X-Message-Number: 15112
From: "Michael LaTorra" <>
Subject: Re: religion (#15108)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 10:44:16 -0700

In Message #15108 Joseph Kehoe wrote:

>I  must admit I have not checked the official line of the "Christian"
churches on Cryonics.
>I suspect the Catholic church would be against it if they were forced to
give an opinion.
>I assumed they would be against it because the idea of a soul does not meld
well with cryonics working.
>If I had a soul what would it spent its time doing if I were frozen?
>Is my soul frozen also?
>If not, does it hang around in "heaven/hell" untill I am unfrozen and then
race back to my body?
>None of the above makes much sense to me (based on Western Christian
beliefs).
>Of course I would welcome any religious people who wished to become frozen.

My religious beliefs have evolved far beyond my Catholic upbringing.
Nonetheless, I can see how Catholicism could accept cryonics. With regard to
your questions, I think a Catholic theologian might say something like this:

"We have already grappled with the issue of the souls of innocent dead
infants. We have decided that they must be neither in heaven nor hell nor
the purgatory in-between those two places but rather in limbo, a neutral and
pleasant place.

"As for the place of a soul during cryonic suspension of the body, it too
might reside in limbo. Or, if this is God's will, it might be in another
place awaiting the time of the resurrection. For you see, resurrection is
the promise of God as told to us in the Bible. The only difference between
your revival from cryonic suspension and our expectation of a general
resurrection on the Last Day is that your revival is temporary and
susceptible to error, while our (and your!) resurrection on the Last Day is
perfect and complete for all time."

That's what I would imagine a Catholic theologian saying. Catholicism is far
more flexible than fundamentalism. Of course, there would also likely be
other Catholic theologians who would disagree with cryonics. Some disagree
with the Church's teaching against abortion, too. But it's a big Church and
an old one. If we have any hope of our cryonics organizations lasting for
centuries, then we should carefully consider the success of the Catholic
Church over the past 1,970 years (give or take a few).

Regards,

Michael LaTorra


Member:
Extropy Institute: extropy.org
Alcor Life Extension Foundation: alcor.org
Society for Technical Communication: stc.org

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