>From: James Swayze <swayzej@earthlink.net>
>
>I think we need to head this off at the pass, so to speak. We should invite
>xians into the fold a little maybe. I'll use cryonics for an example. I see
>no
>reason why this must be against any fundamental xian belief. As one friend
>put
>it to me "I want to see the future while still in the flesh". I have said
>to
>xian friends and family that if it works the person obviously by their
>definitions was not yet truly dead. I'm filtering this through a xian
>paradigm I
>am familiar with. That of my former own beliefs and of my families current.
>They
>don't believe the soul goes to heaven immediately upon death but rather is
>asleep until resurrection. So, here, there is room to say that should the
>cryonics patient awaken this has merely been a suspension and no more
>usurping
>god then a resuscitation from a heart attack.
>
>However, take those that do think the soul goes to heaven. A case could be
>made
>that if the cryonics patient is revived, then their soul somehow found the
>body
>again. In ether case I don't see how it is necessary to take the position
>that
>god has been usurped. I would argue, even though I am atheist, that if god
>exists we mere humans couldn't possibly usurp him/her/it. That if cryonics
>works
>for the individual xian then god has allowed it in order to allow the
>person to
>have more time on this world to do their so called good works.
>
>What say you all? Could we pander to potential foes to prevent them
>becoming
>foes?
>
>James
Not likely. Being a former fundie myself the old scriptures/sayings
immediately come back: "It is appointed unto man *once* to die, and after
death, the judgment" and "Absent from the body is present with the Lord."
Then of course there are the powerful analogies of the tree of life and the
tower of Babel.
At least until the first actual, successful, human revival occurs, I would
not bet on any Christian support of cryonic suspension. Of course once the
first revival happens and the revivee turns out not to seem like a soul-less
zombie, but a very close proximation of their former self, the Christian
philosophers will really have something to think about.
-Zero
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