Time to finish this series up.Cryogenics is the science of trying to freeze living matter to the point of death but with the ability to revive that matter back to normal life. In science fiction this has been put to various uses.
1. Storage of clones as extra body parts
2. Putting criminals 'on ice'.
3. Use for space travel in that the crew is frozen for long duration while the ship travels.
4. Medical -- store the person until a cure can be found or a donor comes along.
5. Effect a form of immortality. Body is slowed in function, but brain is allowed to roam a virtual world (The Matrix)
Where this crosses into theology is in the field of ethics -- medical and social.
1. Medical ethics - is a clone life? Robert Heinlein theorized in Time Enough for Love, that cloning could get so advanced that an entire body could be cloned without a true functioning brain so that when a person got old their brain could be moved to the new body. Along with other rejuvenation technologies, this could give a person effective immortality. What happens to "appointed once to die and then the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27)
2. Is it really punishment to put criminals in cryo-freeze based on the Bible? Not really, just prolongs things and releases that criminal back into society unchanged. Not really justice from a Biblical point of view.
3. Space Travel has been discussed but what are ethics of volunteering for a trip from which you may not wake up should technology fail on the way?
4. In the case of medical waiting till a cure is found I can see some uses but at what point does it end and how do we determine who is valuable enough for this?
5. Living in a virtual world brings in the whole ethical questions of the what is life and how do we live it? Effective immortality or slavery?
Next: Lest We Forget - Robots.
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