THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, THE EXACT LOCATION OF HEAVEN IN MILES, AND A PERSPECTIVE ON CHRISTIANITY
BY: S.G.K.S
Where Is God and how did he come into existence? Where is heaven? Is the Bible really God’s spoken word? These are questions that continue to baffle mankind. Somewhere before the end of this article we will discover exactly where heaven and hell are. I would like to begin by making clear my position on the question of the validity of the bible first, I believe that the Bible is God’s spoken word via chosen men; by virtue of the shear wisdom and bewildering genius of it, but more importantly, I do so in faith as a Christian because the Bible says it is. I also believe that places such as heaven and hell mentioned in the Bible are not imaginary places, even if in spiritual physicality; I believe they are as real as Day and Night. I will explain …
Based on the text of creation from Genesis[1] and for lack of a better expression, I like to imagine God as a spiritual being with incredibly powerful magic. I also infer from the Bible that, God does not wish that we understand any more about him than he has provided in the Bible; until we are with him in his kingdom, purified through his son Jesus (to be explained). In Exodus[2], when Moses asked for God’s name, his response to him was, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh”, translated into English as “I am that I am.” In the same vein, I consider his coming into existence and other related queries to be topics we are not supposed to understand yet. That being said, I believe in God not only in faith, but also via common sense, because all it takes really is a detailed observation of ourselves, nature, and the cosmos, to acknowledge the improbability of chance. As far as I am concerned, the “big bang theory”[3]may as well be an explosion that happened when God said, “Let there be light,” and the whole field of evolution[4]is to me, just studies revealing species of God’s creation that have gone extinct over the centuries. I am obviously not discrediting the value of science; I just view all science as reversive studies of the manifested magic of God.
As related to creation, I further interpret the text of Genesis as follows: In the early beginnings, there seems to have been a common ground created in the battle for our souls between God and Lucifer[5]as result of Adam’s Sin; Lucifer having the upper hand at this time because of sin. This situation greatly angered God and subsequently led him to destroy all his creation with water – the first doomsday[6], where he picked a righteous man[7] and his family to start a new lineage. But the problem of sin still existed in this man’s family; so as a permanent solution, God sent the spirit of his Son Jesus, who willingly accepted to sacrifice himself to appease and prevent his father’s wrath by coming down from heaven to be born as man and to be crucified. I infer here that it appears God could have alternatively wiped us out of existence and start over, creating a new ‘Adam’ who maybe wouldn’t fall for temptation like Adam did. This scenario could have been the case because with sin, we became totally useless to God, we couldn’t share in his Kingdom of eternal life, he couldn’t hear us, and he wouldn’t speak to us; but God had mercy. This sacrifice is why Jesus is our Savior: by his death for our sins, God gave us a shot at existence and the eternal life that he had intended for us, so that as long as we accept him as our Lord and Savior, Lucifer cannot have our souls. This means that God considered his son’s sacrifice as sufficing enough to allow Adam’s lineage to exist, though a sinful bunch; this because in the end, even though he cannot tolerate sin, God does love his creation and will do almost anything to save us.
This emancipation is why we pray through Jesus, he patches them over to God, his nature is not of sin and hence pure enough to accomplish that; God can hear him but not us. It is also why a second doomsday[8]is necessary, because as you can imagine, some will refuse to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. No man is perfect but I surmise it wouldn’t be unwise to accumulate as many bargaining chips as possible, such as, sharing the word of God with other people, and hopefully saving some souls; it says in the Bible that God loves those who do this dearly. One could also give into God’s work, and/or practice other wisdom of Christianity. In the end, those who accept Christ enjoy an eternal life with God in heaven, and those who pass the test go in the domain of Lucifer - hell; I believe the spirits of the dead hang around waiting for this day.
Lucifer to me is like a man on death row, he has no shot at redemption and so he will perpetually do anything to destroy, confuse and corrupt God’s creation. From the fact that he is a former Anointed[9]Arch Angel, I deduce that he had gotten some access, or had been given by God, some inside secrets of the cosmos; information enough to be able to manipulate us. In Genesis, God did say: “Let us make man in our own image,” I infer he was talking to Lucifer and other Angels, which means they all together made man. So, Lucifer may have gotten his secrets in the process of helping make man as well, and as a result, felt bold enough to disobey God, or want to be God.[10]
God loves his creation and longs for every one of our souls to rejoice with him in heaven, in 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 9 it says:
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
The promise being referred to is stated in verse 10:
“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
What this verse means is; God is only waiting for as many of us as possible to come to know and accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.
