X-Message-Number: 26426
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:08:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Can't We Just Get Along?
From: "Joe Waynick" <>

    My friend Dave seems stuck in the quagmire of his own faulty logic.
Dave, you can claim you are not attacking religion as much as you
want. But as long as you advocate filing lawsuits against the church,
then you are attacking religion. Lawsuits are adversarial in nature.
One side attacks by prosecuting an objective and the other side
defends until a judge declares a winner. The very least you can do is
be intellectually honest and admit what you are proposing is to attack
religion by filing your lawsuits. If you do not believe this to be
true, just wait for the defensive response of the religious right
after you mount your non-attack attack.
    Your assumption is that because your views are different from people
of faith it makes them liars and you honest. I find it disturbing that
you think it is okay to call millions of people liars simply because
you disagree with their beliefs and what they teach. I find it
disturbing that you are prepared to ignite a very serious
confrontation between cryonicists and people of faith simply because
you disagree with their teachings. I cannot think of very many things
more dangerous than fool hardy ideas such as that.
    Your repeated assertion that religion guarantees eternal life only
demonstrates your own lack of understanding of faith based beliefs.
Somehow, you have twisted religion into something you fear and loathe.
So you want to attack it. Somehow, you see religion as some great
obstacle to greater acceptance of cryonics. Somehow, you think that by
attacking religion you will prove something to the world and open the
floodgates to greater numbers of cryonicists because, due to your
efforts, the religions of the world will no longer lie about eternal
life, and a grateful population will make more informed choices and
(hopefully) more of them will choose cryonics, the RIGHT choice,
right?
    If your goal is not to increase the number of cryonicists because they
will be able to make more informed choices, then this endeavor is even
more foolish than I thought because you do not even have an objective.
    The problem with your proposal is that it is predestined to fail, as
it should. It should fail because everyone has the right to believe
what he or she chooses. I fought a very tough battle last year making
that very argument in the Arizona state legislature. Alcor prevailed
because we have a RIGHT to make our own end of (first life cycle)
choice to choose cryonics. Many of the legislators who voted in our
favor told me point blank that they thought we were putting our faith
in JUNK SCIENCE. They said they thought the entire concept of cryonics
was FOOLISH. Yet they voted to defend us, and ultimately, defeated
HB2637 because those same legislators believed even more strongly in
our freedom of choice. The same freedom of choice you would like to
restrict under the force of law for people of faith.
    Your fixation on religion is scary and dangerous for cryonics. I have
yet to debate a person of faith on the issue of Christianity and
cryonics and not have them acknowledge the lack of biblical foundation
for objecting to cryonics. At that point their objections fail and
their opposition ends. Typically, the person will back away by
acknowledging our right to our choice, while saying it was not for him
or her. That is not exactly a conversion, but at least they do not
oppose the concept anymore.
    You see Dave, we do not need lawsuits. We need persuasion. We need
facts. We need scientific evidence. Take the money you are so willing
to commit to a massive lawsuit and commit it to our research program
and do some real good.
    People of faith are not our enemies simply because they choose to
teach something you do not believe. And the fact that you do not
believe does not make people of faith liars. Making such statements
only demonstrates your intolerance.
    Dave, I have always considered you a friend. But I am just not with
you on this one. Sorry. I will come up to Creekside soon and perhaps
we can continue this discussion in person. ;-)
Joe Waynick, CEO/President, Alcor Life Extension Foundation

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26426