You have “zombie” cells in your brain – Easter 2021, Part 1

Did you know you have zombie cells in your brain?  It’s true! Check out the Popular Mechanics article, “After You Die, Zombie Genes in your Brains Come to Life.”  Popular Mechanics is not a science fiction magazine.  It is a real science magazine.  So this article is 100% true.  Zombie genes in your brain come to life AFTER you die. Here’s a quote from the article:

“After you die, you’re not completely dead. In a new study, scientists from the University of Illinois–Chicago reveal that some genes express more actively in the human brain after death….They’re called glial cells, and these genes represent a cleanup crew that’s only activated after a messy incident—like brain surgery….The glial “zombie” genes peaked their increased activity after about 12 hours on average.”

Amazing, isn’t it?  But this extremely limited brain activity is not the same as zombies in science fiction.  Instead these so-called zombie cells are actually part of the dying process.  These cells do not bring you back to life.  They do not turn you into a zombie, like the walking dead.

Thought I’m pretty sure there are no such things as zombies, I find the concept of zombies fascinating…in a freaky way.  So I was quite interested to learn that since 2011 the CDC, on its website, has posted a notice about preparing for the Zombie apocalypse.  I’m serious.  Yes, that Centers for Disease Control.  Another agency based in science!  The same government agency that has been so front and center during the Covid pandemic.  They have a Zombie Apocalypse preparedness notice.  You can read it here.

As I’m saying this, you might be suspecting that the CDC notice might be a joke.  If you thought that, you’re right.  The part of the notice about zombies is not real!  They write on the notice that they are just being creative because what they really want to do is “share a few tips about preparing for real emergencies…!”  And they go on to give advice about the importance of having emergency kits and emergency plans.  It’s a very helpful article.

But what if were true?  What if people could actually come back to life? By asking that, I’m not thinking of zombies, I’m thinking of resurrection.  The dead rising to new life.

Resurrection is a totally different idea than the walking dead, because in resurrection a living human dies, and then rises to new human life.  Admittedly, it is a wildly odd idea.  That which is inanimate is not able, by definition, to become animate.  Yet, that is what resurrection claims happens.

Ironically though, as fascination with zombies seems to be growing in popularity, belief in a real bodily resurrection to new life has been declining. 

I looked at numerous surveys from the last few years, and they all pretty much report that one in four Christians do not believe that resurrection is possible.  I’m not talking about just Jesus’ resurrection; I’m talking about any resurrection.   

What could be the reason for this?  There are likely many.  First and foremost, resurrection, though is hard to believe because it goes against science.  Dead things do not come back to life.  So it is normal to be skeptical.  Just the other night my wife Michelle did not bring in a few of her plants and there was a bit of a frost.  Some of them are now dead.  They aren’t coming back. Some of them were okay… but some of them are done. Or how many of you have had children with goldfish that they excitedly won at the school fair, but the next morning you kids were screaming because the fish was belly up in the little tank? Not coming back, right?  Dead things don’t come back to life, and thus many people are skeptical of the concept of resurrection.

It seems that skepticism has been around a long time. The ancient church in the Roman city of Corinth seemed to have a skeptical group as well.  Check back in to the next post, as this week we are taking a break from our study through the letter of Colossians, so that we can study, for Easter, the topic of dead people coming back to life.