Holy Reanimator, Batman!

Does anyone remember that movie? I love it. The head scene is a classic!

I'm a little nervous while waiting for football to start (my Colts don't play until 8, so it could be a long few hours), so I'll take my mind off of it by writing about something completely different.

The other day, on PZ Myers' fine blog, I read about a guy named Randy Demain, who believes that he can raise the dead. And I'm not talking about Mr. Johnson coming to life and enjoying what would probably be a brief and extremely guilt-ridden encounter with some type of orifice (Animal? Human? Latex? Who am I to speculate?); no, this guy believes that he has the ability to command the dead to come back to life. Don't believe me? Watch the video.

Normally, I wouldn't waste my time on something so obviously insane, but I'm writing about it for a couple of reasons. First of all, this is the kind of fundamentalist loony bullshit that some people are out there spouting. Seriously. There are people out there who think this is true, and we need to watch for them and avoid them if possible. I believe we also need to counter this sort of magical, irrational thinking with a little sanity. (Maybe a little sarcasm, too. You know how I get.)

Secondly, the video is just so entertaining, just because of the guy's through-the-roof level of smarminess. This is one happy asshole. And I do mean asshole. He tells a story about giving a sermon in Africa and being interrupted and led to a woman who was "dead...very dead." (Are there degrees of dead? Isn't that sort of like being a little bit pregnant?) He goes on to express his displeasure and irritation at being so rudely torn away from his important sermonizin', saying that his thoughts were "Couldn't this have waited?" (After all, she was dead...very dead.) He was just mad at the whole situation in general, in fact: "I was mad at the devil that he made her dead to interrupt my meeting." (Two points here. Death is a natural process and no devil has anything to do with it, except perhaps for human ones; and how dare this "devil" make her dead for the sole purpose of interrupting his meeting! Of all the nerve!)

Well, he'd just had it with this and grew impatient, so he said to the dead woman, "Woman, you need to get up, because I've got things to do!" And she did! Praise the Lord and pass the formaldehyde!

Apparently, when raising the dead, it's imperative to use a commanding and imperious tone; treat those corpses like unruly children! Better yet, treat 'em like misbehaving ho's who need to be taught a lesson, up close and personal, and then buried (again) in the garden in your back yard. Show that corpse who's boss!

Unfortunately, after they took the woman back to the church, she stole money from them. I swear, you do and do and do for these corpses, and this is the thanks you get? They steal from you? Ungrateful, undead bastards. There's a happy ending, though. Some guys chased her down and tackled her (Randy the happy asshole showed his compassion and told them "Take it easy guys--she was just dead! Don't hurt her."), and then she accepted the Lord as her savior. I guess there is redemption even for the walking dead.

You know, I find it interesting that you can bet this guy thinks that voodoo--a religion that does believe that the dead can be raised as zombies--is the work of the devil. Yet he believes that in his religion, not only is it possible to do this, God has commanded us to do it.

The guy concludes: "This is the generation of believers that are gonna raise the dead. Don't make it too hard; just do it as you go." So there you go. Don't be afraid. Just do it! Bring that corpse back to life!

I'll wind this up with the most important point of all. I have to ask...why would you want to bring a corpse back to life? (For any mad scientists out there, that's a rhetorical question. You do it because you're mad. It's just what you do. Now get back to your important work...those body parts aren't going to assemble themselves, you know! Chop chop! Hey...get it?! Ha!) It is part of the natural order of things for all organisms to live, grow, and eventually die. If we didn't have the limiting factor of death, the planet would be overrun in no time with everything from bacteria to white-tailed deer to that family down the road that all seem to resemble each other just a little bit too much. (On a related note, this is why birth control is a good idea. Some folks you just don't want overbreeding--or interbreeding, for that matter. Talk about a spongeworthy situation!)

The aforementioned mad scientists are the only ones that think that reanimating corpses is a good idea. This leads me to the conclusion that Demain's version of God is a mad scientist. Nothing good can come from associating with mad scientists.

Today's assigned reading: "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs. That should be the final word on whether or not reanimation of corpses is a good idea. Oh, and you can watch "Pet Sematary" while you're at it. Or the movie I referenced in the title of this entry, "Reanimator." Or any one of the bazillion zombie movies that are out there. They never end well. C'mon, Demain. This is common knowledge. You don't fuck with zombies. You're lucky the one you allegedly created was just a thief; she could just have easily have bitten through your skull to eat your braaaiiinnnnsssss. Not that it would have been a satisfying meal.