X-Message-Number: 5866 From: John de Rivaz <> Newsgroups: sci.cryonics,uk.legal,sci.life-extension Subject: Re: Virtue of suffering Date: Sat, 02 Mar 1996 11:22:03 +0100 Message-ID: <> References: <> <> In article: <> John Sharman <> writes: > Serious Question: Does the Roman Catholic Church have an official line > on cryonics yet? I don't think they forbid it. I think if they thought about it seriously there may be some very interesting answers, and you may not like them. They have always been very vehemently pro-life. They regard life as a valuable gift. Suppose you have two sons and you give each a wonderful gift, which has cost you meany years of work to earn. One son bashes it around and after three score years and ten it is broken beyond repair. The other son cherishes it, looks after it, and spends many years of work and time on keeping it in tip top condition. In fact after three score centuries and ten it is still as good as the day it was given. Need I go on? If you read the "New Testament" you will see that Jesus goes around healing the sick and *raising the dead*. He told his followers to do likewise. I am not suggesting that any of this really happened, at least not in the manner it is suggested in the book, but nevertheless the intent is quite clear. Now the first half of a process that could "raise the dead" has appeared in reality. If the second part appears, then we have a total process which is doing exactly what Jesus is said to have told his followers to do. Jesus still has a lot of followers, and they won't drop to zero for many centuries yet, I suggest. They are being given the tools that enables them to do what their Bible tells them to so. And don't say that cryonics and other immortalist technology is "against God's plan for heaven/hell" because it isn't. Immortalism is really a minsomer, because one cannot have immortality without invulnerability. Present statistics suggest that if fatal accident was the only cause of death, people would live on average to 600 years. With improved repair technology and other methods which we needn't go into here this can be extended, but not to infinity. -- Sincerely, **************************************** * Publisher of Longevity Report * John de Rivaz * Fractal Report * * details on request * **************************************** In the information age, sharing can increase world wealth enormously, because giving information does not decrease your information. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JohndeR Fast loading, very few slow pictures Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5866