Resurrection

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I'm baaaack…!
Preach to the choir
Religion
Icon religion.svg
Crux of the matter
Speak of the devil
An act of faith

Resurrection refers to the revival of previously dead humans to some degree of existence on Earth, which can range from limping about the place, moaning, and feasting on humans to shifting a massive boulder out of one's resting place in order to walk the Earth as the Son of God once again.

The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all refer at some point in their holy texts to some degree of resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day,[1][2] to face God and what awaits them in the afterlife.

Although the three Abrahamic religions — as well as several other religions — make reference to the occurrence of resurrection, there is no solid evidence of a human corpse becoming reanimated and walking on Earth after death, either with or without a soul.

Christianity[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Resurrection of Jesus

A central tenet of the mainstream Christian faith is that Jesus Christ died and rose again,[3] as we all shall. Unfortunately, there's scant evidence for this.

Medical resurrection[edit]

Revival of the "dead" can be achieved in limited instances through medical equipment such as defibrillators and techniques such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, this usually only occurs in very short time frames (a few minutes) between death and "resurrection" and assumes that all bodily functions have not completely shut down — which really makes these near-death experiences, not really returning from the dead. Even worse, the results are almost never like they are in Hollywood. Among other things, the recently revived generally throw up.

In pre-modern times, the concept of death was not very well understood. A person could be in what is now known as a comaWikipedia (faint pulse, non-response to stimuli, no voluntary movement), appear to the uninformed as "dead", and then spontaneously revive after a few days.

Other uses[edit]

The DeadWikipedia resurrected
Hi, I'm Jesus Christ.

I'm back from the DeadWikipedia

Jerry was great!
—From a KALX radio-station identification message

The notion of "resurrection" also has associations today with the revival of deceased humans to walk the Earth, devoid of a soul. These walking undead creatures, known as "zombies" (except in the movie that started this conception of them, Night of the Living Dead, where they're called "ghouls"), have several characteristics that differentiate them from the average living human:

  • Zombies are dead for all intents and purposes, and often exhibit signs of decay.
  • Zombies walk around emitting low moaning noises.[note 1]
  • Zombies feast on the brains of humans.[note 2]

No zombie holocaust has yet been recorded. Or maybe that's because no one was left alive to record it... eh? Yeah... think about it.

Count Lev Tolstoy, who had an interest in Christian ideas, called his 1899 novel Resurrection.[4]

Notes[edit]

  1. Not to be confused with English people.
  2. Whether some humans also engage in this activity is disputable.

References[edit]