Cryonics
Cryonics is a speculative life support technology that seeks to preserve human life in a state that will be viable and treatable by future medicine. Through low-temperature preservation of humans and animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine today, resuscitation may be possible in the future. Currently, human cryopreservation is not reversible, which means that it is not currently possible to bring people out of cryopreservation. However, it is expected that future medicine will include mature nanotechnology, and the ability to heal at the cellular and molecular levels, thereby making resuscitation and repair possible.
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Most diseases, including the progressive deterioration known as "getting old", are the result of damage to organs, tissues, cells and cellular components. With enough progress of medicine and molecular repair capability, all diseases should eventually be curable, including aging. Medicine in the future should be able to restore and maintain people in a condition of youth and health. Cryonics could be a lifeboat (or "first aid") for future medicine.
Because it is based on speculation about the capabilities of future science, cryonics is not a science. Few scientists are qualified to say whether future science can or cannot realize the dream that motivates cryonics because scientists are only trained in current science. Many outstanding scientists have made false predictions about future technology. In 1885 Lord Kelvin declared that "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." A couple of decades ago nearly all scientists believed that cloning was impossible. Conversely, cryonicists cannot guarantee that cryonics will work. Only the future will tell whether the predictions of cryonicists are correct.
Many people who arrange to become a cryonics patient upon death -- rather than be buried or cremated -- do not believe in the existence of a soul. But many cryonicists do believe in a soul. If cryonics is simply an unproven medical procedure there is no more reason to believe that the soul goes away during cryopreservation than during a night's sleep. Human embryos have been cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen for decades, yet many religious authorities believe these embryos have a soul. The same could be said for cryopreserved cryonics patients.
Cryonics is not in conflict with religion any more than medicine is in conflict with religion. Heart bypass surgery extends human life and is fully compatible with religion. Similarly, cryonics may also extend human life by preserving people for future medicine. Cryonics patients are not regarded as dead by cryonicists. Extending human life is not in conflict with religion.
How long can future medicine potentially extend human life? Perhaps by hundreds or thousands of years or more. Plans of an omniscient God would not likely be thwarted by human efforts to extend human life hundreds or thousands of years. Hundreds or thousands of years is not a significant amount of time in the context of eternity. To refuse new life extension technologies could be a sin comparable to suicide.
