X-Message-Number: 19365
From: "Brett Bellmore" <>
Subject: Re: Christianity and Cryonics.
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 18:37:53 -0400

The problem with attributing the unpopularity of cryonics among Christians
to their belief in an after-life, is that by that theory, they ought to be
refusing ALL forms of heroic medical intervention. Open heart surgery, organ
transplants, you name it. But, of course, they don't.

And, while cryonics is close to non-existant among Christians, it's not as
though we've achieved much market penetration among the secular, either.
Clearly, belief in an after-life may play a role in the rejection of
cryonics by believers, but not in it's rejection by those who don't believe.

No, I believe the real problem, for both the religious, and the secular, is
that cryonics is not yet perceived as a real medical procedure. On the
contrary, it's seen as a rather bizzare and expensive funeral practice, on a
par with having your ashes shot into space, or being buried in your favorite
car. Only lacking the sentimental value.

And this perception has some justification. Even the most experimental of
medical procedures has generally had some, what's that word? Oh, yeah,
"success", in animal models. Cryonics, of course, has not. What's the
highest lifeform that's been taken down to cryogenic temperatures and
revived? A flatworm, maybe? Or perhaps not even that, I admit I'm perhaps a
little ignorant in that department. Certainly not a mamal, though, or even a
vertebrate.

This, then, is the real obstacle to the promotion of cryonics: Lack of
evidence that it will work. Now, I'm willing to take a gamble, based on
theory and supposition, and nothing more. So are we all. But that's not a
common attitude at all, and we can not reasonably expect that cryonics will
become an accepted medical practice until we have experimentally
demonstrated that it works. Which is, after all, how all other medical
practices become accepted. On the day we revive a higher organism from
cryonic suspension, we will achieve acceptance. Not before.

Does this mean that a frighteningly large number of people are going to die,
who don't really have to? Yes, it does. It's sad, but that's life and death
in the real world.

Brett Bellmore

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