X-Message-Number: 16360 From: "John de Rivaz" <> References: <> Subject: 7th Day Adventists; Destroy vs. Build Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 16:14:12 +0100 2001 11:29:21 -0400 (EDT) > From: Charles Platt <> > Subject: 7th Day Adventists; Destroy vs. Build > > The church and > the [cryonics] organization may actually have an equal chance of resuscitating > people, at least in my personal estimation. There is a difference - a church merely stands by whilst God (or Jesus) does the reanimation. I don't think that any actually claim to do it themselves, using existing or future technology. (As far as I know there is no church yet surrounding the exceptional ideas of NF Fyodorov who claims God requires humanity to help itself and do the resurrection itself.) > Can you imagine a hospital that was run on this basis? [no negative feedback] No provision for > anyone to sue for malpractice, no control over the PR department, no [etc] Well, it is interesting to note that were airlines run with equal regard to safety as hospitals, a jumbo jet would crash every week or so. This is according to a recent tv programme anyway. I don't know whether they differentiated between deaths resulting from lack of collective fundamental medical knowledge and those resulting from simple lack of equipment, skills in a particular situation, or surgeon error. I do note that there are strict regulations as to hours worked by airline staff that are not applied to the medical and related professions. > As for the situation re Alcor and the UK ... (del) ... > while Linda Chamberlain referred us to an > Alcor web page that turned out to be hopelessly inaccurate, out of date, > and misleading. Unfortunately she does not appear to have had the time to join the cryonics-europe mailing list and discuss her point of view with the people there. [send blank email to to join]However she has given permission for the web site to include her article about foreign service from Cryonics magazine. There seems to me be two issues 1. The reliability of British insurance companies as perceived by US lawyers advising US potential beneficiaries of these policies (in this case Alcor) 2. Any benefits achieved by providing Alcor vitrification technology to a patient that has been air lifted after deanimation to the facility as compared to offering that air-lifted patient a earlier style cryopreservation. As the competition is on an approximately 10:1 difference in cost it would be irresponsible of Alcor to take the money to provide a service which in the honest opinion of its officers was wasted. Any argument about whether either or both procedures are necessary, or work at all, is irrelevant to this point. The only thing that is relevant is what Alcor's officers think - if they think their process won't work in a given situation they would be dishonest in encouraging their patients to pay the vast difference in costs. > But, maybe the > people who are joining CI in large numbers don't read CryoNet. CryoNet web pages are linked out of the cryonics-europe web site. > Or maybe, > like the 7th Day Adventists, they are just looking for a faith. At > $28,000, it's rather an expensive one. Whereas I can't agree with Charles Platt's comparison, I wonder whether anyone has actually costed membership of a church - any church. On the basis that the cost of membership of CI (and Alcor for that matter) can be broken down into so much a week using various methods of funding, I would say that the costs are certainly comparable and indeed CI comes out cheaper in many instances. If there is anyone here who is an active member of any church it may be worthwhile to try and estimate what it costs. Not only in terms of how much you put in the collecting plate, but in terms of time spent in worship (at your normal rates for whatever your job is - or maybe just your national average wage) , any special clothes you buy and use for religious observance, fuel costs in getting to church and so on. Of course this is made more difficult by that fact that you may enjoy religious observance and so on, but then people also must get some enjoyment in what they get out of cryonics beyond the feeling that they have done the best they can to remain alive for as long as possible. I have put part of James Swayse's article up on the Cryonics-europe web page (http://www.cryonics-europe.org contents- religion- Adventists) and then added some comments and findings of my own afterwards. The web page about Ellen White linked to from here makes interesting reading, especially a comment that she is supposed to have been directed by God in what she wrote. Strange that he spent so much time sending her ideas now known to be flawed when he could have so usefully told her about pasteurisation, antibiotics and so on, all of which could have been easily implemented in her time to save thousands of lives. Whatever else Charles Platt thinks about CI, at least he can't claim that its leader thinks he gets his ideas by direct revelation from God! Sincerely, John de Rivaz my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors' report, an autobio and various other projects: http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt http://www.autopsychoice.com - http://www.cryonics-europe.org - http://www.porthtowan.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? 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