Cosmography of Heaven

Heaven and the afterlife can be different things to different people.

Generally speaking, however, heaven is considered the abode of supernatural beings such as gods and angels, and commonly the destination of the soul after death. For example, the ancient Greeks had their Elysium which, according to Homer was a faultless land of bliss located on the banks of the Oceanus — the river that girded the Earth. According to the Greek poet Hesiod Elysium was the abode of the blessed dead and during the time of the lyricist Pindar was thought to be gained by leading a virtuous life. (1)

Contemporary Hinduism has a more abstract concept of heaven and the afterlife:

Baha'is believe in an afterlife in which the soul is separated from the body. At death, according to the Baha'i faith, the soul begins a spiritual journey towards God through many planes of existence.

Progress on this journey towards God is likened to the idea of "heaven." If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as "hell."

Thus Baha'is do not regard heaven and hell as literal places but as different states of being during one's spiritual journey toward or away from God.

Baha'is understand the spiritual world to be a timeless and placeless extension of our own universe—and not some physically remote or removed place.

But beyond this, the exact nature of the afterlife remains a mystery. Baha'u'llah [the founder of the Baha'i religion] wrote, "The nature of the soul after death can never be described." (3)

From these examples it can be seen that there are two basic concepts of what the afterlife and Heaven will be like. The first is a material existence with the embodied soul of the deceased living a life much like that on Earth (as was the case with the ancient Greeks), while the other is quite abstract in nature.

The location of Heaven is generally held to be above the Earth (the ascension of Christ as described in Acts 1:9-11 for example). Ancient Hebrew cosmography conceived of the universe as a flat disc with the sky being a solid vault — an idea common to the cultures of the region at that time. (4). According to the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism, the universe is composed of seven heavens:

The science of astronomy has discredited these ancient ideas as to the location of Heaven. The rather naive view found in the religious art of earlier times such as The Last Judgment — a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, created after 1482 — is no longer tenable. (6)

If Heaven is not located within the physical universe then where is it and how is it reached? One view is that the souls of the deceased are carried there by angels, an idea captured in Ascent of the Blessed, which is another painting by Hieronymus Bosch made between 1505 and 1515 (7). At the top of the painting is a tunnel that serves as a conduit to Heaven, and thus connects the natural realm with the abode of God. It is a clever artistic solution and no doubt was a credible possibility to the people of Bosch's time.

To the people of Western civilization in past ages the idea that Heaven was corporeal and inhabited by corporeal beings not too dissimilar in appearance from the human form was generally accepted without question, but our knowledge of the structure of matter and the nature of the universe has advanced considerably since those times.

The biological sciences have not found any evidence that the soul exists, or that we have need of one to function as we do. Physics has discovered that matter obeys strict laws and is circumscribed by those laws. Angels with corporeal bodies would be limited by those laws. They could not survive in the airless void of space nor use their wings to fly through it. Astronomy has disclosed the vastness of the universe as an immense natural system bereft of supernatural elements. If Heaven is corporeal then it must exist in some form of universe and, like the unicorn, we have no evidence that it does.

Contemporary theologians may attempt to make Heaven seem more plausible by appealing to science. They might cite the 10 dimensions postulated by string theory (whose aim is to unify all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature into one single theory), and claim that the abode of God is located in one of these other dimensions. The problem is that these dimensions are microscopic (10-33 cm) and pertain only to the natural world (8). Corporeal angels and embodied souls could not exist within them.

The theologians may also argue that supernatural beings and the environment they inhabit are not composed of ordinary matter, but some other substance — dark matter, for example. Dark matter is thought to consist of unknown subatomic particles that do not interact with electromagnetic radiation and hence are invisible. The existence of dark matter is inferred from gravitational calculations showing that if galaxies did not contain a large amount of imperceptible matter that they would fly apart. (9)

Is it possible that dark matter consists of a diverse range of particles that can form dark matter stars, worlds and beings — a Shadow Universe superimposed on our own? Physicist Lisa Randall has speculated that there might be such things. However, can such speculations give credence to the idea that supernatural entities such as the soul, angels and God actually exist in an invisible realm?

It might be tempting to use this hypothesis [of a Shadow Universe] to explain away everyday mysteries or even paranormal claims that science cannot confirm. What if "ghosts" or inexplicable "lights in the sky" are these dark creatures making their presence felt in our realm?

Though this might make for a fun science fiction storyline, the dark creatures would live in the shadow universe that is wholly incompatible with ordinary matter. Their particles and forces would have no impact on our universe. I could be typing this article deep in a dark matter rainforest filled with creatures in a roaring dark matter ecosystem, but I'd have no clue.

But as we coexist with this shadow universe in the same space-time — no extra dimensions or multiple universes required — there is one signal that could be transferred.

Gravitational waves were discovered only in 2016 and the first detection of these ripples in space-time were caused by the collision of black holes. It seems plausible that gravitational waves would be detected in the dark sector as well as our universe, but only the most powerful cosmic events in the dark sector would be detectable here.

In short, we'll almost certainly never prove the existence of cute dark matter creatures, but Randall makes an important point. When imagining the source of dark matter, we would be wise to move beyond our prejudice that dark matter is a simple particle; it could represent a complex family of dark matter particles and forces that are beyond what we can possibly imagine. (10)

Currently, we have no sound evidence that Heaven exists, either in this universe or some other reality. The idea of Heaven arose in a distant age that lacked a true understanding of the nature of the universe. It is a concept developed by pre-scientific people to explain the mystery of existence as best as they could. The idea of Heaven, when examined dispassionately, is no longer tenable in the light of contemporary scientific knowledge. That the idea persists is no doubt due to the comfort it offers people.