So as a summary thus far, this is simply how I see the issue of salvation[11]; he has made a contract for us, a contract that states that once you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior and live a good and decent life, Lucifer has no shot at your soul. All we have to do is follow the terms of the contract – the required and causal contract of our existence.
It is my hope as a Christian that, religions or peoples across the globe that currently do not conform to this contract come to know and accept Christ. I cannot fathom how that will happen but it is certainly within God’s abilities; because the God of this earth is a Jealous God[12]and will not tolerate worship to anyone/thing but him. In his intolerance for sin, disobedience or idolatry, it is not far-fetched to say that he could be very unpleasant; I am after all talking about the same God who destroyed the earth and everything in it with water, but one man and his family.
Going back to an earlier point, God is a spirit being whose source is beyond our understanding mere creations as we are, but who nevertheless has total control and is the ultimate ruler of this world; a ruler whose demands contrary to popular opinion are actually not negotiable. The severity of the message has been toned down with love by the church, the reality in my opinion is, either repent and accept Christ as your savior or you’re bound for hell by default. He has given us free will to make these choices and hence he will acknowledge whichever choices we make, we’re all culpable for our own choices. One cannot harass God into speaking or proving his existence by vehemently denying him, by that I would be referring to any who are spiritually conflicted, God cannot hear you and will not; he will only reveal himself to you upon repentance through Jesus. But then again Jesus may have mercy on you; he may show you a few signs or give you a few clues to help advance your faith. The ways of God are simply not to be understood fully by man, and man ought to be humble enough to submit, even if only by virtue of common sense in the fact that we know not how we or any of the universe came to be.
In a 2007 debate on ABC Network’s ‘Nightline’ chaired by Martin Bashir[13], Kirk Cameron[14]and Ray Comfort[15]faced off with the Rational Response Squad[16], represented by Brian Sapient and Kelly O’Connor, over the existence of God. Kelly is quoted as calling God a ‘megalomaniacal tyrant;’[17]although a comment consistent with her realm of belief, in my Christian opinion and based on interpretation of the Bible and God that I have outlined thus far, such disposition and utterances are only comparable to a rebellious teenager; they do not change a thing. In addition, I see no need for such debates except off course to spread the word of God as a result. Because, Christianity is based on faith - belief in the unseen, unheard, untouched, unsmelled and untasted, while atheism requires scientific or other physical proof to believe anything, these two are like parallel lines that will never intersect; I refer to atheism as the “doubting Thomas syndrome.”[18]Luckily enough for us, he is a good and merciful God, because in our situation, which is again being suspended in what may as well be mid air with no idea how we came to be, we could have had the likes of Lucifer as the ultimate force of our universe, we can only imagine what a world that would be like, a world with no concept of love, or peace, or kindness …
My inspiration to write this article started when I was reading 2nd Peter chapter 3, triggered by recent speculations on the Day of Judgment; a conduct I am not the biggest fan of as it often leads to fear mongering. I quote verses 1 – 8.
001: This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
002: That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior:
003: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
004: And saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
005: For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
006: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
007: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the Day of Judgment and perdition of unGodly men.
008:But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Verse 008 drew attention and thought: “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” After some research, I discovered that this verse has been interpreted several times; one interpretation is that Peter was declaring two methods of reckoning time, God's and man’s way of reckoning time. I understood this verse in a more straightforward sense, although applying some basic understanding of the solar system. This is how I interpreted it: 24hrs is a DAY on earth, but a thousand years is a DAY in heaven. In other words, the earth completes a full spin in its axis in 24hrs while revolving around the sun[19]; heaven does or will do the same in a thousand years. I will expand shortly, but this verse and this interpretation to me confirmed a palpable location of heaven; although most likely in spiritual physicality. And so, if you are anything like me, you would immediately run a Google search for the distance of the earth from the sun, and that I did. I found it was an average of one astronomical unit (1AU)[20], equivalent to 92,955,887.6 miles; then I did the following equivalency calculation: if 24hrs is to 1AU, how many AUs are to 8766000 hrs? (8766000 hrs is how many hours there are in a thousand years (365.25*24*1000)) The answer was 365250 AUs or 33,968,250,000,000 miles or 33.968 trillion miles, this is the distance of heaven from our sun. This number of AUs in itself is interesting because, it combines the biblical number 1000 with the well known number 365.25 (1 year), meaning, it can be loosely translated as a thousand years worth of astronomical units; somewhat related to the bible verse itself. These numbers also imply that at the speed of light (186,000 miles/second), it will take 5.787years to reach the boundaries of heaven.
