X-Message-Number: 26384
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 01:32:09 -0400
From:
Subject: More on: Ethics of Immortality
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In #26372, David Pizer asks how I arrive at the conclusion that few
religionists take the idea of eternal life seriously, and asks if I have
numbers from some source. He has no numbers, but thinks I am wrong because
he has talked to some people who believe in heaven and think they do not
need cryonics.
I have no more numbers than David. It would be interesting to see the
results of a study of the "depth of conviction" of a broad spectrum of
religionists. Meanwhile, I've met about as many people as David has, but
many of the ones I've met, while they articulate a belief, don't seem to be
very solid in it. To many it seems more of a "I sure do hope there is
something after death" than "I know I'm going to heaven and you can't
convince me otherwise." Yes, there are Luddites who are so certain of
their heavenly reward that they would eschew cryonics even if it were
proven to work. I think these are in the minority. And I think most
religionists will jump on the cryonics bandwagon after the first suspended
patient is reanimated. They will adopt it as easily as similar folks once
adopted the polio vaccine and the artificial heart. Even if they still
think heaven awaits them after they die, they will gladly postpone those
celestial joys for a few more decades or centuries in physical form, where
all the fun is. Only a tiny fraction of religionists so thoroughly believe
in an afterlife that is desirable, that they are willing, even eager, to
get there as soon as possible ("pass the Kool-Aid, please").
David further states he thinks I do not believe a problem exists, in that
churches teach people to believe in a spiritual afterlife and this causes
them to reject cryonics. He is correct for a couple of reasons. I do not
think in the first place that what people think they believe about heaven
in most cases causes them to reject cryonics. I covered that
above. Religionists reject cryonics for the same reasons that most
atheists and agnostics (some entire nations mostly comprised of them) also
reject cryonics -- it hasn't been demonstrated to work. Secondly, I simply
do not believe it is a problem that all the people who reject cryonics, do
so. Why does the cryonics movement need billions of people? Granted many
have swallowed a lot of stuff they've been told by the churches, but do
cryonicists have some moral obligation to do any more than disseminate
information about the "prospects of immortality" through cryonics? These
people each have two eyes, two ears and a brain, just like cryonicists
do. While sure it is a good and kind thing to speak one-on-one with others
as the occasion arises, I don't think cryonicists have any more moral duty
to convert the masses than the masses do to get us to worship their
gods. Most of them are unreachable anyway, for reasons Billy H. Seidel
astutely pointed out in #26373. I doubt it's getting any better,
either. Reminds me of Cole's Axiom: "The sum of the intelligence on the
planet is a constant. The population is growing."
In another post in today's digest, David asks "What if a group of people
got together and sued one of the main religions in the U.S.A.? Sue the one
that most blatently promises eternal life " He correctly concludes at the
bottom of his post that if such a suit were lost, it would have enormous
publicity and educational value. It would also be fun to watch. Of
course, it would never win, at least in the USA. There is the
Constitutional protection of Freedom of Religion, that only the IRS and the
DEA have punched any small holes into. There would be a massive torrent of
indignation from Christians "How dare you even think of taking my religion
away!" despite how shallow their actual belief in heaven may be. Don't
file the suit in a Red State - they might find a reason to bring back the
concept of lynching. Finally, the defense attorneys would have a party in
court deriding the plaintiff's inability to produce living, aggrieved
members of the class action, who have died but come back to testify that
the churches have lied about there being a heaven. Would the burden of
proof be on the plaintiff to prove there is no heaven (it not being a
physical thing, impossible to do), or on the defendant to prove that there
is one (again, impossible to do)? They could bring in a ouija board and
ask the marker to swear to tell the truth and only the truth. Enough for now.
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