Hello I’m Dr David Rodda and this is podcast number one of my series, “Facing death with joyful hope”.

 

I love to sing about the joy that I’m going to experience after death!  By the way, that was me singing that.  I’m now 74, and my voice is a bit cracked. I know that in the odds I’m not likely to live much longer, but I love to sing anyway.  I love to sing especially about life after death, and that’s one of my favourite songs about it, because of the joyful hope which I have up ahead.

There was once a lady in a care home, and they thought that she could go (die) at any time. A gentleman comes to visit her and finds her still alive there, and he says,
“Oh, my dear”, he says, “I see you’re still in the land of the living!”

And she says,
“No!  I’m in the land of the dying.  But I’m GOING to the land of the living!”

You know, every one of us is going to die one day.  This is the land of the dying, and maybe that’s why you’re listening to this podcast.

But I know that I’m going to the land of the living.

Let’s look at the words again of what I just sang:

“O land of life, how good it is to know
Eternal joy awaits me where I go!
From this world filled with sadness,
With a song of gladness,
I shall enter my eternal home.”

Well, you might think,
“Well, those are nice words, but is it true?”

Well, I fully believe that it IS true.  I’m someone who believes in hard science, and I’m not just some sort of philosopher or wishful thinker.  I believe it is rock solid truth!  And I’ll explain why as time goes on. 

You see, my confidence is based on good evidence, not just wishful thinking.  And I’d love to be able to share that with you so that you can have that same hope.  And if you’ll stick with me, you will know how to find it.  You too can sing that song with certainty.

Now as I said, I’m 74 and I’m bound to die reasonably soon, I don’t know when, but I’m not afraid.

Now, I don’t like the idea of the process of dying; that’s usually very unpleasant, but is what happens after that that I’m talking about. I think, “Wow!”

Well, I have actually faced death several times.  I nearly drowned when I was twenty. 

I was in a swimming pool and I was just testing how far I could swim, and I found myself in the middle of the pool, nowhere near any edge, and way, way out of my depth. And I just got so tired out and I was going up and down in the water…  I couldn’t breathe… and I thought,
“I guess this is it. I’m going to drown, and that’s it!”

But I wasn’t afraid because I had that deep peace that my future was secure.

But obviously something happened; a lifeguard pulled me out.

That’s not the only time that I’ve been in danger of dying. I faced death from malaria three times, and I’ve been very sick with paratyphoid. And in the place where I lived, it was quite common to have snakes and scorpions around, both poisonous snakes and what you might call “squeezy” snakes.

But my confidence has grown over time.

Now, just to tell you a bit of my background, because I’m a fairly down to Earth person in lots of ways.  I was raised on a farm, and you say,
“Well, there…  if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.  It’s no good!” 

But… I then studied agriculture at University, and I did a postgraduate course in genetics.  I actually specialized in animal breeding and did research, and completed that in 1975. Well, that’s going back a few years, yes, but it was a doctor’s degree at that time.
And so you could say that I’m some sort of a scientist; and of course, by studying genetics, I was studying the basis of the theory of evolution.

And I studied a lot about how to design experiments and how you decide whether a theory is proven or not.  I do understand that aspect of science reasonably well.

Well, the big day came for me to get my PhD certificate in 1975, after four years of work. 

When I got the certificate, I looked at the writing on it and it says this:

“The University of Guelph, upon recommendation of the faculty, confers upon David Douglas Rodda, having successfully completed all requirements, the degree Doctor of Philosophy with its rights, privileges and obligations.”

Well, I could guess somewhat what the rights and privileges were, but the obligations?  What are the obligations that I have for having a Ph D?

So I went to ask the Dean, Dr Armstrong,
“So what are the obligations in this?”

And he said,
“Well, I don’t think anybody’s asked me that before, but I would say that it means…

1. You use your position to encourage the development of true science.
2. You encourage people to keep searching and finding out more…”

(And that is the reason I’m making these podcasts; I want you to find out the truth, and science at the same time, because the truth is bound up with the science.)

    “And N^o 3. You use your position with integrity.”

So the obligation N^o 3, in other words, means that I should be fair in how I present the evidence. I must not use my status as a scientist in any dishonest way. I must not tell people things which are not true, because I have the position of trust where they probably would believe me.  People will trust you; be honest!

Now I take this very, very seriously, as you will see as we go on.  So I’m going to be completely honest with you and I will not tell you things which are not true.  But I will warn you about things which have no scientific foundation, even if I know other scientists who talk about them, and unfortunately, there are lots of lies of that nature going around.

So…

How will we be after death?  This is a big issue.  You need to know that you can be confident of a future of joy, and everything good. I can tell you that you can be sure of it.  And I really do want to explain to you how you can get it, but I’m going to take this slowly, so that you have time to think.

And you will need time to think.

There are so many lies going around, but it’s quite likely that you’ve been sucked in by some of the lies, and some of these lies could prevent you from discovering the truth. These lies make like a big fog which stops you from discovering the truth, and there could be several layers of them.

So I want to encourage you to take some time in silence after each podcast and think about what you’ve heard.  Don’t just suddenly go on to the next thing and forget about what I’ve said, because the implications are very great.

So I want you to take the time to think through the implications of what you hear.  It will take time to digest this.  And it will take your life, probably, in a whole new direction, from the direction it’s going in right now.

I want to start with a true story.  The story of a man who made an incredibly important scientific discovery that could save thousands of lives; indeed it saved a few.  But the people of his time rejected his evidence, because they were confident in the lies that they had been taught, and which they were unwilling to abandon.  And people continued to die needlessly; people continued to die because they were unwilling to abandon the lies which they had been taught.

And in a similar way, you may not believe me straight away if I tell you the truth straight out, so I want to help you to discover the evidence that you’ve not likely heard before.

So please stick with me, and I’ll show you how you too can face death with joyful hope.  I can tell you, I can assure you that it will be worth it!

I look forward to sharing with you again in the next podcast!