These numbers in hand, I went searching to see if anybody had done this calculation in the past, I came across an online PDF document titled “Measuring heaven and earth[21],” made available by Princeton Press. It was chapter 5 in this document where Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784 – 1846) in Germany calculated the distance of the universe beyond our solar system using trigonometry and geometry; please note that the keyword here is 'Solar' - in reference to the sun, he calculated 11.1 light years[22]to the end of the solar universe, which he called the end of the universe. Bessel's trigonometric deductions were based on the distance of the earth from the sun, hence he calculated the farthest possible reach of the sun, which includes trillions of miles of space beyond Pluto. I refer to this expanse as 'our universe' in this article. 1 light-year is approximately 6 trillion miles, therefore 11.1 will be 66.6 trillion miles; now, this is the distance beyond the known solar system to the end of our universe (the solar universe) and so, we have to add the distance of the known solar system, which is approximately 3,666,000,000 miles[23]. Accounting for human error, this is exactly twice the distance I calculated, at 66,603,666,000,000 miles; I had arrived at 33.968 trillion miles as the distance to heaven.
What this means is, the heavens start at a distance half way through the radius of the solar universe, and the sun is indeed the center of our universe - the solar universe. I also noticed the prevalence of the number 666, especially in that of the distance to the end of the solar universe calculated by Bessel. I am inclined to think that hell begins or is in orbit at the end of 'space' beyond the heavenly planet, ‘666’ being the well known number of the beast from the book of Revelations.
As an attempt at reconciling my deductions with the scientific fact that the universe is continually expanding[24], I would say the answer is rather simple; heaven will always be at the same distance relative to the earth and the sun, as our universe glides through the cosmos along with the other systems out there. So even though Bessel's findings were in the 1800's when there was no knowledge of the actual universe(herein referred to as “All the universe”), it doesn’t change the size or extent of the solar universe; meaning, Bessel's calculations still hold as the extent of the Solar universe, but not all the universe. This being said, the relative position of heaven hasn't changed and wouldn't, also primarily because the bible verse hasn't changed. Simply stated, Heaven is part of our universe - the solar universe.
HEREIN THEORIZED SNAPSHOT OF THE UNIVERSE
FIG. 1 THE EXTENDED SOLAR SYSTEM “OUR UNIVERSE”
(drawn for purposes of visualization only)
FIG. 2 – ALL THE UNIVERSE
(drawn for purposes of visualization only)
And so there it is; heaven and the space beyond it begin or are in orbit half way through the solar universe, go about the same distance as from the sun, end, and then hell begins or is in orbit. My conclusions can be viewed as Personally Interpreted, biblically derived, theoretical answers for the exact location of heaven; also as an exercise in exposition of an interesting discovery that, God willingly, serves more good purposes than one. On Christianity, I am only trying to make sense of it all, but in faith I believe my thoughts are inspired.
I sincerely hope this article has answered some questions for anybody reading it. Personally and as evidenced in this article, I believe Heaven, hell, and many other places mentioned in the Bible that we cannot see, smell, taste, hear or touch, are real - as real as Day and Night.
I sincerely hope this article has answered some questions for anybody reading it. Personally and as evidenced in this article, I believe Heaven, hell, and many other places mentioned in the Bible that we cannot see, smell, taste, hear or touch, are real - as real as Day and Night.
Acknowledgments:
1. Measuring Heaven and Earth -
http://press.princeton.edu/books/maor/chapter_5.pdf
2. Alyssa Gillett - for her valuable views on Atheism
3. Http://www.wikipedia.com and http://google.com
4. http://www.allonlinebible.com
5. http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html
6. http://big-bang-theory.com/
(c) 2011 S.G.K.S
[1] Genesis is the first book of the bible, chapters 1-3.
[2] Exodus 3:14
[3] “According to the Big Bang model, the universe expanded from an extremely dense and hot state and continues to expand today.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang)
[4] “Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers -- all related.” (http://www.darwins-theory-of-evolution.com/)
[5] Lucifer is a name of Latin origin, generally used in English to refer to the Devil.
[6] Here refers to: destruction of the earth by God.
[7] The Story of Noah’s ark: Genesis chapters 6-9.
[8]Refers to the second coming of Christ; also known as Judgment Day.
[9] Anointed Means – set aside for a special purpose by God
[10] Ezekiel 28:11-19, the story of Lucifer.
[11] Deliverance from the power and penalty of sin – death: also redemption.
[12] “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:4-5)
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bashir
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Cameron
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Comfort
[16] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Response_Squad
[17] A. http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3148940
B. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1229854964003619354#
[18] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubting_Thomas
[19] http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit
[21] press.princeton.edu/books/maor/chapter_5.pdf.
[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-year
