OT: is "resurrection" possible?

Quoted message said:

Subject: OT: is "resurrection" possible?
From: Shawn [email hidden]
Date: 2/26/2004 7:51 PM Mountain Standard Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

Does anyone know of some recorded medical cases of individuals who were pronounced dead by a health
official but who then came back to life at a later time? I'm trying to establish some facts before
I discuss the topic with a family member who is religious. Thanks for any help.

Used to happen all the time ..

They designed a bell with a string for when they buried people .. IF .. they woke they could / would
pull the string and they would be dug up .. asap ..

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Shawn said:

Does anyone know of some recorded medical cases of individuals who were pronounced dead by a health
official but who then came back to life at a later time? I'm trying to establish some facts before
I discuss the topic with a family member who is religious. Thanks for any help.

Yes, definitely, it has happened a number of times. For example:
defrance.orgarticle 437.shtmlOpen ↗
archives.tcm.iestory756451485.aspOpen ↗

However, it's extremely unlikely these people were actually dead. They were almost certainly
declared dead erroneously.

It really boils down to how you define death. Medicine defines "clinical death" as the absence of
systole (ie, cardiac arrest, no pulse). There's a small window of time where someone with no pulse
can be revived (paramedics and ER doctors accomplish that almost daily these days).

But once someone has gone for more than about 6-8 minutes with no pulse, their organs begin dying,
starting with the brain. Once the brain ceases functioning, the person is "brain dead." Even if
their heart can be restarted at that point and all the other organs survive, they will never be
conscious again. The "person" is gone, and for all intents and purposes they are dead even though
the rest of their body continues to function.

But if the heart is not restarted within a few minutes, all the organs and tissues of the body will
die. This is "cellular death" and from that there is absolutely no return. There are *no* cases of
resurrection from cellular death (outside of legends and religious doctrine).

In short, no one who was truly dead has ever come back to life.

Shawn said:

Does anyone know of some recorded medical cases of individuals who were pronounced dead by a
health official but who then came back to life at a later time? I'm trying to establish some facts
before I discuss the topic with a family member who is religious. Thanks for any help.

Shawn

Carey Gregory said:

Yes, definitely, it has happened a number of times. For example:
defrance.orgarticle 437.shtmlOpen ↗
archives.tcm.iestory756451485.aspOpen ↗

However, it's extremely unlikely these people were actually dead. They were almost certainly
declared dead erroneously.

It really boils down to how you define death. Medicine defines "clinical death" as the absence of
systole (ie, cardiac arrest, no pulse). There's a small window of time where someone with no pulse
can be revived (paramedics and ER doctors accomplish that almost daily these days).

But once someone has gone for more than about 6-8 minutes with no pulse, their organs begin dying,
starting with the brain. Once the brain ceases functioning, the person is "brain dead." Even if
their heart can be restarted at that point and all the other organs survive, they will never be
conscious again. The "person" is gone, and for all intents and purposes they are dead even though
the rest of their body continues to function.

But if the heart is not restarted within a few minutes, all the organs and tissues of the body
will die. This is "cellular death" and from that there is absolutely no return. There are *no*
cases of resurrection from cellular death (outside of legends and religious doctrine).

In short, no one who was truly dead has ever come back to life.

Thank you for your reply. Well basically my father who is a rather feverish Christian gave me a
videotape containing a story of the alleged resurrection of a person in Nigeria (a highly suspicious
location) that was supposedly pronounced dead after a car accident and then awoke after three days.
The claim was that the initial diagnosis indicated no breathing, no pulse, dilated pupils, and then
he was left in the morgue. I'm thinking of either a very blatant lie or at best an extremely
incompetent doctor and diagosis. Either way, I am reminded of the commercial nature of the video
($35 a pop I believe), from a Christian evangelical publication.

The sad thing to me personally is that before his retirement, my father was a surgeon, but appears
to have lost all skepticism, no matter how basic, over time regarding his faith.

