The Evidence is In

One Saturday afternoon, while the girls were on one of their endless shopping tours, I found the time in my busy schedule to read an interesting "scientific" study.

The bed sheets were being washed. That's what gave me the break in my busy napping schedule to read. Sleeping on a bare mattress? NO. Sounds like Guantanamo Bay.

The "scientific" study involved a bunch of scientists researching near death experiences, or more accurately, dead for just a short while experiences.

I'll précis the article. I have to, actually, because I didn't read most of it. Just the headline and the conclusion. Okay, a bit in the middle too. The bed sheets were now dry so I had to finish up reading quickly and get back to my scheduled activities.

These "scientists" looked at various studies of people who died (as in their heart stopped beating) for 20 minutes to half an hour. I could use a good solid nap like that.

They found that a healthy portion of these dead "temps" reported wonderful afterlife experiences while they were dead, and the experiences were all very similar.

From this they confidently concluded that there is no death as many traditionally view it – rotting corpse, no taxes and nothingness.

We can all expect an afterlife, and a pleasant one at that. A bold and brash conclusion, for sure.

Well, I have a few questions, thank you.

I think most of us, while we're alive, subscribe to the too-good-to-be-true point of view when it comes to a lot of everyday things.

Eat those love handles away with endless diet fries, the taxman made a mistake in your favour to the tune of $1,000,000, Charlize Theron asks where you've been all her life, Brad Pitt leaves his Queen of cinema for you and a backsplit in Don Mills. All too-good-to-be-true.

The joyful, no traffic, no job to get to, no kid's ass to wipe and FREE lifestyle, however, awaits your death.

Is this not the ethereal equivalent of Floridian swamp land?

Another, rather obvious question is why not skip the sucky life and go directly to the after sucky life?

The off-the-rack answer is you can't possibly enjoy the good without the bad to remind you that the good is, ah, actually good.

The afterlife, as advertised, is nothing but good. How do we know it's all good, when it is, ah, all good? Maybe there's just a tad bad, like a charge for the infinite buffet.

Who were these dead-for-a-while people? It sounds like ALL of them were headed to Heaven, seeing as they all reported finding their G(od) spot. But I'm thinking when you take a random sampling of the population, chances are there will be a pedophile or two in the mix.

Why didn't we hear a story of a guy having his scrotum slowly cut off with a dull blade and fed to him through one of those cake decoration tubes, as all pedophiles deserve? The bad with the good, right?

I find something even more disturbing in this afterlife sales job. Suppose you (a good person) are at a soccer game in Pakistan and a disgruntled religious fanatic sits down beside you and detonates his backpack.

Great, now you're both dead. Except you can't die, remember? As you both float into the afterlife, will you be beside each other, like you were at the soccer game?

Now that's awkward. Should the terrorist apologize? "Ya, about that explosion. Hey how 'bout a year's worth of free infinite buffet?

Should you demand an apology and some kind of compensation? Why, when we've "scientifically" established you're in for a much better time than lousy seats at a sporting event. Maybe a thank you is in order.

Is there really an afterlife? Sooner or later we're all experts on the subject.