X-Message-Number: 26440
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:33:02 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Religion
References: <>

David Pizer, #23638:

>I want the religions to act more responsible and no longer *guarantee* 
>followers eternal life.

I think, though, that such guarantees are essential features of traditional 
religious belief, and cannot be changed without doing away with religions 
as they are presently constituted. Consider the famous passage John 3:16 
(NKJV): "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 
It appears we would have to water this down to something like "For maybe 
there is a God who so loved the world that ..." But this would no longer be 
Christianity as we know it, and to try to bring about this change through 
legal action as has been proposed, would amount to restricting religious 
freedom in a drastic way.

The issue I think Dave is confronting, which is certainly a severe moral 
dilemma for him and maybe many others in cryonics, though not everybody, is 
that traditional religions with their guarantees of eternal salvation are 
keeping people from thinking that cryonics is something they need to take 
seriously, so they don't make the arrangements. Then they die and, since 
their brains disintegrate, they suffer eternal death then and there, 
whereas with cryonics they would have a chance of much longer life and 
possibly even eternal life. But this is not the only possible view to take 
with cryonics, even for doubters of the supernatural (as many readers 
should be well aware by now). If it were, then it might be said that one 
would have a moral obligation to do all in one's power to change the 
character of traditional religions which, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, 
are leading people to their deaths with their sweet tunes of empty promise. 
Even then, though, it can be doubted that a frontal assault through the 
courts would do more good than harm--I for one am extremely doubtful it would.

So I think we will have to accept and work with the traditional believers 
rather than attack their belief systems. Cryonics for them will never be 
the only possible road to salvation that some others see in it, but as a 
possible life-saving and life-enhancing measure it could still be seen to 
have value, the same as medicine in general.

Mike Perry

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