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     1.4 +#+title: Self Deception
     1.5 +#+author: Robert McIntyre
     1.6 +#+email: rlm@mit.edu
     1.7 +#+setupfile: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org
     1.8 +#+include: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
     1.9 +#+html_head_extra: <link rel="stylesheet" 
    1.10 +#+html_head_extra:  type="text/css" href="../css/ideas.css" />
    1.11 +#+options: num:nil toc:t
    1.12 +
    1.13 +
    1.14 +I used to be a fundamentalist Christian. I truly believed that God was
    1.15 +real, that Jesus died on the cross to save humanity from their sins,
    1.16 +that the world was only 6,000 years old, the whole shebang. There was
    1.17 +a point in my life when I would have died for Christianity. Back then,
    1.18 +one of the things that really bugged me was how my fellow Christians
    1.19 +didn't seem to /care/ about serving the Lord and trying to become more
    1.20 +Christ-like. They believed that they had the answers to how the world
    1.21 +was created, what happens when you die, how to ensure that they went
    1.22 +to Heaven, and the consequences for being judged without Jesus'
    1.23 +attoning blood! Knowing all this, how could they dare to live "normal"
    1.24 +lives that and not honor Jesus by their every action?  It seemed like
    1.25 +people lived in a haze, without meaning or purpose to their lives. 
    1.26 +
    1.27 +#+BEGIN_QUOTE
    1.28 +The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the
    1.29 +easiest person to fool.  So you have to be very careful about that.
    1.30 +After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other
    1.31 +scientists.  You just have to be honest in a conventional way after
    1.32 +that. --[[http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm][Richard Feynman]]
    1.33 +#+END_QUOTE
    1.34 +
    1.35 +
    1.36 +Xanadu (Ted Nelson)
    1.37 +
    1.38 +M22, Cryonics (Dr. Greg Fahy, Robert Ettinger)
    1.39 +
    1.40 +AI Risk (Eleizer Yudkowsky)
    1.41 +
    1.42 +Creation Science (Dr. Nathaniel T. Jeanson)
    1.43 +
    1.44 +
    1.45 +
    1.46 +
    1.47 +
    1.48 +What if all the work that I've done for brain preservation research is
    1.49 +just an excercise in self deception? 
    1.50 +
    1.51 +I resolved not to be like the "casual christians" and devoted myself
    1.52 +to living a godly life. Lives were on the line! If someone died
    1.53 +without being saved, they would suffer in hell forever! How could I
    1.54 +not work to save as many people as possible, especially when Jesus
    1.55 +himself had assigned Christians their first and most important duty to
    1.56 +go into the world and spread the good news?
    1.57 +
    1.58 +I wanted to become a great Christian apologist and win souls for
    1.59 +Heaven. Every day of inaction meant more people who would be lost
    1.60 +forever in hell, and only the body of Christ could help lead lost
    1.61 +people to a better eternity.
    1.62 +
    1.63 +So I poured myself into studying the Bible and learning the rules of
    1.64 +my religion. I made a special focus on learning how to explain
    1.65 +Christianity to people who didn't believe. I took these things very
    1.66 +seriously and by the time I was 12 I had already read the New
    1.67 +Testament twice and spent a lot of my time on
    1.68 +http://www.answersingenesis.com/, learning how the natural world
    1.69 +confirmed the truth of the bible with overwhelming evidence. I prayed
    1.70 +every night to become a better Christian so that I could help
    1.71 +people be saved.
    1.72 +
    1.73 +I wanted with my whole heart to not be "casual", to be a good
    1.74 +Christian, to help people... But it was this very desire that led me
    1.75 +to lose my faith.
    1.76 +
    1.77 +
    1.78 +
    1.79 +I'm just a zealot, and all I've done is trade christian salvation for
    1.80 +technological salvation. 
    1.81 +
    1.82 +And even worse, I'm a heretic. I'm just going to get disillusioned
    1.83 +with mind uploading the same way I did with christianity.
    1.84 +
    1.85 +