The questions posed in today's reading about where heaven and hell are located, and when the end of time is, (I summarize that piece just about as he ended it) had me thinking something a little different. I wonder, if the soul truly travels to the end of the universe, or whatever, to wherever heaven or hell would potentially exist, how fast does it travel? If you ask any religious deist about God's powers, they'll tell you, it's not magic. Ok, maybe not any, I guess there are some nutty people out there, but most. So let's say the soul gets to heaven or hell instantaneously. Well that sounds like magic to me. Of course, we are talking about God, here. If he/she has the power to create and destroy a universe and start and end time, he/she likely also has the power to transport the soul into a made up land in no time, and also say it's not magic. So, ok, let's say then that God doesn't transport your soul, and there are no extra bag fees, no layover time, and you don't have to stop for gas. Then, theoretically, how fast could a soul have to travel to get to its eternal resting place? If heaven and hell are at the center of the universe, I figure it'll take a few hundred billion years. And at the end of time, who's got that kind of time?
I'd love to know what everyone thinks about this.
When I was a child who still believed in Christianity and still attended church, we had a Sunday School service dedicated to this topic. While I don’t remember the exact details, we were taught to believe that the second we died we would enter heaven or hell. At the time, this did not seem unreasonable to me. After all, when my soul died it must go somewhere. It wouldn’t make sense for it to just sit around in a waiting room until Satan or Gabriel could pick up my soul. I like to think that Heaven is somewhere up in space, and if you get a space ship capable of intergalactic travel, you could just drive right up to the Pearly Gates. My perception of Hell was that it was in the center of the Earth.
ReplyDeleteThis idea didn’t come from my church. Rather, it came from the “Well to Hell” hoax from the early 90s. The Well to Hell hoax was when Russian miners dug so far down into the ground that they believed they had reached the walls to Hell. When I was a young kid, probably about 8 or 9, my parents were watching Youtube (?) videos about the hoax. As a curious kid, I watched and listened. The noises from the video terrified me, and I genuinely believed that I had just heard the screams of the damned. I held that belief until I began question my faith a few years later. However, the idea of the tape fascinated me. I always thought about it, but my memory was so vague that I didn’t really know if I had actually seen this video, or if it was just a dream I had. However, I received quite the shock my Freshman year of college when my history professor began talking about the tape.
I learned during that class that the tape was a piece of propaganda from the Finland. A Christian, Finland newspaper published the story in the late 80s. The story then spread across different countries and to the United States. The legend grew alongside the growth of the internet, and before long, video documentaries, images, and sounds were being posted to websites. I was incredibly shocked to learn that the tape was not only “real” but that it had a history behind it. However, regardless of where Heaven and Hell are located, I do like the idea of the soul getting to go to the center (or even the end) of the universe.
If the soul contains the “humanity” of a human, then I would love to spend a decent portion of my eternity zooming through the galaxy, exploring planets, and potentially finding other worlds. As a spirit I would not need to worry about oxygen, gravity, time, or any of the other limiting factors that would make it difficult for a living being to explore the cosmos. Although I would not be able to share the information with humanity, I could at least satisfy my own curiosity before reaching the gates of Heaven (or more likely Hell).