Sunday, March 19, 2006
Weird World: two founders of cryonics unfreeze and have to be cremated
Two founders of the cryonics movement - whose members are frozen after death - have been cremated after a freezer mishap. The bodies of Raymond Martinot and his wife Monique were stored in a freezer in the hope modern science could one day revive them. But, 22 years after his mother's body was put into cold storage, their son discovered the freezer unit had broken down, reports the Guardian. Rémy Martinot said he had no choice but to cremate his parents' bodies after the technical fault had seen their temperatures rise above the constant level required of -65C. "I don't feel any more bereaved today than I did when my parents died, I had already done my grieving," he said. "But I feel bitter that I could not respect my father's last wishes. Maybe the future would have shown that my father was right and that he was a pioneer."
Raymond Martinot spent decades preparing for his demise in the belief that if he was frozen, scientists would be able to bring him back to life by 2050. But his wife, Monique Leroy, died first, in 1984, and was the first to enter the freezer unit in their Loire Valley chateau. In 2002 Dr Martinot died of a stroke, aged 84, and his son followed his orders to inject him with the same anti-coagulants and store him alongside.
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I hope Raymond at least had a healthy belief in the after-ice. He could have saved himself a lot of effort if he had just gone with Hebrews: "For, it is appointed unto men once to die, and then the judgment".
Judgment -- not a popular idea these days.
And who's going to be the Judge of mankind? Jesus Christ.
How intolerant is that?! Shouldn't it at least be some kind of inter-faith committee?
Ah well, we can paint whatever pictures of God we want, but, push comes to shove, God gets to call the shots.
And, that's only fitting, given the job-description that accompanies being God.
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