ballpoint

There are a number of links to surgeons, and theatre nurses, placing unusual objects on cabinets in the operating theatre after a patient is anesthetised, and not one patient who claimed to have an out of body experience - looking down on themselves during the operation, mentioned any of these objects. Rather like seances, where, rather than give valuable scientific information, such as describing where they are, and their experiences there, those "contacted" simply talk about vapid matters that are totally meaningless - 'How's Aunty Ethyl getting on? Is the cat still alive?", these near death and out of body experiences offer no insight to what it's really like being dead. I'd suggest that's because they can't, and aren't really dead. An Oxford University study done in 2015, came to the same conclusion: "Most recollections are intensely geo-physical, anthropomorphic, banal and illogical: their dream-like fantasy provides nothing revelatory about life without a brain, or importantly, about other supposed cosmic contexts. Additionally, it is proposed that since prevalence rates are so extremely low (<1% globally), the few subjects undergoing ND/OBE may have predisposed brains, genetically, structurally or resulting from previous psychological stress. In a somewhat similar vein to post-traumatic stress disorder, subjects with predisposed brains exhibit markedly changed post-experiential phenotypes, so that the ND/OBE itself could be viewed as a transient, accompanying epiphenomenon." Humanities | Free Full-Text | The Near-Death Experience: A Reality Check? (mdpi.com)

Another holiday, this time Estonia, that I don't wish to discuss...

“If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones". Deuteronomy 17:1-20 "The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel". Deuteronomy 17:12 "That certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again." Deuteronomy 13:13-18 Seems pretty clear to me, and there's plenty more. But of course, the bible is to be treated as a buffet. You take the bits you want and leave those you don't. I mean, it's not as if it was the foundation of a religion or something.

Right pain in the rear end it was.

Just got back from holiday. No, I don't wish to discuss it.

No. An apostrophe.