Folks,
Do you ever wonder what might keep a King up at night?
Here is a question I wrestle with.
Some people, at the time of their death, have themselves frozed. They do this in the hope that medicine in the future will be able to extend their lives.
Some of those people are, I imagine, Christians.
My question is, does taking such an action actually make the statement that you put your trust and faith in science and men above that of Christ?
Regards,
HM Alexander of Hanover
Well, what it does demonstrate is a particular individual's excessive attachment to life on this earth, priortizing it above the greater and higher destiny for which he or she was created. Such a complete and total attachment to mortal existence betrays a rather base soul which does not seek for greater and more eternal things. Such priorities, of course, cannot be said to be in harmony with Christian spirituality which emphasizes the eternal over the temporal.
To have one's self frozen in hopes of a future cure for death is not only silly, but a complete--one might say the most complete--denial of God's sovereignty over human existence. Once the soul has been called to it's accounting, according to Christian theology, it will not be reunited with the body until the Last Judgment. The just will be reunited with their now glorified bodies upon "a new earth" following their ascension with the Son of Man and the reprobate will return (or be cast for the first time) to Hell where their bodies will, with their souls, undergo everlasting punishment for their unrepented offences.
So a man can freeze his body if he likes, but once the soul has been called home to Heaven or Hell, it won't be released simply because some scientists in the year 2104 got all that man's organs to work again. The body would simply be a soul-less machine.
I definately come from a non-religious angle. I don't know anything about God, Allah or Zoroaster and until I hold court with a burning bush, I'm not holding my breath for any Second Coming.
That being said, the decision to freeze yourself is a personal choice and a contract between yourself and whomever has your brain in their freezer. Would I like to live forever? I would think you'd get pretty bored. But, the idea of living, say, five hundred years? That appeals to me- you would be witness to so many changes, just think of what the world was like in 1504 compared to now. Wow.
I guess that's my problem, I always want to know what's going to happen.
A Christian who is frozen in order to live longer in the end is surely sacrificing an opportunity for eternal bliss (assuming he's a good guy, since in the other case, his reasoning is obvious) in order to be around to help people and spread the Christian message in the future! Wouldn't you say? How selfless!
Ah, but then it would be pride to think that the Christian apostolate of the future wouldn't be able to succeed without one's self; and I don't know what sort of Christianity one would preach who believed he could cheat God of his rights over life and death.
Christian spirituality is all about resigning one's self to God's will. Having one's self frozen in hopes of a medical cure for death pretty much chucks that concept right out the door.
Eternal life in the presence of God is, according to Christian theology, what the Creator has in mind for the soul, not an everlasting sojourn upon the earth. Our earthly journey is a merely a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Call me skeptical, but I suspect that propagating the Christian faith in the future may not be the motivation behind the decision to freeze one's body for those who have done so. <_<
At any rate, I wouldn't want to risk God's just sense of humor by freezing myself. He might be content to allow your punishment to be to feel the effects of freezing until the end of time!
Note that frozen people are still dead.
As such, they can go to an afterlife. Until, when and if, they are revived.
So it really wouldn't impair their chances too much.
Thoenen,
Are frozen people actually dead?
Technology is just now starting to blur the line between life and death.
Do you mean that an immortal soul is attached to its physical container such that if the container is revived the soul must return from its afterlife place to the physical realm?
This line of reasoning leads to some other weird questions.
I mean, is an organ donar still alive as long as some of his tissue continues to function? Or does it take a fully functional body to be 'alive'?
If it does take a whole body, what about people on heart and lung machines, or other devices which take the place of tissue organs?
This leads us to ask "What is the essence of human life?"
Is it measured by brain death?
Maybe being frozen is a type of suspended animation from which the process of reanimation is as yet unknown?
Regards,
HM Alexander of Hanover
My personal opinion is that when I was baptized a Christian, I was given the opportunity to live a life in the Church, which I did, when I was growing up.
A person who is "saved" is supposed to be granted life eternal, meaning that when you die, considering if you have lived a good life, you will spend eternity with God in Heaven. On the other hand, if your life has been rather on the down side, you will spend eternity in Hell (unfortunately).
How one chooses to have their bodily remains "finished up", tidied up, completed, whatever, is a personal choice.
However, your soul is what counts, and according to whatever religious choice you made during your lifetime, THAT is what really counts in the long run - your soul. After all, your body stays here on earth no matter what.
Your soul will be the defining factor in the long run, whether you are of the Christian faith, Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever faith you may espouse.
That is what counts to my way of thinking - your soul.
Thanks - Rosalie
How can you be sure that you have a soul? This is where I always get stuck with when I'm thinking about religion. I haven't seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt one, so I'm not sure that I have one.
I think this is where people will answer the question- those who believe they have a soul would object to cryogenics, the others see it as a way to extend a finite existence.
According to Catholics, my soul would seem to be a wrinkly, blackened little thing which hides in corners when I accidentally burn it again.
According to Baptists, I'm screwed anyways.
According to Unitarians or Congregationalists (I'm both--this is Youth Groups, at least)..."Want another doughnut?"