The extra years of life that cryonics might give you is nothing compared to the infinity you will eventually spend in heaven. If you believe that God wants you to spend time in the physical universe before joining him, might he not approve of you using science and reason to extend your life, so you can better serve him in our, material world?
Thank you, great example: this is an argument that might have a chance in hell of working after they understand cryonics and give it a reasonable chance of working (and assuming I don’t mind using the dark arts to convince them). If they’re debating between cryonics and not-cryonics, this might tip the balance. But if they are actually debating between the two, most of the necessary work has already been done.
For example, I expect to have to navigate through a bunch of stuff involving souls first. Christians of my parents’ variety tend to believe that when they die, their soul will instantly go to heaven. This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven? Obviously the whole line of thinking is completely confused, but it will cause them to reject the whole notion without even beginning to seriously consider it.
Christians of my parents’ variety tend to believe that when they die, their soul will instantly go to heaven. This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven?
I had similar problems with a relative. I resolved(?) them by saying that while what actually happens may be a complete mystery to us right now, it is obvious that the omnipotent sovereign of reality could not have his will thwarted by my puny human freezing technologies. If I am revived it will be his will, and if it is his will that I not be revived then I won’t be, and either way he’ll figure it out and make sure everything works out ok.
Aren’t there a number of movies where god decides that someone’s work on Earth isn’t done yet, so he gives them another lease on life when they were at death’s door? Or in some cases literally sends them back to Earth after having a brief chat in heaven? How do your parents feel about those movies? Could that sort of scenario be called up and used for support?
This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven?
You could bring up the example of induced hypothermia, and then suggest that in that case, the person isn’t actually dead, but just in a state of suspended of animation. (They have to be—after all, the opposite would imply that their soul would get sucked back from heaven, and that’s absurd, right?) If you can establish that, you can go on to suggest that being cryogenically frozen is a similar state as well.
If you can do this in a way that doesn’t suggest you’re starting a debate, but rather are curious about their beliefs, that would help. “Say, I ran across this article about something they call induced hypothermia, and I’m a little unsure about whether I should think the patient is alive or dead while he undergoes the treatment. I mean, if he comes back afterwards, he can’t really be dead, but the article says that the patient is indistinguishable from someone who is. What do you think?” If they reach the conclusion that the patient is actually alive, agree with that or possibly challenge the position a bit (to make them think of more justifications for it and thus become more sure of the position), then let the issue rest. Only bring up the cryonics connection in a later discussion.
Of course, you have to be able to do this in a way that doesn’t seem too uncharacteristic of you—if you’ve never asked for their thoughts in such a manner before, doing it now is probably a bit suspicious.
You could bring up the example of induced hypothermia, and then suggest that in that case, the person isn’t actually dead, but just in a state of suspended of animation.
That’s a great point, of course. I have to be careful not to accidentally show that souls are fictional, it will sidetrack or shut down the conversation...
Wouldn’t God know whether a frozen person is going to be revived? No revival, soul goes wherever. Revival, soul stays in body, possibly doing soul stuff that won’t be remembered, possibly just quiescent.
I think that’s a little too detailed of a model. Perhaps I can take the tact that you aren’t really dead until your brain is destroyed. Until that happens, you’re just sleeping.
What do they believe happened in past cased where people were briefly brain dead and then recovered? Look up the details of a specific case and ask them about that specific case without revealing it’s related, just making it seem like you’re curious.
Quite a few Christian denominations don’t think that souls go to heaven immediately after death. Seventh-Day-Adventists, for example, believe that you’re basically dead until Judgment Day, when you will be resurrected in a version of your previous material body. You might want to look into the biblical textual support that SDAs and similar denominations use to justify these beliefs.
I don’t think that would actually help. I recall, back when I was a christian I read an overview of various eschatologies—and decided that none of the views had any appreciable chance of being correct. IMO, people take the most attractive eschatology they’ve heard and read it into the text. Arguing from the text can’t change their minds, because the text is not actually the source of their belief (even though they strongly believe that it is). Changing my parents’ minds about a point of doctrine seems (to me) to be on the same order of difficulty as the original problem.
I don’t think looking up textual support would do you much good, though. The entire field of Christian eschatology is incredibly confused and basically rests on the precise interpretation of maybe a half-dozen passages in the Bible; outside of a few denominations like the SDA, I don’t get the impression that folk Christianity takes it very seriously.
