Subject: Re: Your Resurrection
Date: Thur, 5 June 2008
From: Dr. Chic Schissel
To: Pantheists.org

Hi Flash,

Some of the issues you raise have been dissected by philosophers for centuries to no convincing outcome. I often wonder why I experience events and feelings as myself, through my own senses and not someone else's. Were I successfully and perfectly cloned would I, myself, experience things or would my clone experience things as a person other than myself.

Enough of this infinite probing; back to reality.

You mention the possibility of acquiring lost memories. I don't think this is possible: DNA transmits instincts, not memories. Memories are generated by events subsequent to birth.

Nevertheless I'm all for cloning, of humans as well as animals. Science has always answered difficult questions, and someday it may answer these questions.

About Pascal's Wager

Pascal was wrong.

Pascal's Wager says if you become a believer it might enable eternal bliss but there is no down side: it can help but it can't hurt. But if Pascal's wager causes you to become religious this persuades you to waste a considerable amount of otherwise productive time in praying and religious rituals. And that hurts.

Pascal is wrong when he asserts that if God exists, belief in him would enable eternal bliss. Consider the following scenario:

A philosophically inclined man decided, on the basis of Pascal's wager, to become religious. He died, and was standing before God at the portals of heaven. This dialog took place:

God: Prove you deserve heaven.

Deceased: I believed in your existence.

God: But there is no evidence of my existence; in fact all the evidence I produced disproved my existence.

Deceased: My belief was based on faith, belief despite the evidence.

God: Did I create you with a brain?

Deceased: Yes

God: Did I expect you to use that brain?

Deceased: I suppose so.

God: Well you haven't. You have gone against my wishes. I don't want you here in heaven. Go down to the other place.

Regards, Chic Schissel