X-Message-Number: 26388
From: Tim Freeman <>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 07:09:12 -0700
Subject: Re: [CN] Ethics of Immortality
References:  <>

From: "John de Rivaz" <>
>It would seem that seeking some form of immortality is a purpose of
>religions, and irrational concepts such as unreasoning faith are merely
>(highly successful) tools of survival of particular religions.

Religions are successful memes.  They don't really have a purpose any
more than a bacterium does.  In some sense their only purpose is
self-perpetuation, but they aren't conscious so the use of "purpose"
in this context is dubious.  Their anatomical details include ideas
about immortality and an afterlife, ideas about the merit of
unreasoning faith, and the idea that you should go to church every
week.

Cryonics won't make peace with a religion unless cryonics happens to
be consistent with the core tenets of the religion.  If the religion
says that getting to Heaven is good, and the only way there is through
proper observance of the religion, then there's no room for compromise
there.  If the religion specifies burial practices that are
incompatible with cryonics, there's no room for compromise there.

The maxim "love the sinner but hate the sin" applies here.  Some
religions are an enemy, but individual religious people are just
unfortunate people who have been diverted from their own purposes by
their religious conversion.  They aren't intrinsically any more evil
than other people that have been distracted as a consequence of having
some intrinsic flaw exploited.

People often talk about how cryonics is compatible with various world
religions by citing religious texts.  Religious texts are only
relevant if individual believers are empowered to read that doctrine
and make their own decisions.  For the most part they aren't, so in
general what matters is the way the religion is actually practiced,
not what their holy books say.

The essential thing people need to understand is the historical
context that gave rise to their religion, and how things are different
now.  In particular, fantasies about life-after-death and about
immortality were harmless then because there was nothing constructive
to do to try to live much longer.  That's no longer the case.

-- 
Tim Freeman               http://www.fungible.com           
Programmer/consultant in the Sunnyvale, CA area.       

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