X-Message-Number: 20658
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 12:03:32 -0500
From: Wesley Eddy <>
Subject: Re: Pascal and cryonics
References: <>

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In message #20647, Yvan Bozzonetti wrote:
> I don't see the church intoxicated to contribute in any way to that. So why 
> such parasitic people must be granted the benefit of a way to see the world 
> fully out of their concept? Here they must learn that money is not all: You 
> can't buy eternity with it, at least not the one worked out from technology.


I'm not certain what you mean by this ... since you're assuming religious
people are by definition anti-cryonics (which is a false premise by the way),
why would they be interested in trying to pay for it?  You'll really teach
them a lesson by not allowing them to buy something they don't want!  Darned
parasites!


> There must be a clear statement for everyone: If you follow a church, 
> whatever the one you chose, then your god will take care of you, don't count 
> on technology. If you place your bet on technology, you are the person that 
> look interesting in a techno-world and science will make something for you, 
> forget heaven.


Yes everything must be either black or white.  Also all religion explicitly
forbids use of technology and is diametrically opposed to it.  For example
the Christian religion has no stories of its diety encouraging such things
as agriculture, temple-building, or war-making which are heavily dependent
upon technology.  Oh wait it does.  In fact it's *full* of them.  Of course
that's just one religion, others have a lesser or greater number of dieties,
all of whom may have differing opinions on technological development.


> I have said before that, if I had a saying in the use of brain readers, I 
> would forbid their use to recover religious people. That was seen as a blunt 

> statement, so let me put it in another way: We must respect the most profound
> choice of everyone: The god followers have chosen faith, god, heaven,... We 
> must respect that choice and let them decay, even if as a second choice they 
> got frozen. We are not gods, we have no right to interfere with that domain.


Well, that's your choice then.  I'm still failing to see why you're under
the impression that it's not possible to both harbor religious beliefs and
support technologies like cryonics, or why you think people who are
anti-cryonics would wish to be frozen?

I'm most familiar with the Christian family of religions, so I'll use that
as an example ... a cursory glance over the Bible reveals several stories
of the dead coming back to life and I'm not aware of any passage that says
"kids don't try this at home," but perhaps I'm wrong and someone can shed
some more light on the subject.

This topic reminds me a lot of the controversy regarding evolution.  For
anyone interested in clashes between the Christian religion and scientific
progress, I'd recommend the book "Can a Darwinian be a Christian" by Michael
Ruse.  It does a decent job of demonstrating that there's really no conflict
here and the only people who have problems reconciling the two are taking a
very narrow view of both and not bothering to investigate matters deeply
enough before making adamant decisions.  But that's people for you.

-Wes

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