X-Message-Number: 29578 References: <> From: Kennita Watson <> Subject: Re: Muslims, Catholics, etc. Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:59:11 -0700 > From: > Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:37:10 EDT > Subject: Muslims, Catholics, etc. > > Again, this is marginal, but I'll make a brief reply to Rudi Hoffman's > latest remarks. > > Among other things, he notes that radical Islam is murderous. But > it does > not follow that WE have anything to gain, on balance, by attacking > Islam or > religion in general. Maybe we do, though any attack would need to have more in common with aikido than tae kwon do. Say (rounding) there are 1500 cryonicists, signed up plus preserved. I'm guessing at 600 million people in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia (basically Western countries, and, IIUC, the source of all current cryonicists). That would mean about 1 in 400,000 are cryonicists. Another few guesses: 90% or more of them (1350) are atheists/agnostics/humanists, whereas fewer than 30% of the population (180 million) are. (http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html) Thus the chances of someone signing up given that they're nonbelievers = 1350/180,000,000 = .0000075 (7.5E-6) whereas the chances of someone signing up given that they're believers = 150/420,000,000 = .00000036 (3.6E-7), which I think would mean that an nonbeliever is 25 times more likely to sign up than a believer. That would mean that if we want to save lives we are much more likely to do so by marketing to nonbelievers than by walking on eggshells around believers. Feel free to rip my statistics to shreds now. I tried to bias them on the side of having there not be as much of a difference between the two groups, especially given that I personally think the difference is greater. > He also mentions Catholics following the Papal line and the > downsides of > some of that, in the context of looking at actions instead of > professions of > faith. But in Italy, the heart of Catholicism, MOST Catholics do > NOT follow the > orthodox line on birth control and many other matters. Most are > "cafeteria" > Catholics, picking some and leaving some. We want to make it easier > for them to > choose cryonics, not harder. We don't make it easier if we appear > to imply > that only idiots express faith. Not quite, but (from Rise of the New Atheists By Ronald Aronson, The Nation, Printed on June 16, 2007) http://www.alternet.org/story/54054/ : "... unbelievers are concentrated at the higher end of the educational scale -- a recent Harris American poll shows that 31 percent of those with postgraduate education do not avow belief in God (compared with only 14 percent of those with a high school education or less). The percentage rises among professors and then again among professors at research universities, reaching 93 percent among members of the National Academy of Sciences...." > > It is true that religious belief has impeded stem cell research to > some > extent in the U.S., but it does not follow that this can be > remedied by a general > attack on faith. Maybe not cured, but I think it can be remedied, insofar as a general attack led to more unbelievers. I guess an analysis of a form like (% of believers against stem cell research vs. % of nonbelievers against stem cell research) might help figure out how much of a remedy it would be for there to be more unbelievers. Unfortunately, the memeplex of religious belief, especially monotheistic religious belief, is incredibly robust. > > Rudi notes that some people have changed earlier views to join the > cryonics > revolution, and therefore such change of outlook and defiance of > tradition > and training is possible. But it just does not follow that we can > make our > point, without cost, by broadsides against faith. Then don't broadside. If we're so intelligent, why can't we come up with better ideas? > > One of the main points is that we make our case by logic, with > appeals to > the "selfish" elements of the psyche. This is enough of a challenge. I think we'll get farther by bolstering people's self- confidence; by showing them that they can be OK without Daddy, and inviting them to trust themselves. > ... > On occasion one can wave a sword and blow a trumpet and achieve a > desired > result. But such occasions are rare indeed, and I don't think we > have one here. > (Well, trumpet OK, but not sword.) ... To continue the analogy, I think stringed instruments -- beautiful, soothing music -- is likely to work better in the long run. But maybe pounding pans together, or an air-raid siren, will do more to jolt people out of their comfortable niches so their ideas get loosened and can be rearranged. Live long and prosper, Kennita Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29578