X-Message-Number: 473 Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1991 12:13 EST From: LEVY% Subject: Re CRYONICS #471: Cryonics/Christianity I would like to add to Thomas Donaldson's comments about the conflict between cryonics and Christianity. Many cryonicists see religion, especially Christianity, as being in "complementary distribution" with cryonics; that is, each is trying to satisfy the same fundamental need to overcome our mortality. In my opinion, this view takes account only of one component of religion. For many people, this component seems subordinate to the other things that religion provides (ritual, social contact, etc.) Even among people who profess to believe in some sort of deity, the prevailing attitude seems to be "Oh well, you die, and maybe you go to heaven, but if not you're not conscious anyway, so who cares?" I do not consider this answer to be evidence that religion has provided these people with some clear alternative to what cryonics offers, or that such people even care enough to think about the question. For this reason, I don't think cryonics is in a very good position to compete with resurrectionist thinking. Essentially, people stay religious because they like the other things that religion gives them, and they buy the answers to the big issues as part of the package. There are, of course, religious intellectuals. Like most intellectuals, they are not a majority. --Simon Levy Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=473