RE: Thoughts on death

From: Barbara Lamar (altamira@texas.net)
Date: Sat Dec 15 2001 - 09:30:56 MST


G.P. wrote:

> My mother Anna F. died a few days ago after a long illness.

I grieve with you, G.P. My father died last month. Over the past two years
cancer robbed him of his curiosity, strength and love of life. At the end,
he was an emaciated, helpless old man (though as long as he was conscious he
retained his intelligence sense of humor).

> Aging and death are not necessary, they are just a horrible,
> stupid, cruel and pointless waste.

I couldn't agree more. DEATH SUCKS.

> By mastering the sciences ad
> technologies of life and information, we will take full control
> of our development and make aging and death ugly things of the
> past. In memory of Anna, I will do my best to help achieving this goal.

And so will I. But I fear our society is riddled with insane beliefs that
will impede progress. I saw many examples of this during the months before
my father's death. About a year ago, I tentatively mentioned the possibility
of cryonics to my mother. She went off into a rant about how that would be
going against God's will. It was useless to try to point out to her that all
medical procedures have the aim of prolonging life (the will of the god she
worships is apparently for people to live short, meaningless lives).

During the couple of months before my father died, while he was trying to
cope with the knowledge that he wasn't going to be around much longer, my
mother hounded him incessantly about "accepting Jesus as his savior" so he
could "go to heaven." My brother and I could be enjoying a good
conversation with him, but when he heard my mother coming he'd pretend to be
comatose. It's particularly ironic that a substantial portion of the money
he earned during his lifetime will be donated by my mother to churches and
other religious organizations which will use it in part to lobby for laws
prohibiting research that could make aging and death ugly things of the
past.

Religious beliefs can't be countered with logic. People dissociate--they
switch off the logic when they discuss their religious beliefs. There has
been discussion from time to time about whether "Extropianism" is a sort of
religion. While one would certainly not want to encourage unthinking
adherence to extropian principles, the fellowship aspects of religion are
somewhat appealing. People seem to have a hard-wired need to belong to a
group, even people who have a hard time socializing (there are, e.g.,
online Asperger communities).

Barbara



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