Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism
Mike Perry presents “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism,” a philosophy combining the ethical framework of Christianity—enlightened brotherly love—with the belief that death can be overcome through scientific means rather than supernatural intervention. Perry argues that while Christian atheism provides a satisfying moral framework, it remains “deathist” in its acceptance of mortality; universal immortalism adds the commitment that all sentient beings should eventually gain salvation and eternal life through technological means such as cryonics. He views Jesus as a pioneer transhumanist immortalist whose command to “heal the sick and raise the dead” should be taken literally as our technology advances, and proposes that resurrection may be achieved through his “minibodies” theory rather than quantum archaeology, acknowledging that information may be irretrievably lost but that multiple authentic timelines could still be realized.
R. Michael Perry, PhD (1947–2026), was a computer scientist, author, and prominent figure in the cryonics and transhumanist movements. For nearly four decades, he served as Care Services Manager at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he oversaw the stabilization and long-term maintenance of cryopreserved patients. On April 15, 2026, Dr. Perry was involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident as a pedestrian. True to his lifelong convictions, Alcor’s DART team immediately took him into care, and he received an excellent cryopreservation. He is now an Alcor patient, continuing his commitment to technological resurrection in the facility he served for so long. ¶ Beyond his technical role at Alcor, Perry was a prolific writer and philosopher. He is the author of Forever for All: Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality (2000), a comprehensive work that argues for the ethical necessity and scientific feasibility of achieving physical immortality. His philosophical outlook, which he described as “Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism,” sought to bridge the gap between religious aspirations for an afterlife and the technological means to achieve it. He posited that a future superintelligence could utilize advanced simulations and information-recovery techniques to resurrect everyone who has ever lived, a concept rooted in the traditions of Russian Cosmism. ¶ Perry’s influence extended deeply into the organizational leadership of the transhumanist community. He was a cofounder and president of the Society for Universal Immortalism and an ordained minister for the Society for Venturism, where he performed ceremonies reflecting a commitment to the scientific conquest of death. Through his long-running column “For the Record” in Cryonics magazine, he became the primary historian of the cryonics movement, meticulously documenting its early failures and successes so that the lessons of the past could inform the technology of the future. ¶ Dr. Perry was a dedicated advocate for the “techno-psycho-cyber-heaven”—a future state dominated by benevolence and universal life extension. Gentle, soft-spoken, and principled, he was an anchor in the cryonics community for decades. He came in early, stayed late, and often remained at the facility for days at a time to ensure Alcor’s patients were always properly cared for. The cryonics movement owes him a debt of gratitude that cannot be overstated. Now, after watching over Alcor’s patients for nearly forty years, it is their turn to watch over him as he rests in cryopreservation, awaiting the future he worked so tirelessly to help create. ¶ His life’s work remains a testament to the belief that death is a problem to be solved through the rigorous application of science, mathematics, and a hopeful, rational philosophy.
Transcript
Speaker 1
We’ll now hear from Mike Perry on Christian Atheist Universal Immortalism. Michael Perry has been active in cryonics and has had cryonics arrangements since the 1970s. He has worked at Alcor Foundation, a leading cryonics organization, since 1987. He has written a book, Forever for All, about the possibilities of attaining immortality and resurrection of the dead through scientific means. Pryonics features prominently even though it may not be strictly necessary. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Colorado, and he is currently exploring mathematical approaches to the problems of personal identity and resurrection. Welcome.
Mike Perry
Okay. Glad to be here today. I am going to try to present a religious philosophy. That may not appeal to everybody, probably won’t appeal to everybody here. I hope you can hear me okay. All right. It sounds like an echo to me, but anyway, it does appeal to some of us, the kind of people who don’t believe in the supernatural. are not happy with thinking that life ends with the grave and that kind of thing either. We we don’t want to think of religion as just nonsense. So
Mike Perry
Anyhow, it’s a combination of let’s see if I can, of what I call, what is called Christian atheism, you can look it up on the Internet. with something else I’ll get to in a moment. Well, Christian atheism may seem like a contradiction in terms, but Actually, it’s a reasonable philosophical position. It says that there’s no personal God, there’s no supernatural, but the Christian ethic is perfectly valid. Enlightened brotherly love is the approach that we ought to use in our relations with others, using the golden rule. And so it’s a sort of a philosophy of how to live well in this life, interacting with other people.
Mike Perry
And I think some people have found it a a satisfying substitute for the traditional Christianity or other religions, but I don’t happen to be one of those people myself. And the main reason is that it’s still basically deathist. An honest Christian atheist or most the usual type of person like this will have to admit that you know, life ends after a few decades, and that’s it. And so you just have to make the most of this life. you work it that way. If you talk to people like that about things like cryonics We used to think that they would be their eyes would light up and they would really be interested in this idea, but usually they’re not interested in it.
Mike Perry
Anyway, I am one of these people that is interested in immortality. And since, like I say, I don’t believe in the supernatural, I think it must happen through our own efforts or in some kind of technological way. So anyway, Christian atheism might be a good start on a religious philosophy, but it just doesn’t go far enough. And so we come to something that I call universal immortalism. I talk about this in my book Forever for All. And I don’t claim to be the originator of these ideas. They have been kicking around for a long time. Fyodoroff was a an early uh promoter of of this kind of thinking.
