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Seventh Day Adventists
Are Practising Life Extensionists
by James Swayze
I used to be one. If I could kid
myself into still believing in God I would be
Seventh Day Adventist over any other religion.
Having studied some about most other religions and
indeed most other Christian based religions I still
find SDA's as the most practical and logical and
literal truth following of any religion in
existence. This is of course assuming The Bible had
no flaws which now being an atheist I adamantly
point out that it does at every opportunity.
However, had I not been an Adventist
once I most probably would not be an immortalist or
Extropian or hopeful to be cryonicist. Notice I
didn't say I am a cryonicist. This is because I am
not funded nor likely will be any time soon but
that's another issue. [This was written before the
author signed up to be cryopreserved by the
Cryonics Institute.
-ed] First of all Adventists are practising Life
Extensionists! They were so long before science ever
got the notion to consider it. They were many
generations before any of us here were even born.
Second only to their preaching that the seventh day
Sabbath of the Ten Commandments is Saturday and not
Sunday, and they are right – just consult a
calendar, is their health message.
They encourage vegetarianism. They
abstain from pork, not just because some part of The
Bible suggests it and not also solely because pork
once was dangerous for trichinosis, but for
practical – one may even say scientific – reason
based on the fact a pig has just one stomach and
therefore the possibility that more toxins will
reach the animals flesh. They observed the effects
of biomagnification (the theory that toxins
accumulate and magnify in effect as food travels up
the food chain from smaller beings being eaten by
larger and so on) long before it became a scientific
theory. Another not well known fact is that many
Adventists have practiced and preach caloric
restriction long before Walford adopted the
practice.
 The founder
of the Church, Ellen White, (seen left, picture
from) first promoted a healthful lifestyle in the
1800's when it was unheard of. She was even
instrumental in raising/shortening the lengths of
skirts because she felt it unhealthy to be so fully
closed in and that the skirts of the day dragged in
the dirt which was caught up to land upon the body –
this despite the prudish sexual morality fashions of
the day. She promoted healthy breathing techniques
and the opening of windows for fresh air and also
bathing in a time full of superstitious beliefs to
the contrary.
Speaking of fresh air and preaching
healthy lifestyles how many churches do you know of
that have a five day quit smoking program? How many
do you know of that produce and market soy meat
substitutes. Guess what, Adventists knew red meat
was not so good for you long before it became
mainstream scientific theory!
Politically Adventists unlike all
other fundamentalist religions strongly support
separation of church and state. In our present time
where conservative Christians all around us are
clamoring to bring government and religion together
and promoting such things as prayer in school and
infiltrating school boards and government offices
with right wing Christian extremists, Adventists
stand apart in condescension of such deeds. They
support freedom of speech more than any other
fundamentalist group. Adventists tend to be either
liberal or libertarian bent and even those that are
members of the republican party. Regarding issues of
legislation that cryonicists may someday face you
can count on that Adventists will be allies not
enemies. They've always supported a persons right to
personal choice over state dictated.
Scientifically Adventists have
always been ahead of the crowd where other
fundamentalist religions are concerned and very
often ahead of mainstream science as I have
mentioned above. They are not afraid to try
unpopular and even controversial sciences. You all
may remember the attempt to transplant a baboon
heart into a human. A failure, yes, but they didn't
shy away from it out of superstition and didn't get
detracted by issues of human versus animal ethical
bugaboos. Unlike other fundamentalist religions
biology departments at Adventist colleges and
hospitals recognize the Earth is older than the
literal interpretation from The Bible and that
evolution defines our medical theories. Adventists
have always believed we are not alone in the
universe and so are not Earth centric.
Theologically speaking Seventh Day
Adventists among all Christian religions would be
the most accepting of cryonics. They do not believe
that one's soul exists before birth. Unlike many
Christian religions they do not believe that the
soul upon death immediately goes to heaven. They
will point out that in 29 places in The Bible the
state of the dead is written as being
unconsciousness or sleep, that you "know nothing"
and cannot be contacted or held accountable. They do
not believe in contemporary faddish beliefs of the
charismatic fundamentalists such as speaking in
tongues or the rapture nor in secular spiritualism.
They do not believe that life after death is as a
bodiless spirit. They don't believe in ghosts,
except for the third being in the trinity the "Holly
Ghost". So, given all this every Adventist I have
talked with has no problem with cryonics agreeing
with me that it is no more a usurpation of their
god's plan than cardiac resuscitation and they have
no problem with that either. They have all agreed
that if one does come back from cryonic suspension
then one was not truly yet dead.
