[extropy-chat] Bioethics Essay- Revised

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of The Avantguardian
... 
> Thats just great! I spend a whole weekend wracking my
> brain to find arguments that a xian would believe to
> convince them that God doesn't mind us harvesting
> cloned embryos because they are souless only to to
> find out that I would be helping the antichrist summon
> his demon army. I need a drink. :)
> 
> If anything Mike you have convinced me of the folley
> of engaging my opponents in that quagmire of the mind.
> 
> The Avantguardian
> is
> Stuart LaForge
> alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu


Ja, Avant, it is indeed hopeless.  But you could easily convince
the Seventh Day Adventist, who already believes that there
is no separate thing as a human soul or a spirit.  The SDA view 
holds that humans are machines, and can be reconstructed the same
way you could build an exact copy of any machine.  The soul, in
that view, is a result of the physical configuration of the
brain.  And that is all.

In so many ways, I see that particular religion as preadapted to 
transhumanism, surely a fortunate coincidence.  My college
roommate and I used to discuss transhuman notions back in
the early 80s, altho we didn't use the same terminology.  We
discussed radical life extension, cryonics, life in a sim,
cloning, all that stuff.  None of it conflicted directly with the
religious beliefs we both held at that time, and which
neither of us hold today.

spike