Mike Perry
But uh once again, you have enlightened brotherly love as your guiding principle for interactions with others, but you also have scientific immortalism, which is the idea that the problem of death can be solved scientifically. Admittedly, it’s a hard problem, but there are a number of approaches. I will get to that shortly, some of these. And also something
Mike Perry
that I call that usually goes under the name of universalism. Traditional Christianity used to disturb me because It isn’t Christian universalism, but some souls are condemned to eternal torment. Or a softer version is called annihilationism, where they’re not tormented, they’re not tortured forever, but they just die and that’s it. the ones that aren’t saved with universalism. In the end, everybody is saved. And It’s justified on uh normal, ordinary theological grounds by saying that the loving God is So powerful and so full of love that somehow he will find a way to redeem everybody, though it might take a while for some people, some beings. So really universal immortalism does incorporate universalism. And of course, we’re com combining the two
Mike Perry
Someone earlier talked about an idea of God that where it’s not a being but a kind of principle. And I think you said it very well, and I can’t equal that in my talk. I don’t have time or preparation for it. But basically, You could see God as not a being but a principle, enlightened, brotherly love, or agape, or Holy Spirit, not the Holy Spirit, but Holy Spirit. So it wouldn’t be a pervading feeling that we are we care about each other. We’re trying to benefit ourselves, but others too, in a position that you could call enlightened self-interest. So enlightened brotherly love
Mike Perry
There’s a little glitch here. That’s supposed to be an equivalent sign, but it didn’t come through. Enlightened brotherly love is more or less equivalent to enlightened self interest if you consider the scale of eternity And that’s what I’m interested in. I take it seriously, that life should be eternal and we should be immortal So that’s a principle that is consistent both with Christianity and universal immortalism.
Mike Perry
So who was this who was Jesus? Why do we why would somebody like me that like I say, I don’t believe in the supernatural, I think Jesus was another human being, but still he was a a pretty incredible human being. He was a pioneer transhumanist immortalist. You could call him an apostle of brotherly love, the son of God in a metaphorical sense at least. So I can see an advantage in having your philosophy centered around this one person, even though You could imagine developing universal immortalism on another planet that has a totally different civilization. and different people in it. And no one person is absolutely critical to it, but still there might be something and I think there would be something of value to consider The things Jesus said. What did he say?
Mike Perry
Among many things that he said that are very worthwhile was to heal the sick and raise the dead. And he didn’t say things like, well, you can’t really raise the dead yourself, but you call on a higher power to do it. He just plain said, raise the dead. And I think as our technology develops, we should take that more seriously. So I’ll say a little more about that later.
Mike Perry
And again, Jesus was a human being. And I see that the re, like I, you know, I don’t believe in supernatural. I don’t believe in the anything that seems to violate laws of physics. I don’t think the literal resurrections of the dead have happened already. Resurrection was a faith event once, but Eventually, it will be for real. And we need to take that seriously.
Mike Perry
The crucifixion confirms the humanity of Jesus. He was a human being. He he really did suffer on the cross, I think. And it also justifies our questioning of early dogmas and things. Jesus seemed to be questioning some things when he was asking why God had forsaken him on the cross. I suppose that’s subject to many different interpretations, but we are justified, I think, in questioning any kind of position that just doesn’t seem to jive with what uh scientific uh observations seem to be telling us. Again, raising the debt, I think, can literally happen, and it’s up to us to work out how we should do it. Two minutes to go. All right. I’ve already covered this point.
Mike Perry
Universalism means that every All sentient beings should be should gain salvation and a future life in which they will be able to grow indefinitely. And I really mean all, too. The cats and the dogs and the fleas that bite them. It’s up to us to work out the details on that, and I certainly can’t do it in a minute and a half.
Mike Perry
But for now, there’s also cryonics. which is one kind of intervention against death that I’m obviously a promoter of. I probably won’t have time to do much more here, but I have a theory of resurrection that is not based on quantum archaeology. It’s another approach entire well, it’s another approach. I call it mini bodies for want of another term. It’s based on the idea that information really is lost. and you’re not going to be able to tease it out of the historical record. But when that happens, I think that you can justify the position that the actual historical time line has become ambiguous. So, in other words, there’s not a unique historical timeline. If you resurrect one time line worth of beings, they are truly authentic beings that In some sense, really did feed into our present, even though this one resurrection is not unique. But it is real, and we will have to We can adjust to that, I think.
Mike Perry
Again, cryonics, I think, is an expression of enlightened brotherly love and enlightened self-interest if pursued properly. Maybe I should stop here if there’s any time for questions. Thank you. I’m not sure if I have time for questions, but I don’t hear. You’ve got a question.
Speaker 1
Ah, how does your uni how does your universal immortalism tie in with uh Tiplarism?
Mike Perry
I would say that it’s pretty consistent with it, but Tipler seems to be tied down to a certain physical theory, and this can adapt to different possibilities in the future. And also, Tipler has never expressed any interest in cryonics, and I’m a strong proponent of it, okay?