References

1 https://www.britannica.com/topic/EIysium-Greek-mythology

2 http://unitedhinducongress.org/site!?page_id=99

3 http://www.religionfacts.com/bahai/afterlife

4 https://aleteia.org/2016/07/07/when-the-earth-was-flat-a-map-of-the-
universe-according-to-the¬-old-testament/

5 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Heavens

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_(Bosch triptych)

7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascent_of_the_Blessed

8 https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/questions/superstring.html

9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

10 https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/couId-dark-
matter-spawn-shadow-life.htm

Mr Straughen (#189) wants to know where "heaven" is that "souls" go to in the after life.

He dismissed heaven as being a physical place and asked, "If heaven is not located in the physical universe then where is it and how is it reached?"

Straughen dismissed the ten dimensions of string theory as the location of a supernatural heaven because "these dimensions are microscopic".

However string theory remains an area of debate and some theoreticians postulate the existence of one or more "large" extra dimensions — beyond the three (or four if we include time) that we experience — either as part of string theory or separate from it.

Afshordi et al (2014) explain:

Michio Kaku, author of Hyperspace (1994), says on YouTube: "In three dimensions there's not enough room to put all the laws of physics. But ... in hyperspace all the laws of physics fit together like a jigsaw puzzle."

Kaku says that the ten dimensions of String Theory are "too small to be observed" but "are all around us...everywhere." String theory became "M Theory" in the 1990s with the addition of an 11th dimension and it followed that: "perhaps our Universe is a membrane in which case perhaps some of those dimensions can be large, perhaps even infinite... Maybe dark matter is just another galaxy hovering in a parallel universe above us."

A lot of information and speculation about such topics can be found by searching Google on "Large Hadron Collider extra dimensions" and "Large extra dimensions".

In Investigator 121/123/125 and 159-161 I suggested that the "supernatural" realm might consist of extra dimensions. I preferred this idea instead of dark matter because it explained how entities in the supernatural could appear in our natural realm in different shapes, sizes and appearances. By reasoning from the "Flatland" analogy I noted that a three-dimensional entity could reveal himself in Flatland in any number of different shapes. He can even pretend to be multiple entities by producing multiple finger-tip impressions simultaneously. A hypothetical Flatland observer would see multiple entities instead of one, and be none-the-wiser. Similarly, a higher-dimensional entity might be able to do the same to us in our three spatial dimensions — appear in any number of ways such as an "angel" with wings or without wings, or as a man, a snake, or a multitude, almost anything.

It's too early to be dogmatic on whether or not equating the supernatural realm with a higher dimension can be a scientific hypothesis. If not, then some other idea could be tried. New ideas in cosmology are coming and going, almost like customers in a restaurant. A recent New Scientist magazine speculates, "Mysterious particles uncovered in the Antarctic could be evidence of a mind-bending mirror universe."

Straughen also considered whether heaven and "supernatural entities" could be composed of "dark matter" which, although invisible to us and does not "interact with electromagnetic radiation", is accepted by astronomers because its gravity influences the shape of galaxies. Physicists calculate that 95% of the matter in the Universe is invisible Dark Matter.

Straughen (or a quote he quoted) conceded that dark matter might not consist of just one type of particle but "a complex family of dark matter particles and forces" so that the supernatural realm might be a "Shadow Universe superimposed on our own".

The objection is that, "Their particles would have no impact on our universe." Straughen concluded that there is no interaction between the two realms other than gravitational and therefore, "Currently we have no sound evidence that heaven exists."

However, connections between different phenomena and different realms could exist although unknown to science or current technology. A few centuries ago no one saw any connection between velocity and time dilation, or matter and energy, or even magnetism and electricity:

The first person to prove a connection between magnetism and electricity was a Dane, Oersted: he found in 1820 that when an electric current was passed along a wire, the needle of a compass lying close to the wire was deflected. Five years later a Lancashire shoemaker, William Sturgeon, constructed an electro-magnet. He surrounded a core of iron with a coil of copper wire, and passed an electric current through the coil. It magnetized the iron for so long as the current was maintained. Thus it was shown that electricity has a magnetic effect. Faraday, meanwhile, was trying to achieve the opposite—to produce an electrical effect from a magnet. For years he puzzled over the problem, carrying round in his pocket a magnet and an electrical conductor. In 1831 he triumphed. The secret was that the conductor (e.g. a piece of wire) and the magnet had to move in a special relation to one another. Faraday fitted a large copper disc edgeways between the poles of a magnet and rotated it. Electricity was generated—and a metal strip that scraped the side of the disc conducted away the electricity. Thus was made the first generator. (Richards & Quick 1961)

Delay in confirmation does not necessarily prove a concept erroneous. Hundreds of biblical claims have been confirmed scientifically, some of them after two or three thousand years. Also, more things doubtless remain undiscovered by science than are already discovered. Therefore, regarding whether a supernatural realm exists I suggest that humility is wiser than hubris.

Afshordi, N. et al The Black Hole at the Beginning of Time, Scientific American, August 2014, pp 27-33

Kaku, M. YouTube: Are there extra dimensions?; Parallel universes populated by parallel twins

Richards, D. & Quick, A. 1961 Britain 1714-1851, Longmans, p. 339

Straughen, K. The Cosmography of Heaven, Investigator No.189

https://cerncourier.com/a/gravitational-hunt-for-extra-dimensions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_dimensions.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/science/across-the-universe/2017/may/17/multiverse-have-astronomers-found-evidence-of-parallel-universes