Discovery Channel After Life

Lot of talk these days about Evolution versus Intelligent Design. I'm trying to keep an open mind but the extremes of both sides (OK, mostly the Young Earth faction) make me wonder why people think the way they do. I personally subscribe to the "Who the Hell Knows?" theory of life on Earth. The major tenents of this theory are: geological evidence? interesting; paleontological/anthropological evidence? pretty cool; DNA evidence? I think you're getting somewhere; biblical evidence? sketchy, but maybe there's something there biblical scholars missed, intentionally left out, or misinterpreted. Those of us in the WTHK camp are ready to believe and disbelieve everything all at the same time.

Truth be told, how many of us really understand the scientific evidence anyway? Not me. My information comes from the popular press: National Geographic, Discover Magazine and a variety of newspapers and other magazines. I'm also, to my wife's continued annoyance, a Discovery Channel, TLC, and History Channel junkie. I recognize that what I'm getting is pre-digested for my meager understanding. I'm a curious-minded person but don't have the discipline to study anything in the depth necessary to defend any point of view with certainty. I suspect I'm not alone in that but that hasn't stopped a lot of people from trying.

Similarly, I worry that Scripture, is being pre-digested for the meager understanding of the masses. Who among us 9 - 5ers really has the time, inclination, talent and discipline to sort through the writings that eventually became the Bible? Not me. It's way easier to have someone tell us what they say. Although, I do find it annoying when someone who purports to know tells you something different from what some other person, who purports to know tells you. Someone recently said that "reason is the enemy of faith." Seems to me that ignorance is the real enemy of faith. OK, I'm climbing out on a very slender branch here so lets get back to the subject heading.

So here's what I'd like to see as part of the After Life (is there is such a thing). After the almost certain long lines, processing hassles, lost paperwork and harried civil servants you finally get your ID, meal card, rooming info and after-life schedule which includes orientation. You follow the signs or the yellow brick road or whatever to the "After Life Theatre" which is continuously showing "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know." Since time is irrelevent in the After Life the interval between "let there be light aka The Big Bang" through "life begins on earth", "what really happened to the dinosaurs", "the Adam and Eve you only thought you knew", "the veracity of every religion that ever was" all the way to "who realy killed Kennedy" and "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Aliens" flashes by in seeming nanoseconds. Missed something? Not to worry. Like we said it's "continuously showing."

What happens after orientation I'll leave to the imagination of other writers but I hope it includes a European-plan-type tour of the universes (no rock walls or paragliding though).