Shawn said:

Thank you for your reply. Well basically my father who is a rather feverish Christian gave me a
videotape containing a story of the alleged resurrection of a person in Nigeria (a highly
suspicious location) that was supposedly pronounced dead after a car accident and then awoke after
three days. The claim was that the initial diagnosis indicated no breathing, no pulse, dilated
pupils, and then he was left in the morgue. I'm thinking of either a very blatant lie or at best an
extremely incompetent doctor and diagosis. Either way, I am reminded of the commercial nature of
the video ($35 a pop I believe), from a Christian evangelical publication.

Nigeria? $35 for the video? As if that's not enough.

Lots of stuff on the web about this. Do a google search on "Daniel Ekechukwu"

Quoted message said:

The sad thing to me personally is that before his retirement, my father was a surgeon, but appears
to have lost all skepticism, no matter how basic, over time regarding his faith.

Sigh.... He was a surgeon and he believes this rot?

Carey Gregory said:

Shawn <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Sigh.... He was a surgeon and he believes this rot?

In the context of religion, believing something like isn't necessarily contradictory with being a
surgeon. A brilliant surgeon can believe in God and take the Bible literally if he wants to. It's
not as if he needs to give God a bypass to believe.

Whatever he believes now shouldn't cause you to worry. My dad believed you could figure out winning
lottery numbers in advance. I just learned to tune it out and nod.

talkback said:

In the context of religion, believing something like isn't necessarily contradictory with being a
surgeon. A brilliant surgeon can believe in God and take the Bible literally if he wants to. It's
not as if he needs to give God a bypass to believe.

Understood, but this tale is incompatible with science *and* Biblical teachings. The Bible doesn't
predict ad hoc resurrections.

Quoted message said:

Whatever he believes now shouldn't cause you to worry. My dad believed you could figure out winning
lottery numbers in advance. I just learned to tune it out and nod.

Rest assured I won't be losing any sleep over it. ;-) On the rare occasion I waste $1 on a lotto
ticket, I would be happy to play your father's numbers. They're as good as any other.

Carey Gregory said:

Sigh.... He was a surgeon and he believes this rot?

Maybe the stress got to him. In any case, he just seemed to stop caring about his career, or wealth,
or the world, or anything other than his faith. And certainly he has much FAITH in this stuff.

talkback said:

Whatever he believes now shouldn't cause you to worry. My dad believed you could figure out
winning lottery numbers in advance. I just learned to tune it out and nod.

That's really what I've been trying to do over the years as well. It's a bit more difficult for me,
as I've been under constant verbal assault over the years regarding the highway to hell on which
I've apparently travelling.

Carey Gregory said:

On the rare occasion I waste $1 on a lotto ticket, I would be happy to play your father's numbers.
They're as good as any other.

I once played lottery for fun. On a subscription of $50, I got $67 back, if I recall correctly. I
think I'm going to take the winning to my grave.

Shawn said:

talkback said:

Whatever he believes now shouldn't cause you to worry. My dad believed you could figure out
winning lottery numbers in advance. I just learned to tune it out and nod.

That's really what I've been trying to do over the years as well. It's a bit more difficult for
me, as I've been under constant verbal assault over the years regarding the highway to hell on
which I've apparently travelling.

You can either tune out or avoid the source or irritation, or get of the highway at the
next ramp. (-;

Shawn said:

Carey Gregory said:

On the rare occasion I waste $1 on a lotto ticket, I would be happy to play your father's numbers.
They're as good as any other.

I once played lottery for fun. On a subscription of $50, I got $67 back, if I recall correctly. I
think I'm going to take the winning to my grave.

That's the only way to keep them. I played a lottery once. It was for the Canadian Olypic Games in
Montreal (to defray the deficit). The games made medical history because the then mayor had said,
"The Olympics couldn't end up as a loss any more than a man could have a baby. Guess what happened).

Anyway, I bought a ticket, $10 back then was a lot of money, and I GOT NOTHING! ...so I stopped
doing that. It's a tax on the stipid and lazy. Sad how some people are actually looking at the
lotteries as their retirement planning.