priest 
was instrumental in convincing hospital personnel to cooperate with us in a 
suspension. 

The upshot: I am more optimistic than Mr. Shelton about the potential for 
help from people with strong religious beliefs. In any case it costs very 
little, as the old song goes, to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the 
negative."

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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