What you should tell your parents:
The extra years of life that cryonics might give you is nothing compared to the infinity you will eventually spend in heaven. If you believe that God wants you to spend time in the physical universe before joining him, might he not approve of you using science and reason to extend your life, so you can better serve him in our, material world?
Thank you, great example: this is an argument that might have a chance in hell of working after they understand cryonics and give it a reasonable chance of working (and assuming I don’t mind using the dark arts to convince them). If they’re debating between cryonics and not-cryonics, this might tip the balance. But if they are actually debating between the two, most of the necessary work has already been done.
For example, I expect to have to navigate through a bunch of stuff involving souls first. Christians of my parents’ variety tend to believe that when they die, their soul will instantly go to heaven. This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven? Obviously the whole line of thinking is completely confused, but it will cause them to reject the whole notion without even beginning to seriously consider it.
I had similar problems with a relative. I resolved(?) them by saying that while what actually happens may be a complete mystery to us right now, it is obvious that the omnipotent sovereign of reality could not have his will thwarted by my puny human freezing technologies. If I am revived it will be his will, and if it is his will that I not be revived then I won’t be, and either way he’ll figure it out and make sure everything works out ok.
Aren’t there a number of movies where god decides that someone’s work on Earth isn’t done yet, so he gives them another lease on life when they were at death’s door? Or in some cases literally sends them back to Earth after having a brief chat in heaven? How do your parents feel about those movies? Could that sort of scenario be called up and used for support?
You could bring up the example of induced hypothermia, and then suggest that in that case, the person isn’t actually dead, but just in a state of suspended of animation. (They have to be—after all, the opposite would imply that their soul would get sucked back from heaven, and that’s absurd, right?) If you can establish that, you can go on to suggest that being cryogenically frozen is a similar state as well.
If you can do this in a way that doesn’t suggest you’re starting a debate, but rather are curious about their beliefs, that would help. “Say, I ran across this article about something they call induced hypothermia, and I’m a little unsure about whether I should think the patient is alive or dead while he undergoes the treatment. I mean, if he comes back afterwards, he can’t really be dead, but the article says that the patient is indistinguishable from someone who is. What do you think?” If they reach the conclusion that the patient is actually alive, agree with that or possibly challenge the position a bit (to make them think of more justifications for it and thus become more sure of the position), then let the issue rest. Only bring up the cryonics connection in a later discussion.
Of course, you have to be able to do this in a way that doesn’t seem too uncharacteristic of you—if you’ve never asked for their thoughts in such a manner before, doing it now is probably a bit suspicious.
That’s a great point, of course. I have to be careful not to accidentally show that souls are fictional, it will sidetrack or shut down the conversation...
Yes, it would be.
Wouldn’t God know whether a frozen person is going to be revived? No revival, soul goes wherever. Revival, soul stays in body, possibly doing soul stuff that won’t be remembered, possibly just quiescent.
I think that’s a little too detailed of a model. Perhaps I can take the tact that you aren’t really dead until your brain is destroyed. Until that happens, you’re just sleeping.
What do they believe happened in past cased where people were briefly brain dead and then recovered? Look up the details of a specific case and ask them about that specific case without revealing it’s related, just making it seem like you’re curious.
Quite a few Christian denominations don’t think that souls go to heaven immediately after death. Seventh-Day-Adventists, for example, believe that you’re basically dead until Judgment Day, when you will be resurrected in a version of your previous material body. You might want to look into the biblical textual support that SDAs and similar denominations use to justify these beliefs.
I don’t think that would actually help. I recall, back when I was a christian I read an overview of various eschatologies—and decided that none of the views had any appreciable chance of being correct. IMO, people take the most attractive eschatology they’ve heard and read it into the text. Arguing from the text can’t change their minds, because the text is not actually the source of their belief (even though they strongly believe that it is). Changing my parents’ minds about a point of doctrine seems (to me) to be on the same order of difficulty as the original problem.
Islam has similar doctrine, if memory serves.
I don’t think looking up textual support would do you much good, though. The entire field of Christian eschatology is incredibly confused and basically rests on the precise interpretation of maybe a half-dozen passages in the Bible; outside of a few denominations like the SDA, I don’t get the impression that folk Christianity takes it very seriously.