From: Brent Allsop (allsop@swttools.fc.hp.com)
Date: Mon Sep 22 1997 - 14:01:13 MDT
Extropians,
Everyone's familiar with the Noah story right? The one where
Noah tries to warn everyone about the impending, yet avoidable doom,
trying to get everyone to help build arks so that they might survive
the flood. But, unfortunately, no one listens to him, (for what
reasons?) and he and his family, along with the animals he has
collected, are the only ones that survive. I was in a Lutheran Church
last Saturday (for a friend's wedding) and I noticed a brightly
colored (with rainbow) picture of the inhabitants of the ark coming
forth upon the finally dry (and cleansed?) land. It was a large mural
covering an entire wall in the children's nursery. It's probably a
good thing I resisted the temptation to add a few dead and rotting
bodily remains with an ink marker, that surely would have been left
over from what, if it really occured, was one of the most devastating
and destructive catastrophes during the history of mankind.
But anyway, I wondered what the chance will be that, maybe
1000 years from now and more, one of the stories we all tell our
children (and make children's toys about and paint colorful depictions
of on the walls of nurseries...), is how Robert Ettinger, and others,
tried to warn and convince the world of the doom they could have
avoided by simply taking proper actions. The story would be very
similar in that only a relative hand full of people would heed his
warning and would make the eternal life saving effort, mostly because
of ancient religious ideas contained in stories like that of Noah and
the flood... I can imagine toy dewers with little dolls representing
people and their pets nicely fitting inside... (and cheesy animated
videos...? Nahh!) Obviously, some of the actual survivors will be on
hand to retell the story first hand, giving it infinite more
significance, as compared to Noah who is, if he was more than a cheesy
animated character, long dead and gone.
Religion seems so completely ironic to me, as a cryonaut, in
so many never ending ways. Wouldn't it be humorous if it wasn't so
tragic?
Brent Allsop
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