Out of all Christian religions the
first to be an ally to cryonics, I would submit,
would be the Seventh Day Adventists. In fact I would
encourage the cryonicists here that have Christian
spouses and relatives who are not friendly to
cryonics to urge them to become SDA as a first step
towards accepting cryonics. One reason to justify
cryonics for anyone that shares Adventist beliefs
would be to use cryonics as a way to be alive to
actually witness their Christ's return.
On a personal note all of my family,
save one, my step brother who shares my atheist
beliefs, are Seventh Day Adventists including
parents, grand parents, uncles, cousins and distant
cousins on both sides of my family. When I told them
I wanted to be cryopreserved they weren't shocked or
appalled and support my decision. They don't like
that I am atheist but if I were not and still wished
to be involved in cryonics they would still support
me. My mother supplies me with 19 vitamins and
supplements I take daily some of which were
suggested by Paul Wakfer and Gary Tripp but she
supplied the rest for many years before I became
acquainted with Paul and Gary or even the Life
Extensionist movement. She did so not only because
she is a nurse and able to research and understand
the benefits but because it was natural for her with
her life long Life Extensionist Seventh Day
Adventist beliefs. Some of you may recall meeting my
step father who single handed, except for some help
from Gary Tripp after we arrived, drove me to and
cared for me at the Asilomar conference. He took
copious notes of all the lectures, not for me but
for himself. He engaged in discussion and genuinely
enjoyed learning every aspect.
I firmly believe if money were not
the obstacle it is I could persuade much of my
family to use cryonics. They might do so for the
afore mentioned reason of seeing the second coming
they believe in or simply to assuage my grief at
their loss. After all it matters not to them as an
observance of faith being no different logically
than heart resuscitation. They would feel if it
failed no matter they still have their belief in
bodily resurrection. If it is successful then fine
their god still awaits.
Now in anticipation of the
discussions to come I wish to cover an issue that
irks me. I have heard people accuse Seventh Day
Adventists of being a cult. Now to me as an atheist,
all religions are cults. However, being a little
more reasonable and comparing religions to each
other I wouldn't define a cult as having hospitals
and colleges all over the world. Perhaps those that
promote this negative aspersion do so because SDA's
won't lock step with the rest of the fundies.
Perhaps it is because they don't shy away from
pointing out the hypocrisies of their peer
religions. Perhaps the peer protestant religions
don't appreciate being held up to the standard the
SDA's set. I don't know nor do I much care. I just
wanted to nip the cult issue in the bud. If Seventh
Day Adventists are cultists then so are Baptists,
Methodists, Pentecostals and all the rest. By the
way, the "Branch Davidians" of Waco massacre infamy
are not and never were sanctioned by the official
SDA church. In fact one of the major warnings
preached by the church is the danger of following
"false prophets" such as David Koresh.
Editor's Comment:
There is a description of Seventh
Day Adventism on
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sda.htm
From it, there these interesting
beliefs held by Seventh Day Adventists:
Immortality: They deny the
concept of "innate immortality". They believe that a
person is not naturally immortal. When a person
dies, they remain unconscious until they are
resurrected. Eternal life in a new world is a gift
which God will give only to righteous Christians;
the rest will be annihilated. Thus, they do not
believe that a person goes to heaven or hell
immediately upon death.
Diet: Members are expected to
abstain from alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco, and
every "soul-defiling habit". They have interpreted
the Old Testament dietary laws as prohibiting the
eating of some foods. The church recommended
avoiding red meat for many decades before medical
science caught up with them. Many SDA member are
vegetarians who supplement their diet with eggs and
milk.
As of mid-2000, the Church has about
11 million baptized members, worldwide, who
are "of age" and on the "official" roles. The total
number of members and adherents is perhaps double
that. They have a growth rate of about 11% per year.
Adventists can now be found in 205 of the 229
countries and areas of the world recognized by the
United Nations, with 91.6% of membership living
outside of North America.
Also linked from this site is
http://www.ellenwhite.org/
which gives some of Ellen White's writings and
critical appraisal of them. Like anyone's beliefs,
there are some elements of truth and some ideas
which are now known to be untrue. Clearly if they
were "revelations from God" as claimed, all would be
equally true, according to the definition of God as
being omniscient. God left out telling her about
things like antibiotics, pasteurisation and many
similar ideas which could have easily been
implemented at the time. Apparently God considered
it more sensible to spend a great deal of effort
discussing moral issues and medical ideas now known
to be flawed.
But we as cryonicists need to be
aware that we have potentially 11 million allies in
this group. Religious thought, concepts of "god"
etc, are just ways of looking at the universe and
describing it. Like science, they can sometimes be
wrong. But also like science they can also sometimes
be correct. It may well be due to pure chance, or it
may be that, like scientific method, "religious
method" can come up with correct answers. The only
difference is, that scientific method gets it right
more often than religious method. It is, of course,
possible that one day a different methodology may be
find that doers better than either.
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